Chapter XIII: After the Opera

The ladies slept late the next morning, and Rex breakfasted alone and then went to the salon to meet his aunt, as he had promised to do the night before. It was rather tiresome waiting, and he found himself wishing Bertha would come in, and wondering where she was. As a young man of position and wealth and unexceptionable habits, he was a general favorite with the ladies, and many a mother would gladly have captured him for her daughter, while the daughter would not have said no if asked to be his wife. This he knew perfectly well, but, he said, the daughters didn’t fill the bill. He wanted a real girl, not a made-up one, with powdered face, bleached hair, belladonna eyes, and all the obnoxious habits so fast stealing into the best society. Little Louie Thurston had touched his boyish fancy, and he admired her more than any other woman he had ever met; Grace Haynes amused and interested him; but neither she nor Louie possessed the qualities with which he had endowed his ideal wife, who, he had come to believe, did not exist. Thus far everything connected with Bertha Leighton had interested him greatly, and the two hours he had spent alone with her had deepened that interest. She was beautiful, agreeable, and real, he believed, with something fresh and bright and original about her. He was anxious to see her again, and was thinking of going down to the piazza, hoping to find her there, when his aunt appeared, and for the next hour he sat with her, telling her of their friends in New York and of his visit to the Homestead, where he had been so hospitably entertained and made so many discoveries with regard to Bertha.

“She is a great favorite in Leicester,” he said, “and I think you have a treasure.”

“Yes, she serves me very well,” Mrs. Hallam replied, and then changed the conversation, just as Grace knocked at the door, saying she was going for a walk into town, and asking if Rex would like to go with her.

It was a long ramble they had together, while Grace told him of her acquaintances in Aix, and especially of the young Englishman, Jack Travis, and the Florida orange grove on which he had sunk a thousand dollars with no return.

“Tell him to quit sinking, and go and see to it himself,” Rex said. “Living in England or at the North and sending money South to be used on a grove, is much like a woman trying to keep house successfully by sitting in her chamber and issuing her orders through a speaking tube, instead of going to the kitchen herself to see what is being done there.”

Rex’s illustrations were rather peculiar, but they were sensible. Grace understood this one perfectly, and began to revolve in her mind the feasibility of advising Jack to go to Florida and attend to his business himself, instead of talking through a tube. Then she spoke of Bertha, and was at once conscious of an air of increased interest in Reginald, as she told him how much she liked the girl and how strangely he seemed to be mixed up with her.

“You see, Mrs. Hallam tells mamma everything, and so I know all about Rose Arabella Jefferson’s picture. I nearly fell out of my chair when I heard about it; and I know, too, about your knocking Miss Leighton down on the Teutonic——”

“Wha-at!” Rex exclaimed; “was that Ber—Miss Leighton, I mean?”

“Certainly that was Bertha. You may as well call her that when with me,” Grace replied. “I knew you would admire her. You can’t help it. I am glad you have come, and I hope you will rectify a lot of things.”

Rex looked at her inquiringly, but before he could ask what she meant, they turned a corner and came upon Jack Travis, who joined them, and on hearing that Rex was from New York began to ask after his orange grove, as if he thought Reginald passed it daily on his way to his business.

“What a stupid you are!” Grace said. “Mr. Hallam never saw an orange grove in his life. Why, you could put three or four United Kingdoms into the space between New York and Florida.”

“Reely! How very extraordinary!” the young Englishman said, utterly unable to comprehend the vastness of America, towards which he was beginning to turn his thoughts as a place where he might possibly live on seven hundred dollars a year with Grace to manage it and him.

When they reached the hotel it was lunch-time, and after a few touches to his toilet Rex started for the _salle-à-manger_, thinking that now he should see Bertha, in whom he felt a still greater interest since learning that it was she to whom he had given the black eye on the Teutonic. “The hand of fate is certainly in it,” he thought, without exactly knowing what the _it_ referred to. Mrs. Hallam and Mrs. Haynes and Grace were already at the table when he entered the room and was shown to the only vacant seat, between his aunt and Grace.

“This must be Miss Leighton’s place,” he said, standing by the chair. “I do not wish to keep her from her accustomed seat. Where is she?” and he looked up and down both sides of the long table, but did not see her, “Where is she?” he asked again, and his aunt replied “She is not coming to-day. Sit down, and I will explain after lunch.”

“What is there to explain?” he thought, as he sat down and glanced first at his aunt’s worried face, then at Grace, and then at Mrs. Haynes.

Then an idea occurred to him which almost made him jump from his chair. He said to Grace:

“Does Miss Leighton lunch in her room?”

“Oh, no,” Grace replied.

“Doesn’t she come here?” he persisted.

“Your aunt will explain. I would rather not,” Grace said.

There was something wrong, Rex was sure, and he finished lunch before the others and left the salon just in time to see Bertha half-way up the second flight of stairs. Bounding up two steps at a time, he soon stood beside her, with his hand on her arm to help her up the next flight.

“I have not seen you this morning. Where have you kept yourself?” he asked, and she replied:

“I have been busy in your aunt’s room.”

“Where is her maid?” was his next question, and Bertha answered:

“She has been gone some time.”

“And _you_ fill her place?”

“I do what Mrs. Hallam wishes me to.”

“Why were you not at lunch?”

“I have been to lunch.”

“_You have!_ Where?”

“Where I always take it.”

“And _where_ is that?”

There was something in Rex’s voice and manner which told Bertha that he was not to be trifled with, and she replied, “I take my meals in the servants’ hall, or rather with the maids and nurses and couriers. It is not bad when you are accustomed to it,” she added, as she saw the blackness on Reginald’s face and the wrath in his eyes. They had now reached the door of Mrs. Hallam’s room, and Mrs. Hallam was just leaving the elevator in company with Mrs. Haynes, who very wisely went into her own apartment and left her friend to meet the storm alone.

And a fierce storm it was. At its close Mrs. Hallam was in tears, and Rex was striding up and down the salon like an enraged lion. Mrs. Hallam had tried to apologize and explain, telling how respectful all the couriers and valets were, how much less it cost, and that Mrs. Haynes said the English sent their companions there, and governesses too, sometimes. Rex did not care a picayune for what the English did; he almost swore about Mrs. Haynes, whose handiwork he recognized; he scorned the idea of its costing less, and said that unless Bertha were at once treated as an equal in every respect he would either leave the hotel or join her in the second-class salon and see for himself whether those rascally Russians and Turks and Frenchmen looked at her as they had no business to look.

At this point Bertha, who had no suspicion of what was taking place in the salon, and who wished to speak to Mrs. Hallam, knocked at the door. Rex opened it with the intention of sending the intruder away, but when he saw Bertha he bade her come in, and, standing with his back against the door, went over the whole matter again and told her she was to join them at dinner.

“And if there is no place for you at my aunt’s end of the table there is at the other, and I shall sit there with you,” he said.

He had settled everything satisfactorily, he thought, when a fresh difficulty arose with Bertha herself. She had listened in surprise to Rex, and smiled gratefully upon him through the tears she could not repress, but she said, “I cannot tell you how much I thank you for your sympathy and kind intentions. But really I am not unhappy in the servants’ hall, nor have I received the slightest discourtesy. Browne, our courier, has stood between me and everything which might have been unpleasant, and I have quite a liking for my companions. And,”—here her face hardened and her eyes grew very dark,—“nothing can induce me to join your party as you propose while Mrs. Haynes is in it. She has worried and insulted me from the moment she saw me. She suggested and urged my going to the servants’ hall against your aunt’s wishes, and has never let an opportunity pass to make me feel my subordinate position. I like Miss Haynes very much, but her mother ——” there was a toss of Bertha’s head indicative of her opinion of the mother, an opinion which Rex fully shared, and if he could he would have turned Mrs. Haynes from the hotel bag and baggage.

But this was impossible. He could neither dislodge her nor move Bertha from her decision, which he understood and respected. But he could take her and his aunt away from Aix and commence life under different auspices in some other place. He had promised to join a party of friends at Chamonix, and he would go there at once, and then find some quiet, restful place in Switzerland, from which excursions could be made and where his aunt could join him with Bertha. This was his plan, which met with Mrs. Hallam’s approval. She was getting tired of Aix, and a little tired, too, of Mrs. Haynes, who had not helped her into society as much as she had expected. Lady Gresham, though civil, evidently shunned the party, presumably because of Grace’s flirtation with Jack, while very few desirable people were on terms of intimacy with her, and the undesirable she would not notice. In fresh fields, however, with Rex, who took precedence everywhere, she should do better, and she was quite willing to go wherever and whenever he chose. That night at dinner she told Mrs. Haynes her plans, and that Rex was to leave the next day for Chamonix.

“So soon? I am surprised, and sorry, too; Grace has anticipated your coming so much and planned so many things to do when you came. She will be so disappointed. Can’t we persuade you to stop a few days at least?” Mrs. Haynes said, leaning forward and looking at Rex with a very appealing face, while Grace stepped on her foot and whispered to her:

“For heaven’s sake, don’t throw me at Rex Hallam’s head, and make him more disgusted with us than he is already.”

The next morning Rex brought his aunt a little, black-eyed French girl, Eloïse, whom he had found in town, and who had once or twice served in the capacity of maid. He had made the bargain with her himself, and such a bargain as he felt sure would ensure her stay in his aunt’s service, no matter what was put upon her. He had also enumerated many of the duties the girl was expected to perform, and among them was waiting upon Miss Leighton equally with his aunt. He laid great stress upon this, and, in order to secure Eloïse’s respect for Bertha, he insisted if the latter would not go to the same table with Mrs. Haynes she should take her meals in the salon. To this Bertha reluctantly consented, and at dinner she found herself installed in solitary state in the handsome salon and served like a young empress by the obsequious waiter, who, having seen the color of Reginald’s gold, was all attention to Mademoiselle. It was a great change, and in her loneliness she half wished herself back with her heterogeneous companions, who had amused and interested her, and to some of whom she was really attached. But just as dessert was served Rex came in and joined her, and everything was changed, for there was no mistaking the interest he was beginning to feel in her; it showed itself in ways which never fail to reach a woman’s heart. At his aunt’s earnest entreaty he had decided to spend another night at Aix, but he left the next morning with instructions that Mrs. Hallam should be ready to join him whenever he wrote her to do so.

“And mind,” he said, laying a hand on each of her shoulders, “don’t you bring Mrs. Haynes with you, for I will not have her. Pension her off, if you want to, and I will pay the bill; but leave her here.”