CHAPTER II✦

THE WOMAN IN PURPLE

Mortimer had been drinking, else he would never have assumed the entire responsibility of engaging Sybil Merivale for the leading part in his play. When sober, he had a very wholesome respect for Dukane, the producing manager who had discovered him and who was “backing him blind” to the tune of many thousands of dollars. But when he had even a little too much to drink, the man’s whole personality and viewpoint underwent a metamorphosis. He became arrogant, self-assertive, unmanageable. Eventually it was this, as even his friends and adherents were wont to prophesy, which would be the means of his downfall.

Now, though Dukane himself stood at his elbow, the actor, with a swagger which he had too much sense to use on the stage or when he was entirely himself, cried:

“Let us sit down here with you, Kitty, and we’ll drink the health of the new Lucille.” Kitty smiled indulgently as she watched him seat himself and give a whispered order to the waiter which presently resulted in the party being served with high balls. Meanwhile, as Dukane also sat down, Kitty introduced him to Sybil.

Dukane was short and squarely built, with gray hair and steely eyes, a face as smooth and bland as a baby’s, and an air so gentle and unassuming that his occasional bursts of biting sarcasm came upon his victims as a shock. His gaze, clear yet inscrutable, swept Sybil Merivale in the moment taken up by his introduction to her. He was used to thus rapidly appraising the material presented him.

He was inclined to approve of her appearance. She was not startlingly beautiful, but the hair was unusual and would light up well. She carried her head properly, too, and her low-voiced “How do you do, Mr. Dukane!” was quite nicely pitched. It would be worth while hearing her read the part, at any rate. For once Mortimer had not too crassly put his foot in it, as he was apt to do after four or five high balls.

That the actor had taken a good deal too much upon himself in practically engaging Miss Merivale without even consulting his superior troubled Dukane not a whit. He was not a little man, and he did not have to bluster in order to assert his authority. His actors and actresses were to him so many indifferently controlled children. When they said or did absurd things, he usually let them rave. If they really became troublesome or impertinent—as Miss Templeton had been that morning—he discharged them with the utmost urbanity and firmness.

He sat down and quietly told the waiter to bring him cold meat and coffee, while Mortimer ordered more high balls. “Miss Merivale can come back with us and read the part in the last act,” Dukane said, sipping his coffee. “I shan’t ask the company to go through the early part of the play again to-day. In any case”—and he smiled at the girl pleasantly—“in any case, Miss Merivale will look the part.”

“That’s more than Templeton ever did!” exclaimed Kitty Legaye, with open spite.

Dukane smiled once more. “Miss Templeton,” he said, “is rather too—er—sophisticated to play Lucille. She is growing out of those very girlish leading parts.”

“Why don’t you say,” interposed Kitty sharply, “that she’s too old? She is—and, what’s more, she looks it!”

“She’s a ripping handsome woman, all the same,” declared Alan Mortimer, scowling into his half-emptied glass.

Kitty bit her lip. “Of course you would be sorry to see her go!” she began.

“Who said I was sorry?” demanded the actor rather rudely. “I am not; I’m glad. She was getting to be a nuisance——” He checked himself, a glimmer of something like shame saving him in time. He turned to Sybil Merivale, and there was a warm light in his black eyes as he added: “I’m growing more glad every minute.”

Sybil was uncomfortable. She hated this man and feared him; she hated the tone of the talk, the atmosphere of the table. She had a violent instinct of repugnance when she thought of joining the company. And yet—and yet a leading part, and on Broadway, and under Dukane! She could not, she dared not lose so wonderful a chance. Her big blue eyes were eager and troubled both at once.

Dukane watched the play of expression in her sensitive face. “Mobile mouth—quick emotions—excellent eyes.” He went over these assets mentally. Aloud he said, in the nice, impersonally friendly tone with which he won people whenever he had the fancy: “You need only read the part, you know, Miss Merivale. You’re not committed to anything.”

Sybil looked at him gratefully; he seemed to read her thoughts. All at once, with a surge back of her usual gay courage, she cried, laughing:

“Committed! I only wish I were—or, rather, that you were, Mr. Dukane!”

“What’s that?” exclaimed Mortimer, a little thickly. “’Course he’s committed! You’re under contract, Miss—Miss M-Merivale. Word as good as his bond—eh, Dukane?”

He was deeply flushed and his eyes glittered. In his excitement Sybil found him detestable. Fancy having to play opposite that!

“Suppose you eat something,” suggested Dukane, pushing a plate with a piece of cold beef on it in his direction. “Oh, yes, you do want it; you’ve had a hard morning. Eat it, there’s a good fellow.”

“A-all right,” muttered Mortimer, attacking the beef somewhat unsteadily. “Must keep up m’ strength, I s’pose.”

A waiter leaned down to him and murmured something in French.

“Eh?” said Mortimer. “Come again, George. Try Spanish; I know the greaser lingo a bit.”

The waiter spoke again in halting English. The others could hardly help hearing part of what he said. It concerned a “lady in mauve—table by the window—just a minute, monsieur.”

“Oh, damn!” ejaculated Alan Mortimer, and immediately directed an apologetic murmur toward Sybil. He got up, and walking with surprising steadiness and that lithe, animal grace so characteristic of him, made his way toward a table where a woman sat waiting with an expectant face.

“Grace Templeton!” exclaimed Kitty under her breath. Her brown eyes snapped angrily. “I didn’t see her before—did you, Mr. Dukane?”

“I saw her when I first came in,” answered the manager quietly. “That hair is so conspicuous. Really I think she should begin to confine herself to adventuress parts. She is no longer the romantic type.”

“And the dress!” Kitty shivered with a delicate suggestion of jarred nerves or outraged taste.

Dukane dropped his eyes to hide the twinkle in them. It was true that even in that lunch-time Broadway assemblage, in which brilliant color combinations in the way both of hair and of garments proclaimed right and left the daring and the resourcefulness of womankind, Miss Templeton was a unique figure. Her hair was of a magnificent metallic gold, and a certain smoldering fire in her black-fringed gray eyes and a general impression she gave of violent and but half-controlled emotions saved her beauty from being merely cheap and artificial and made it vivid and compelling. A passionate, unforgettable woman, and her gown, sensational as it was, somehow expressed her.

The French waiter had drawn upon his fund of native tact in calling it mauve. It was, as a matter of fact, a sharp and thunderous purple—the sort of color which is only permissible in stained glass or an illuminated tenth century missal. It was a superb shade, but utterly impossible for any sort of modern clothes. It blazed insolently against the massed greenery of the restaurant window. A persistent ray of yellow August sunshine, pushing its way past the cunningly contrived leafy screen, fell full upon it and upon the burnished golden hair above it. In that celestial spotlight Miss Templeton was almost too dazzling for unshaded mortal eyes.

Now, as she sat looking up at Mortimer, who stood beside her table, her expression was in keeping with the gown and the hair. It was violent, conspicuous, crudely intense. Alan Mortimer’s expression, in its way, was as violent as hers. They looked, the two of them, as though they could have torn each other’s eyes out with fierce and complete satisfaction.

“Am I very late, Mr. Dukane?” said an agreeably pitched voice just behind Sybil.

Dukane started and raised his eyes. His face brightened.

“Barrison, my dear fellow, I am glad you came! Do you know, you were so late that I had almost forgotten you! Miss Legaye, let me present Mr. Barrison; Miss Merivale, Mr. Barrison.”

The newcomer smiled and sat down at the already crowded little table.

“If you say you had forgotten me,” he protested, “I shall think you did not really need me at all, and that would be a hard blow to my vanity.”

“Nonsense!” said Dukane. “Nothing could touch the vanity of a dyed-in-the-wool detective. What are you going to have, Barrison?”

“I have lunched, thanks. If that is coffee—yes, I will have a demi-tasse. I thought Mr. Mortimer was to be with you, Mr. Dukane.”

“He is talking to Miss Templeton over there.”

Barrison’s eyes darted quickly to the other table. “Your leading woman, is she not?”

“She was,” said Dukane calmly. “At present we are not sure whether we have any leading woman or not—are we, Miss Merivale?” And he looked at her kindly.