CHAPTER XXI

THE QUARREL

In less than forty-eight hours after her arrival in Brighton, Mrs. Baxter had completely recovered from the shock of her midnight encounter with the Gray Lady. On the afternoon of the second day she sat in the window of her fifth floor suite at the Metropole watching the fluttering, swaying, glittering procession on the promenade below, a frolic of glad colors that might have sworn at each other in a ballroom the night before now mingling happily together in the golden urbanity of the sunshine. Some such thought must have formed itself in Eleanor's mind as she suddenly exclaimed. "You can really wear any color on a day like this!"

Mrs. Baxter called to the maid who was moving about in an adjoining bedroom, "Oh, Gibson, did I bring my sapphire voile with the duchesse lace? Thank you--I was afraid it had been left."

"And the cerise foulard?--Oh--good!"

On the lower promenade the people looked like colored beads, and still further away, on the dazzling white of the sands, they were minute dark specks. Low against the blue wall of sky hung the ocean like an indigo blackboard on which figures in white chalk wrote and rewrote and rubbed themselves out with magical monotony.

The wind blowing whither it listed raised an edge of the muslin curtain and drew it softly across Eleanor's cheek and in the ocean of femininity below her window a bright colored wave swelled and tossed and broke in lawny froth.

"What a windy place!" Eleanor drew a deep breath and inwardly exulted as she recalled the lavender scented contents of the largest and lightest of her trunks.

Meanwhile Betty was taking a lonely walk on the gayly crowded upper promenade. Her sense of desolation was intensified by the hubbub of voices about her, the laughter, the shrieks of distant bathers, the throb of a far off brass band, the cry of a man selling shrimps somewhere below.

It would have been hard to devise a program less pleasing to Mr. Baxter's secretary, than this trip to Brighton. Ipping House was, at this moment, the one and only place on earth where she wished to be. At Ipping House she could, at least, have kept an eye on Kate Clendennin. There was no mistaking the countess' designs on Bob. Betty's hatred of the countess was temperamental, the hatred of the tendril haired blonde for the straight haired blonde.

Elizabeth Thompson clenched her fingers as she thought of her old playmate helpless in the toils of that unscrupulous woman. There was no question in Betty's mind about Kate's power of attraction, yet at this moment the only thing she envied the countess was her unique gift for what is sometimes called "language." She was sorely tempted to borrow a few tonic words from Kate Clendennin's vocabulary.

There was a surprise in store for Betty on her return to the hotel.

"Read that," said Eleanor, full of elation, handing her an open telegram. "Read it aloud," she added laughing, "I can't hear it too often."

It was from Bob in London to say that his father was letting him off for two or three days and he would be with them in time for seven o'clock dinner.

Betty read it aloud, conscious, through her lowered eyelids, of Eleanor Baxter's searching gaze. If Mrs. Baxter expected any revelation from Betty, she was disappointed.

"I'm so glad, Mrs. Baxter; that's just the one thing you need," the girl said calmly and went on with exasperating inconsequence. "It must be nearly five. Do you want tea?"

"No, I don't want tea, I want Bob," pouted Eleanor with an imitation of baby petulance.

"I want Bob," echoed a still small voice from the inmost heart of Betty, but her face betrayed nothing.

"My dear child," said Eleanor after watching her in silence for a while, "I wish you would drop that nonsense about being a secretary. The only way I can keep from letting it out to Bob is by not speaking your name at all. If I did I should be certain to call you Betty and that would be the end of it."

Miss Thompson was sorely tempted, her resolution was breaking down, but pride came to her rescue.

"Please, please don't," she entreated so earnestly that once again Mrs. Baxter yielded.

Bob arrived early enough for a good half hour alone with his mother before dressing. Betty in her own room was taking an unprecedented time in the choice of a dinner toilet.

"You oughtn't to look too fine for a secretary," she reflected to herself in the glass, and her self in the glass reflected back rebelliously as if to say, "Oh, oughtn't I? Well, just to show you, I'll put on my frosted rose satin with the silver fringe." And she did.

Bob had less difficulty than he expected in withholding from his mother, as he had promised, the unusual state of affairs at Ipping House. Beyond a few perfunctory inquiries as to the welfare of the relatives, Eleanor asked no embarrassing questions. The mere mention of anything associated with her nocturnal adventure was distressing to her, and she felt grateful to her son for not pursuing the subject. There were plenty of other things to talk about; then, too, there was dinner to be ordered. Hitherto the meals had been sent up and the selection of dishes had been left to Betty, but this evening they were dining to music in the palmy splendor of the public dining room and the choice of a menu was reserved for the superior masculine intelligence of Robert Baxter.

Meanwhile in her own room in another part of the hotel Betty was standing with her back to the mirror. Something had happened. A coolness had sprung up between Elizabeth Thompson and her reflection; they were no longer on speaking terms. At the very last minute Betty, with sudden determination, had taken off the Parisian masterpiece which now hung across a chair, a toy Niagara of shimmering rose and silver spray, while the bewildered chambermaid hurriedly hooked her into the plainest gown she possessed, a simple black chiffon dinner frock.

"Quite good enough for a secretary," Betty remarked, as she turned her back on the mirror. There was no mistake about it, Miss Thompson and her reflection were not on speaking terms.

"I wonder what's keeping Betty," said Mrs. Baxter to her son, as they waited for the lift in the crimson carpeted hall.

She was conscious of her slip the moment she had spoken. Bob was watching the slow-moving machinery of the lift. A moment before he had quoted a remark of his father's about English elevators.

"It looks to me like you fellers use molasses instead of water to work your darned elevators," Hiram had said, and the Britisher's patronizing, "Oh, I say, that would be too expensive," had made Eleanor laugh.

Now at the mention of Betty's name Bob turned sharply.

"Betty?" he echoed. "You don't mean to say Betty's here! When did she come? Why didn't you tell me before?" He looked at his mother in amazement. "Why, what's the matter, Mother?"

Eleanor was trying desperately to cover her confusion.

"Did I say Betty? How funny! I mean Miss Thompson--Mr. Baxter's secretary--she's dressing for dinner. I wonder why she doesn't come," Eleanor coughed nervously.

Bob continued to watch her, his surprise gradually giving place to a strange suspicion. It was as if a mental picture puzzle were fitting itself together in his brain. Only one piece was lacking to make it complete.

"What is Miss Thompson's Christian name, Mother?" he asked very quietly.

"Miss Thompson's first name?--her Christian name?--let me see--why, it's--it's----" Eleanor tried heroically to fib, but it was no use. Do what she would there was only one name in the whole world she could think of. She fluttered like a caught bird, then gave it up. "It's Betty, Bob."

In a flash Bob's puzzle picture was complete. "Betty Thompson! Well, I have been a fool!"

His words, addressed to the ceiling, were received with a solemn plaster imitation of Olympian indifference.

Not so Eleanor. "There! I've broken my promise!" she cried excitedly. "I knew I would!"

At the same instant she became aware that Betty was hurrying along the passage toward them. She lowered her voice and spoke rapidly, "You mustn't tell her you know it! Betty would never forgive me. Promise me you won't tell--promise, Bob!"

Bob promised with his eyes--it was too late to speak.

Never had Miss Elizabeth Thompson looked less like the ugly duckling of her freckled childhood. The renunciation of her Paris finery was more than compensated for by the sparkle of her eyes and the flush of self-victory in her cheeks. At the last minute, partly as a concession to her vanquished self, partly as a precaution against draughts, she had thrown round her shoulders a web of transparent net, sparkling with embroidered flowers, effecting in her plain black frock a transformation that would have done credit to Cinderella's fairy godmother herself.

Breathless and apologetic Betty joined the others just as the elevator doors opened and Bob's dignified greeting and his mother's make-believe chidings were quickly submerged in the mysterious hush that descends upon even the most loquacious people on entering an elevator.

A table had been reserved not too near the orchestra, and its highly decorated appearance, due to an over-liberal interpretation on the manager's part, of Bob's order for a centerpiece of roses and two bunches of gardenias, had created a speculative interest in the little party in advance of its arrival. In the language of the theater, it had "prepared an entrance."

As the three took their places (amid critical feminine and enthusiastic masculine stares at Betty, and critical masculine and enthusiastic feminine stares at Bob), Mrs. Baxter, who had, perhaps, the least to do with the attention they attracted, was the only one of the three who really enjoyed it. Betty felt a flush of annoyance, not so much at the attention itself--Paris had accustomed her to being stared at--but it was one thing to attract attention and quite another to bid for it, and that monstrous floral centerpiece, those unnecessarily large corsage bouquets, fairly clamored for notice. Her quick ear caught the words "Awful Americans"--"Nouveau Riche," in a high pitched feminine hiss close behind her, and at another table a monocled lout in faultless evening dress was saying in a bulky whisper, "Musical comedy, I fancy." Betty would like to have asked him to which branch of the peerage he referred, the Gaiety or the Alhambra. Anyway, she was thankful she had saved herself from the pink and silver Niagara.

As for Robert Baxter, concentrate as he would on the amiable duties of host, he could not forget his hurt--perhaps only a scratch to his vanity, perhaps something deeper. Whenever during that uncomfortable dinner he looked at the lovely girl sitting opposite and thought of the trick she had played him, he felt the hurt afresh. He recalled the first and only long talk he had had with "the secretary" at Ipping House. What fun she must have had with him!--and that letter--that fatuous letter! His face burned as he thought of it. But now the tables were turned. He had found out her secret and she did not know he knew. Now was his chance to pay her back. Bob smiled in spite of himself. It was so like one of their childhood fights, when Betty had a tremendous secret she wouldn't tell Bob, and Bob invented a more tremendous secret he wouldn't tell Betty. For a whole afternoon, perhaps, they would not be on speaking terms. Then there would come a crisis, followed by an explosion, and they would say terribly personal things to each other. Then all at once Betty's eyes would fill with tears and Bob would be seized with a strange sensation, as if he had suddenly become an entirely different boy and that other boy would put his arms around little Betty, and then, and then--yes, they would kiss and make friends.

Robert Baxter looked across the table. Betty looked up at the same instant, and for the fraction of a second their eyes became entangled, and for just that wonderful fraction of a second Robert Baxter felt the strange sensation of being the other boy. Only for an instant.

"No," he said to himself. "She's made a fool of me and she's got to be sorry for it. Now I have her just where she had me, and I'll make her sorry--very, very sorry."

Mrs. Baxter was pushing back her chair; she would have her coffee and her cigarette upstairs. Eleanor had never got used to the English lady's custom of smoking in public. If Bob would take her to the elevator he might return and have his cigar in comfort at the table. Perhaps Miss Thompson would show him the promenade.

Betty got up quickly.

"No, no, Miss Thompson, I sha'n't need you. I really sha'n't," Eleanor insisted. "I have my book, and I shall be asleep before I've read a page."

Her son accompanied her to the lift. At the door he kissed her. "This isn't good night, little mother," he said affectionately. "I shall be up in a few minutes."

He watched the slow-rising lift disappear past the top of the door and returned through the almost deserted dining-room to the table where Betty was waiting for him. She was pouring black coffee into two small Sevres cups from a miniature silver coffee urn.

Bob settled himself in his chair and lighted a cigar. The dinner had been a wretched failure, and he felt quite in the mood to give Miss Elizabeth Thompson her lesson.

"Two lumps, please," he said, as Betty prepared to hand him his cup.

The secretary smiled. "That's just what I gave you, Mr. Baxter."

"You have a telepathic mind, Miss Thompson."

Something in his tone caused her to look up quickly.

"Have I? How?"

"How else could you know that I took two lumps?"

"You seem to forget," she replied, "that I have enjoyed the privilege of observing some of your habits at Ipping House. Perhaps you don't remember," she added maliciously; "you were very much occupied."

"That's unkind, Miss Thompson," answered Bob. "I recall you quite distinctly. You wrote a letter for me in the morning after I met you."

"Do you mean the letter to the brunette you met on the boat?" said Betty quietly.

"Girl I met on the boat?" he frowned, as if consulting a mental passenger list. "Oh, no, it was to a girl I once saw off on a steamer--quite a little girl--that is to say, she was a little girl then. It was a long time ago. She must be--well, she must be getting along."

"An old maid?"

He pursed his lips and nodded.

"I thought you said she had a voice--was going to be a singer or something of that sort?"

"She thinks she has a voice," he corrected. "Perhaps she had one once. It's astonishing, though, how long a voice will last, Miss Thompson. They say Patti sang when she was over seventy."

Betty suddenly became intensely preoccupied in the business of refilling her cup. For a time she seemed to forget the young man's presence altogether.

"So you think," she said at length, having exhausted the possibilities of the coffee cup, "that having no voice, your friend is only wasting her time in--where did you say she was studying?"

"In Paris. I may be wrong, Miss Thompson," he continued, "but the probabilities are against her. In every branch of art there are at least a hundred who fail for one that succeeds."

"May I ask what you consider a test of success?" she queried, in spite of her desire to drop the discussion before Bob's disloyalty drove her to downright hatred of him.

"Why, public opinion, of course," he said shortly.

"Has your friend ever had an appearance?" She was beginning to hate him already.

"An appearance?"

"Has she ever sung in opera?" Betty kept control of her voice, and her tightly clasped hands were hidden in her lap.

He shook his head. "Oh, no, but I once read an announcement that she was to appear at the Theatre Parnasse. I forget what it was--quite a good role, I believe."

Betty picked up the neglected gardenias and pressed their cool petals against her hot cheek.

"Go on," she said.

Bob hesitated; he was beginning to wish he had never started on this tack. He had no idea Betty took her voice so seriously.

"Well, to tell the truth----" He pulled nervously at his cigar, and, discovering it to be out, knocked off the ash and relighted it with unusual care. He felt that this business of chastening Betty was a failure from every point of view. The desire to "get even" had completely gone from him; he would be glad now to surrender on any terms, but Betty's waiting eyes offered him no quarter.

"I didn't hear the particulars," he blundered on. "All I know is, it never came to anything."

"And you've no idea of the reason?" Her flushed face was hidden in the gardenias. Their sensitive petals felt what the man could not see.

Bob threw his cigar out of the window. He wished he could throw himself after it.

"Oh, well, every one can't sing in opera. Poor girl, I suppose her voice wasn't equal to it."

This was perhaps the most unfortunate speech Robert Baxter ever made. Had he known (and he never did know) the true story of that unfilled engagement, he would have died rather than say what he had just said to Betty. If, by some miracle, Robert Baxter, then in New York, had happened into Betty Thompson's little apartment on the Champs Élysêes that afternoon two years ago, when M. Peletier of the Theatre Parnasse called with the contract for Mlle. Elizabeth Thompson to sign, it might have proved the saddest, if not the last, day of M. Peletier's existence. The very recollection of that afternoon brought again to Betty's beautiful face the white-hot flame of anger that, like a sword of fire, drove the satyr-faced impresario screeching in the fear of death from her apartment, down the headlong stairway, across the crowded boulevard, and into the nearest café, where, over a nerve-fortifying _petit verre_, he wrote the brief note informing Mlle. Elizabeth Thompson, with regrets of the most profound, that he must cancel immediately the engagement of mademoiselle for the Theatre Parnasse, having, after mature deliberation, decided that the voice of mademoiselle, though of the most charming, was not equal to the demands of grand opera.

And now, when Betty pushed back her chair with such violence as to shake the glasses on the table, Bob wondered what was the matter. As she rose the yellowing gardenias dropped to the floor, and it was as if in that moment all their whiteness had gone into Betty's face.

He was on his feet in an instant. She looked as if she were going to faint. His eye went from table to table--except for a waiter or two drifting about at the far end of the great room they were quite alone.

"Betty!" he cried. "Are you ill? For God's sake, what's the matter?"

[Illustration: "'Betty!' he cried. 'Are you ill?'"]

As he spoke her name the eyes rounded with amazement, then slowly narrowed to an expression that sent a chill through Bob's heart. It was no more like Betty, that look, than the voice that accompanied it.

"So you knew all the time who I was, and yet you spoke to me like that--pretending you didn't know."

Bob tried to speak, but she went on in a low, monotonous, terrible voice, only just raised above a whisper.

"You are a coward, and what you have been saying is a lie--a mean, contemptible, cowardly lie. Now I'm going. I sha'n't see you again."

Her lips were beginning to quiver. She could not trust herself to say another word.

Bob, utterly crushed, bewildered and silenced, walked beside her for appearance's sake to the door of the lift. Without a word, without a look, she stepped inside and the bronze door clanged between them.

Alone in the writing-room, Bob tore up sheet after sheet of the hotel paper in fevered attempts to compose a note to Betty. As he crumpled them up one after another, he stuffed them into his pocket, not stopping to tear them up. The moments were slipping by. At last in desperation, he wrote:

"Betty--For God's sake see me, if only for a moment before I go. My train leaves in half an hour. Bob."

He rang for a waiter and without stopping to reread it, slipped the note into an envelope, directed and sealed it up, and gave it to the man to take to Miss Thompson's room.

After an interminable quarter of an hour the waiter returned. Bob gave him a shilling and snatched the envelope from the tray. He turned it over eagerly--it was his own note, unopened.