Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger - The Stolen Singer

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Madame Reynier paused and watched her niece, who, with eyes cast down,
was toying with her spoon. Suddenly a crimson flush rose and spread
over Melanie's cheeks and forehead and neck, and when she looked up
into Madame Reynier's face, she was gazing through unshed tears. She
rose quickly, came round to the older woman's chair and kissed her
cheek affectionately.

"Dear Auntie, you are very good to me, and patient, too. It's all
true, I suppose; but the prospect of home and Count Lorenzo
together--ah, well!" she smiled reassuringly and again caressed Madame
Reynier's gaunt old face. "I'll think it all over, Auntie dear."

Madame Reynier followed Melanie into her sitting-room, bringing the
precious orchids in her two hands, fearful lest the fragile vase should
fall. Melanie regarded them a moment, and then said she thought they
would do better in the drawing-room.

"I sometimes think the little garden pink quite as pretty as an orchid."

"They aren't so much in Mr. Lloyd-Jones' style as these," replied
Madame Reynier. She had a faculty of commenting pleasantly without the
least hint of criticism. This remark delighted Melanie.

"No; I should never picture Mr. Lloyd-Jones as a garden pink. But
then, Auntie, you remember how eloquent he was about the hills and the
stars. That speech did not at all indicate a hothouse nature."

"Nevertheless, I think his sentiments have been cultivated, like his
orchids."

"Not a bad achievement," said Melanie.

There was an interval of silence, while the younger woman stood looking
out of the window and Madame Reynier cut the leaves of a French
journal. She did not read, however, and presently she broke the
silence. "I don't remember that Mr. Van Camp ever sent orchids to you."

"Mr. Van Camp never gave me any kind of flower. He thinks flowers are
the most intimate of all gifts, and should only be exchanged between
sweethearts. At least, I heard him expound some such theory years ago,
when we first knew him."

Madame smiled--a significant smile, if any one had been looking.
Nothing further was said until Melanie unexpectedly shot straight to
the mark with:

"How do you think he would do, Auntie, in place of Count Lorenzo?"

Madame Reynier showed no surprise. "He is a sterling man; but your
cousin would never consent to it."

"And if I should not consult my cousin?"

"My dear Melanie, that would entail many embarrassing consequences; and
embarrassments are worse than crimes."

Melanie could laugh at that, and did. "I've already answered a note
from Mr. Van Camp this morning; Auntie. No, don't worry," she
playfully answered a sudden anxious look that came upon her aunt's
countenance, "I've not said 'yes' to him. But he's coming to see me at
twelve. If I don't give him a chance to say what he has to say, he'll
take one anywhere. He's capable of proposing on the street-cars.
Besides, I have something also to say to him."

"Well, my dear, you know best; certainly I think you know best," was
Madame Reynier's last word.

Mr. Van Camp arrived on the stroke of twelve, an expression of
happiness on his lean, quizzical face.

"I'm supposed to be starting on a cruise," he told Melanie, "but luck
is with me. My cousin hasn't turned up--or rather he turned up only to
disappear instantly. Otherwise he would have dragged me off to catch
the first ebb-tide, with me hanging back like an anchor-chain."

"Is your cousin, then, such a tyrant?"

"Oh, yes; he's a masterful man, is Jimmy."

"And how did he 'disappear instantly?' It sounds mysterious."

"It is mysterious, but Jim can take care of himself; at least, I hope
he can. The message said he had sailed on the _Jeanne D'Arc_, whatever
that is, and that I was to look after our hired yacht, the _Sea Gull_."

Melanie looked up, startled. "The _Jeanne D'Arc_, was it?" she cried.
"Are you sure? But, of course--there must be many boats by that name,
are there not? But did he say nothing more--where he was going, and
why he changed his plans?"

"No, not a word more than that. Why? Do you know of a boat named the
_Jeanne D'Arc_?"

"Yes, very well; but it can not matter. It must be another vessel,
surely. Meanwhile, what are you going to do without your companion?"

Aleck rose from the slender gilt chair where, as usual, he had perched
himself, walked to the window and thrust his hands into his pockets for
a contemplative moment, then he turned and came to a stand squarely
before Melanie, looking down on her with his quizzical, honest eyes.

"That depends, Melanie," he said slowly, "upon whether you are going to
marry me or not."

[Illustration: "That depends upon whether you are going to marry me."]

For a second or two Melanie's eyes refused to lift; but Aleck's
firm-planted figure, his steady gaze, above all, his dominating will,
forced her to look up. There he was, smiling, strong, big, kindly.
Melanie started to smile, but for the second time that morning her eyes
unexpectedly filled with tears.

"I can't talk to you towering over me like that," she said at last
softly, her smile winning against the tears.

Aleck did not move. "I don't want you to 'talk to' me about it; all I
want is for you to say 'yes.'"

"But I'm not going to say 'yes;' at least, I don't think I am. Do sit
down."

Aleck started straight for the gilt chair.

"Oh, no; not that! You are four times too big for that chair.
Besides, it's quite valuable; it's a Louis Quinze."

Aleck indulged in a vicious kick at the ridiculous thing, picked up an
enormous leather-bottomed chair made apparently of lead, and placed it
jauntily almost beside Miss Reynier's chair, but facing the other way.

"This is much better, thank you," he said. "Now tell me why you think
you are not going to say 'yes' to me."

Melanie's mood of softness had not left her; but sitting there, face to
face with this man, face to face with his seriousness, his masculine
will and strength, she felt that she had something yet to struggle for,
some deep personal right to be acknowledged. It was with a dignity, an
aloofness, that was quite real, yet very sweet, that she met this
American lover. He had her hand in his firm grasp, but he was waiting
for her to speak. He was giving her the hearing that was, in his
opinion, her right.

"In the first place," Melanie began, "you ought to know more about
me--who I am, and all that sort of thing. I am, in one sense, not at
all what I seem to be; and that, in the case of marriage, is a
dangerous thing."

"It is an important thing, at least. But I do know who you are; I knew
long ago. Since you never referred to the matter, of course I never
did. You are the Princess Auguste Stephanie of Krolvetz, cousin of the
present Duke Stephen, called King of Krolvetz. You are even in line
for the throne, though there are two or three lives between. You have
incurred the displeasure of Duke Stephen and are practically an exile
from your country."

"A voluntary exile," Melanie corrected.

"Voluntary only in the sense that you prefer exile to absolute
submission to the duke. There is no alternative, if you return."

Melanie was silent. Aleck lifted the hand which he held, touched it
gently with his lips and laid it back beside its fellow on Melanie's
lap. Then he rose and lifted both hands before her, half in fun and
half in earnestness, as if he were a courtier doing reverence to his
queen.

"See, your Highness, how ready I am to do you homage! Only smile on
the most devoted of your servants."

Melanie could not resist his gentle gaiety. It was as if they were two
children playing at a story. Aleck, in such a mood as this, was as
much fun as a dancing bear, and in five minutes more he had won peals
of laughter from Melanie. It was what he wanted--to brighten her
spirits. So presently he came back to the big chair, though he did not
again take her hand.

"I knew you were titled and important, Melanie, and at first I thought
that sealed my case entirely. But you seemed to forget your state,
seemed not to care so very much about it; and perhaps that made me
think it was possible for us both to forget it, or at least to ignore
it. I haven't a gold throne to give you; but you're the only woman
I've ever wanted to marry, and I wasn't going to give up the chance
until you said so."

"Do you know also that if I marry out of my rank and without the
consent of Duke Stephen, I shall forfeit all my fortune?"

"'Cut off without a cent!'" Aleck laughed, but presently paused,
embarrassed for the first time since he had begun his plea. "I, you
know, haven't millions, but there's a decent income, even for two. And
then I can always go to work and earn something," he smiled at her,
"giving information to a thirsty world about the gill-slit, as you call
it. It would be fun, earning money for you; I'd like to do it."

Melanie smiled back at him, but left her chair and wandered uneasily
about the room, as if turning a difficult matter over in her mind.
Aleck stood by, watching. Presently she returned to her chair, pushed
him gently back into his seat and dropped down beside him. Before she
spoke, she touched her fingers lightly, almost lovingly, along the blue
veins of his big hand lying on the arm of the chair. The hand turned,
like a magnet spring, and imprisoned hers.

"No, dear friend, not yet," said Melanie, drawing away her hand, yet
not very quickly after all. "There is much yet to say to you, and I
have been wondering how to say it, but I shall do it now. Like the
heroes in the novels," she smiled again, "I am going to tell you the
story of my life."

"Good!" said Aleck. "All ready for chapter one. But your maid wants
you at the door."

"Go away, Sophie," said Melanie. "Serve luncheon to Madame Reynier
alone. I shall wait; and you'll have to wait, too, poor man!" She
looked scrutinizingly at Aleck. "Or are you, perhaps, hungry? I'm not
going to talk to a hungry man," she announced.

"Not a bite till I've heard chapter thirty-nine!" said Aleck.

In a moment she became serious again.

"I have lived in England and here in America," she began, "long enough
to understand that the differences between your people and mine are
more than the differences of language and climate; they are ingrained
in our habits of thought, our education, our judgments of life and of
people. My childhood and youth were wholly different from yours, or
from what an American girl's could be; and yet I think I understand
your American women, though I suppose I am not in the least like them.

"But I, on the other hand, have seen the dark side of life, and
particularly of marriage. When I was a child I was more important in
my own country than I am now, since it seemed then that my father would
succeed to the throne. I was brought up to feel that I was not a
woman, but a pawn in the game of politics. When I had been out of the
convent for a year or more, I loved a youth, and was loved in return,
but our marriage was laughed at, put aside, declared impossible,
because he was of a rank inferior to my own. My lover disappeared, I
know not where or how. Then affairs changed. My father died, and it
transpired that I had been officially betrothed since childhood to Duke
Stephen's brother, the Count Lorenzo. The duke was my guardian, and
there was no one else to whom I could appeal; but the very week set for
the wedding I faced the duke and declared I would never marry the
count. His Highness raged and stormed, but I told him a few things I
knew about his brother, and I made him see that I was in earnest. The
next day I left Krolvetz, and the duke gave out that I was ill and had
gone to a health resort; that the wedding was postponed. I went to
France and hid myself with my aunt, took one of my own middle names and
her surname, and have been known for some time, as you know, as Melanie
Reynier."

"I know you wish to tell me all these things, Melanie, but I do not
want you to recall painful matters of the past now," said Aleck gently.
"You shall tell me of them at another time."

The color brightened in Melanie's face, her eyes glowed.

"No, not another time; you must understand now, especially because all
this preface leads me to what I really want to say to you. It is this:
I do not now care for the man I loved at nineteen, nor for any of the
other men of my country who have been pleased to honor me with their
regard. But ever since those early days I have had a dream of a
home--a place different from Duke Stephen's home, different from the
homes of many people of my rank. My dream has a husband in it who is a
companion, a friend, my equal in love, my superior in strength."
Melanie's eyes lifted to meet Aleck's, and they were full of an almost
tragic passion; but it was a passion for comprehension and love, not
primarily for the man sitting before her. She added simply: "And for
my dream I'd give all the wealth, all the love, I have."

The room was very still. Aleck Van Camp sat quiet and grave, his
forehead resting on his hand. He looked up, finally, at Melanie, who
was beside him, pale and quite worn.

"Poor child! You needed me more than I thought!" was what he said.

But Melanie had not quite finished. "No, that is not enough, that I
should need you. You must also need me, want what I alone can give
you, match my love with yours. And this, I think, you do not do. You
calculate, you remain cool, you plan your life like a campaign, and I
am part of your equipment. You are a thousand times better than Count
Lorenzo, but I think your principles of reasoning are the same. You do
not love me enough, and that is why I can not say yes."

Aleck had taken this last blow standing. He walked slowly around and
stood before Melanie, much as he had stood before her when he first
asked her to marry him; and this time, as he looked down on her
fairness, there was infinite gentleness and patience and love in his
eyes. He bent over, lifted Melanie's two hands, and drew her bodily
out of her seat. She was impassive. Her quick alertness, her
vitality, her passionate seriousness, had slipped away. Aleck put his
arms around her very tenderly, and kissed her lips; not a lover's kiss
exactly, and yet nothing else. Then he looked into her face.

"I shall not do this again, Melanie dear, till you give me leave. But
I have no mind to let you go, either. You and Madame Reynier are going
on a cruise with me; will you? Get your maid to pack your grip. It
will be better for you than the 'professional advice' which you came to
New York for."

Aleck stopped suddenly, his practical sense coming to the surface.
"Heavens! You haven't had any lunch, and it's all times of the day!"
He rang the bell, begged the maid to fetch bread and butter and tea and
to ask Madame Reynier to come to the drawing-room. When she appeared,
he met her with a grave, but in no wise a cowed, spirit.

"Madame Reynier, your niece refuses, for the present, to consider
herself engaged to me; I, however, am unequivocally betrothed to her.
And I shall be endlessly grateful if you and Miss Reynier will be my
guests on the _Sea Gull_ for as long a time as you find it diverting.
We shall cruise along the coast and put into harbor at night, if it
seems best; and I'll try to make you comfortable. Will you come?"

Madame Reynier was willing if Melanie was; and Melanie had no strength,
if she had the will, to combat Aleck's masterful ways. It was soon
settled. Aleck swung off down the street, re-reading Jim's letter,
intent only on the _Sea Gull_ and the preparations for his guests. But
at the back of his mind he was thinking, "Poor girl! She needs me more
than I thought!"

CHAPTER VI

ON BOARD THE JEANNE D'ARC

If hard usage and obstacles could cure a knight-errant of his
sentiment, then Jimmy Hambleton had been free of his passion for the
Face. His plunge overboard had been followed by a joyous swim, a lusty
call to the yacht for "Help," and a growing amazement when he realized
that it was the yacht's intention to pass him by. He had swum
valiantly, determined to get picked up by that particular craft, when
suddenly his strength failed. He remembered thinking that it was all
up with him, and then he lost consciousness.

When he awoke he was on a hard bunk in a dim place, and a sailor was
jerking him about. His throat burned with a fiery liquid. Then he
felt the plunging and rising of the boat, and came to life sufficiently
to utter the stereotyped words, "Where am I?"

In Jim's case the question did not imply the confused groping back to
sense that it usually indicates, but rather an actual desire to know
whether or not he was on board the _Jeanne D'Arc_. Plainly his wits
had not been badly shattered by his experience overboard. But the
sailor who was attending him with such ministrations as he understood,
answered him with a sample of French which Jim had never met with in
his school-books, and he was not enlightened for some hours.

It turned out, indeed, to be the _Jeanne D'Arc_, as Jim proved for
himself the next day, and he was lying in the seamen's quarters in the
fo'cas'le. By morning he felt much better, hungry, and prepared in his
mind for striking a bargain with one of the sailors for clothes. He
could make out their lingo soon, he guessed, and then he would get a
suit of clothes and fare on deck. Suddenly he grasped his waist,
struck with an unpleasant thought; his money-belt was gone! He was
wearing a sailor's blue flannel shirt and nothing else. He turned over
on his hard bunk, thinking that he would have to wait a while before
making his entrance on the public stage of the _Jeanne D'Arc_.

And wait he did. Not a rag of clothing was in sight, and no cajolery
or promise of reward could persuade the ship's men into supplying his
need. He received consignments of food; short rations they would be,
he judged, for an able-bodied seaman. But inactivity and confinement
to the fo'cas'le soon worked havoc with his physique, so that appetite,
and even desire of life itself, temporarily disappeared in the gloom of
seasickness.

In spite of difficulties, Jim tried to find out something about the
boat. The seamen were none too friendly; but by patching up his almost
forgotten French and by signs, he learned something. His sudden
failure of strength in the water had been due to a blow from a floating
spar, as a bruise on his forehead testified; "the old man," whom Jim
supposed to be the captain, was a hard master; Monsieur Chatelard was
owner, or at least temporary proprietor, of the yacht; and the present
voyage was an unlucky one by all the signs and omens known to the
seamen's horoscope.

The sullenness of the men was apparent, and was not caused by the
enforced presence of a stranger among them. In fact, their bad temper
became so conspicuous that Jim began to believe that it might have
something to do with the mysterious actions of the man on shore. He
pondered the situation deeply; he evolved many foolish schemes to
compass his own enlightenment, and dismissed them one by one. He
grimly reflected that a man without clothes can scarcely be a hero,
whatever his spirit. Not since the days of Olympus was there any
record of man or god being received into any society whatever without
his sartorial shell, thought Jimmy. But in spite of his discomfort, he
was glad he was there. The intuition that had led him since that
memorable Sunday afternoon was strong within him still, and he never
questioned its authority. He believed his turn would come, even though
he were a prisoner in the fo'cas'le of the _Jeanne D'Arc_.

As the violence of his sickness passed, Jim began to cast about for
some means of helping himself. Gradually he was able to dive into the
forgotten shallows of his French learning. By much wrinkling of brows
he evolved a sentence, though he had to wait some hours before there
was a favorable chance to put it to use. At last his time came, with
the arrival of his former friend, the sailor.

"Oo avay-voo cashay mon money-belt?" he inquired with much confidence,
and with pure Yankee accent.

The sailor answered with a shrug and a spreading of empty hands.

"Pas de money-belt, pas de pantalon, pas de tous! Dam queer
Amayricain!"

Jim was not convinced of the sailor's innocence, but perceived that he
must give him the benefit of the doubt. As the sailor intimated, Jim,
himself, was open to suspicion, and couldn't afford to be too zealous
in calumniating others. He fell to thinking again, and attacked the
next Frenchman that came into the fo'cas'le with the following:

"Kond j'aytay malade don ma tate, kee a pree mon money-belt?"

It was the ship's cook this time, and he turned and stared at Jimmy as
though he had seen a ghost. When he found tongue he uttered a volume
of opinion and abuse which Jimmy knew by instinct was not fit to be
translated, and then he fled up the ladder.

On the fourth day, toward evening, James had a visitor. All day the
yacht had been pitching and rolling, and by afternoon she was laboring
in the violence of a storm and was listing badly.

James was a fearless seaman, but it crossed his mind more than once
that if he were captain, and if there were a port within reach, he
would put into it before midnight. But he could tell nothing of the
ship's course. He turned the subject over in his mind as he lay on his
bunk in that peculiar state half-way between sickness and health, when
the body is relaxed by a purely accidental illness and the mind is
abnormally alert. He wished intensely for a bath, a shave, and a fair
complement of clothes. He longed also to go up the hatchway for a
breath of air, and was considering the possibility of doing this later,
with a blanket and darkness for a shield, when he became conscious of a
pair of neatly trousered legs descending the ladder. It was quite a
different performance from the catlike climbing up and down of the
sailors.

Jimmy watched in the dim light until the whole figure was complete,
fantastically supplying, in his imagination, the coat, the shirt, the
collar and the tie to go with the trousers--all the things which he
himself lacked. Was there also a hat? Jimmy couldn't make out, and so
he asked.

"Have you got on a hat?"

A frigid voice answered, "I beg your pardon!"

"I said, are you wearing a hat? I couldn't see, you know."

"Monsieur takes the liberty of being impertinent."

"Oh, excuse me--I beg your pardon. But it's so beastly hot and dark in
here, you know, and I've never been seasick before."

"No? Monsieur is fortunate." The visitor advanced a little, drew from
a recess a shoe-blacking outfit, pulled over it one of the stiff
blankets from a neighboring bunk, and sat down rather cautiously.
Little by little James made out more of the look of the man. He was
large and rather blond, well-dressed, clean-shaven. He spoke English
easily, but with a foreign accent.

"I wish to inquire to what unfortunate circumstances we are indebted
for your company on board the _Jeanne D'Arc_." The voice was cool, and
sharp as a meat-ax.

"Why, to your own kind-heartedness. I was a derelict and you took me
in--saved my life, in fact; for which I am profoundly grateful. And I
hope my presence here is not too great a burden?"

"I am obliged to say that your presence here is most unwelcome.
Moreover, I am aware that your previous actions are open to suspicion,
to express it mildly. You threw yourself off the tug; and as this as
not a pleasure yacht, but the vessel of a high official speeding on a
most important business matter, I said to the captain, 'Let him swim!
Or, if he wishes to die, why should we thwart him?' But the captain
referred to the 'etiquette of the line,' as he calls it, and picked you
up. So you have not me to thank for not being among the fishes this
minute."

Jimmy pulled his blanket about and sat up on his bunk. The sarcastic
voice stirred his bile, and suddenly there boomed in his memory a
woman's call for help. The hooded motor-car, the muffled cry of
terror, the inert figure being lifted over the side of the yacht--these
things crowded on his brain and fired him to a sudden, unreasoning
fury. He leaned over, looking sharply into the other's face.

"You damned scoundrel!" he said, choking with his anger. The blood
surged into his face and eyes; he was, for an instant, a primitive
savage. He could have laid violent hands on the other man and done him
to death, in the fashion of the half-gods who lived in the twilight of
history.

The visitor in the fo'cas'le exhibited a neat row of teeth and no
resentment whatever at Jim's remark, But a sharp glitter shot from his
eyes as he replied suavely:

"Monsieur has doubtless mistaken this ship, and probably its master
also, for some other less worthy adventurer on the sea. For that very
reason I have come to set you right. It may be that I have my quixotic
moments. At any rate, I have a fancy to give you a gentleman's chance.
Monsieur, I regret the necessity of being inhospitable, but I am forced
to say that you must quit the shelter of this yacht within twenty-four
hours."

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