_ CHAPTER XXVIII. THE REAL ALFRED BURTON
Edith slipped out of her evening cloak and came into the foyer of the Opera House, a spotless vision of white. For a moment she looked at her cavalier in something like amazement. It did not need the red handkerchief, a corner of which was creeping out from behind his waistcoat, to convince her that some extraordinary change had taken place in Burton. He was looking pale and confused, and his quiet naturalness of manner had altogether disappeared. He came towards her awkwardly, swinging a pair of white kid gloves in his hand.
"Bit late, aren't you?" he remarked.
"I am afraid I am a few minutes late," she admitted. "Until the last moment father said he was coming. We shall have to go in very quietly."
"Come along, then," he said. "I don't know the way. I suppose one of these fellows will tell us."
His inquiry, loud-voiced and not entirely coherent, received at first scant attention from the usher to whom he addressed himself. They were directed to their places at last, however. The house was in darkness, and with the music Edith forgot, for a time, the slight shock which she had received. The opera was Samson et Dalila, and a very famous tenor was making his reappearance after a long absence. Edith gave herself up to complete enjoyment of the music. Then suddenly she was startled by a yawn at her side. Burton was sitting back, his hands in his pockets, his mouth wide-open.
"Mr. Burton!" she exclaimed softly. He had the grace to sit up. "Long-winded sort of stuff, this," he pronounced, in an audible whisper.
She felt a cold shiver of apprehension. As she saw him lounging there beside her, her thoughts seemed to go back to the day when she had looked with scornful disdain at that miserable picnic-party of trippers, who drank beer out of stone jugs, and formed a blot upon the landscape. Once more she saw the man who stood a little apart, in his loud clothes and common cloth cap, saw him looking into the garden. She began to tremble. What had she done--so nearly done! In spite of herself, the music drew her away again. She even found herself turning towards him once for sympathy.
"Isn't it exquisite?" she murmured.
He laughed shortly.
"Give me The Chocolate Soldier," he declared. "Worth a dozen of this!"
Suddenly she realized what had happened. Her anger and resentment faded away. For the first time she wholly and entirely believed his story. For the first time she felt that this miracle had come to pass. She was no longer ashamed of him. She no longer harbored any small feelings of resentment at his ill-bred attitude. A profound sympathy swept up from her heart--sympathy for him, sympathy, too, for herself. When they passed out together she was as sweet to him as possible, though he put on a black bowler hat some time before it was necessary, and though his red handkerchief became very much in evidence.
"You will drive me down to Chelsea, won't you?" she begged.
"Righto!" he replied. "I'll get one of these chaps to fetch a taxi."
He succeeded in obtaining one, gleeful because he had outwitted some prior applicant to whom the cab properly belonged.
"Couldn't stop somewhere and have a little supper, could we?" he asked.
"I am afraid not," she answered. "It wouldn't be quite the thing."
He tried to take her hand. After a moment's hesitation she permitted it.
"Mr. Burton," she said softly, "do answer me one question. Did you part with all your beans?"
His hand went up to his forehead for a moment.
"Yes," he replied, "both of them. I only had two, and it didn't seem worth while keeping one. Got my pockets full of money, too, and they are going to make me a director of Menatogen."
"Do you feel any different?" she asked him.
He looked at her in a puzzled way and, striking a match, lit a cigarette without her permission.
"Odd you should ask that," he remarked. "I do feel sort of queer to-night--as though I'd been ill, or something of the sort. There are so many things I can only half remember--at least I remember the things themselves, but the part I took in them seems so odd. Kind of feeling as though I'd been masquerading in another chap's clothes," he added, with an uneasy little laugh. "I don't half like it."
"Tell me," she persisted, "did you really find the music tiresome?"
He nodded.
"Rather," he confessed. "The Chocolate Soldier is my idea of music. I like something with a tune in it. There's been no one to beat Gilbert and Sullivan. I don't know who wrote this Samson and Delilah, but he was a dismal sort of beggar, wasn't he? I like something cheerful. Don't you want to come and have some supper, Edith? I know a place where they play all the popular music."
"No, thank you," she told him gravely.
"You seem so cold and sort of stand-offish to-night," he complained, coming a little closer to her. "Some of those nights down at your place--can't remember 'em very well but I am jolly sure you were different. What's happened? Mayn't I hold your fingers, even?"
His arm would have been around her waist, but she evaded it firmly.
"Don't you know what has happened?" she demanded, earnestly. "Don't you really know?"
"Can't say that I do," he admitted. "I've got a sort of feeling as though I'd been all tied-up like, lately. Haven't been able to enjoy myself properly, and gone mooning about after shadows. To-night I feel just as though I were coming into my own again a bit. I say," he added, admiringly, "you do look stunning! Come and have some supper--no one will know--and let me drive you home afterwards. Do!"
She shook her head.
"I don't think you must talk to me quite like this," she said kindly. "You have a wife, you know, and I am engaged to be married."
He laughed, quite easily.
"Never seen Ellen, have you?" he remarked. "She's a fine woman, you know, although she isn't quite your style. She'd think you sort of pale and colorless, I expect--no kind of go or dash about you."
"Is that what you think?" Edith asked him, smiling.
"You aren't exactly the style I've always admired," he confessed, "but there's something about you," he added, in a puzzled manner,--"I don't know what it is but I remember it from a year ago--something that seemed to catch hold of me. I expect I must be a sentimental sort of Johnny underneath. However, I do admire you, Edith, immensely. I only wish--"
Again she evaded him.
"Please do not forget Mr. Bomford," she begged.
"That silly old ass!" Burton exclaimed. "Looks as though he'd swallowed a poker! You're never going to marry him!"
"I think that I shall," she replied. "At any rate, at present I am engaged to him. Therefore, if you please, you must keep just a little further away. I don't like to mention it, but I think--haven't you been smoking rather too much?"
He laughed, without a trace of sensitiveness. "I have been having rather a day of it," he admitted. "But I say, Edith, if you won't come to supper, I think you might let a fellow--"
She drew back into her corner.
"Mr. Burton," she said, "you must please not come near me."
"But I want a kiss," he protested. "You'd have given me one the other night. You'd have given me as many as I'd liked. You almost clung to me--that night under the cedar tree."
Her eyes for a moment were half closed.
"It was a different world then," she whispered softly. "It was a different Mr. Burton. You see, since then a curtain has come down. We are starting a fresh act and I don't think I know you quite so well as I did."
"Sounds like tommyrot," he grumbled.
The taxicab came to a standstill. The man got down and opened the door. Burton half sulkily stepped out on to the pavement.
"Well, here you are," he announced. "Can't say that I think much of you this evening."
She held out her hand. They were standing on the pavement now, in the light of a gas-lamp, and with the chauffeur close at hand. She was not in the least afraid but there was a lump in her throat. He looked so very common, so far away from those little memories with which she must grapple!
"Mr. Burton," she said, "good-night! I want to thank you for this evening and I want to ask you to promise that if ever you are sorry because I persuaded you to sell those little beans, you will forgive me. It was a very wonderful thing, you know, and I didn't understand. Perhaps I was wrong."
"Don't you worry," he answered, cheerfully. "That's all right, anyway. It's jolly well the best thing I ever did in my life. Got my pockets full of money already, and I mean to have a thundering good time with it. No fear of my ever blaming you. Good-night, Miss Edith! My regards to the governor and tell him I am all on for Menatogen."
He gave his hat a little twist and stepped back into the taxi.
"I will give my father your message," she told him, as the door opened to receive her.
"Righto!" Burton replied. "Leicester Square, cabby!" _