Chapter III: In the Dressing-Room

To the stage door-keeper said O’Hagan:

“Has Miss Chatterton appeared yet?”

“She has, sir.”

“Is she in her dressing-room?”

“I believe so, sir.”

“Has she a private dressing-room?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is she dressed, yet?”

“She must be, sir. She finished over half-an-hour ago, and a gentleman went up some time since.”

“What number is her room?”

“It’s Number Six, sir, but——”

Captain O’Hagan placed half-a-crown upon the window-ledge and stepped along the passage.

“Excuse me, sir!” The man came running from his box.

O’Hagan turned, glass raised.

“You wished to speak to me?”

“Thank you very much, sir, but I must take your card through first, or——”

“My name is Captain O’Hagan. I have business with Miss Chatterton.” He proceeded, unruffled.

“You’ll get me into trouble, sir——”

O’Hagan, over his shoulder:

“I esteem your regard for duty, my man. Rely upon me.”

He was gone. The door-keeper scratched his head.

Ascending a flight of stone steps, the Captain came to a landing, a door opening upon it. The door was ajar and bore no number, but voices might be heard proceeding from the room beyond. O’Hagan rapped, and opened the door.

Several gentlemen, in several stages of undress, all looked up from their several toilettes.

“I fear I intrude,” said O’Hagan, holding his monocle before his right eye and examining the occupants of the apartment with a kind of genial curiosity. “I wish to find room number six.”

“Next floor, second door,” volunteered a young man in underwear.

“I am indebted.”

O’Hagan withdrew and proceeded upstairs. Room six showed a closed door. O’Hagan knocked.

“Who’s there?” inquired a masculine voice.

O’Hagan entered.

A golden-headed lady, who was arranging a rare exotic in hats upon her elaborate coiffure, fixed wondering eyes upon the intruder. A maid glanced up from where she knelt beside a large basket; and a dark-haired, perfectly groomed young man, of military bearing, rose hurriedly from his seat upon a second and even larger basket.

Captain O’Hagan bowed.

“Miss Chatterton, your pardon. Sir Brian Dillon, I presume? Might I ask you, my good girl”—to the staring maid—“to withdraw.”

He held the door open.

“Here, I say!” burst out Miss Chatterton. “Who are you? What’s it all about——”

“I am Captain O’Hagan. I have a family matter to discuss with Sir Brian; and I wish you, Miss Chatterton, to be present.”

He waved his monocle towards the maid, and then in the direction of the open door. The girl stood up, looked at her mistress, but saw her to be as helpless as herself; looked at the forceful new arrival, and slowly went out. O’Hagan closed the door. Two pairs of wondering eyes followed his every movement. My friend has a singular quality of personality. I believe he could so enter the House of Lords as to visit consternation upon every peer present, and to set the bishops reviewing their pasts with grave misgivings. Bernard O’Hagan is a mannerist of genius.

Sir Brian Dillon cleared his throat.

“If I might venture on a remark,” he said, with an angry gleam in his grey eyes, “what do you want, and who the devil _are_ you?”

O’Hagan wound the black ribbon about his right forefinger.

“I am the gentleman,” he replied, with frigid distinctness, “whom you saw walking with Lady Dillon in St. James’s Park some days ago, and I am here to _demand_ an explanation!”

Have you sometimes, at a proper and sombre social function, dreamed of what would happen if some bold spirit rose up and sang one of Mr. George Robey’s sprightliest songs? Have you even contemplated, in what I may term horrified delight, the effect of a loudly uttered swear-word upon a gathering of elders? This remark of O’Hagan’s produced that sort of effect.

Betty Chatterton slowly sank down into an armchair, never removing her gaze from the last speaker. Sir Brian’s eyes opened wider and yet wider. He bit his lower lip—and took a step forward. He halted.

“_You_,” he began—and his tone was different from that of his normal speech—“_you_ are here, to demand an explanation of _me_! You admit that you are——”

“I beg,” O’Hagan interrupted him, “that you will not refer to my statement as an admission. I am proud of my name, and proud of my friendship with your wife. You have wronged her, and you wrong Miss Chatterton. Particularly, you have wronged _me_. It is for this—for your gross insult to myself—that I am here to call you to account!”

Dillon nearly choked; and his fingers twitched convulsively. He believed, and with a large and generous trust had sought no word from his wife in aye or nay, that it had been another than himself who first had won her love. Later, he believed that his trust had been misplaced, had been betrayed; that the unknown who had played some part, great or small, in her life before he, Brian, came into it, was indeed lord of the kingdom that he madly had thought his own.

Now the usurper stood before him, his attitude neither apologetic nor explanatory—not that of the offender but of the offended! “—To call me to account!” echoed Dillon, in a voice sunken almost to a whisper.

That form of words was the crowning affront of all. It summoned into being the primeval savage which dwells somewhere within every man of Celtic stock. It was this primitive being, whose tribal pride had stifled relenting—denied the woman fair speech and trial—and not the cultured modern man, with whom O’Hagan was come to deal.

“Betty”—Dillon’s speech was thick as that of a drunkard—“would you mind postponing the supper?” He swallowed, dryly. “I will see you—to the car. Forgive me, but to-night——”

“_I_ will see Miss Chatterton to a cab,” interrupted O’Hagan’s icy voice. “I have sent Lady Dillon home in the car. _You_ will await me here——”

Dillon clenched his fists: his nostrils dilated. In that instant my friend came more nearly to an unseemly embroilment than ever in his surprising career.

“Brian!”

Betty Chatterton sprang to Dillon, clutching his arm.

“Miss Chatterton,” continued O’Hagan, “I beg you to accept my escort. It will be better if we go at once.”

She looked from man to man, and grew pale to the lips. Sir Brian glassily stared directly at O’Hagan and ignored the hand that clung to his rigid arm. The girl released her clasp and turned imploring blue eyes upon the Captain.

“Oh, Captain O’Hagan,” she said, “there is some dreadful mistake! If you think—ah! how can I say what I mean? _Will_ you believe me”—she frankly met his gaze—“if I tell you that Sir Brian and I are just chums?” Her eyes were flooded with tears. “He is awfully—dreadfully unhappy about . . .” She laid her hand hesitatingly upon O’Hagan’s arm. “I know you have done him no wrong. Won’t you believe _me_, too? Can’t we be friends?”

(“I had anticipated something altogether more vulgar, Raymond,” O’Hagan recently informed me. “I will confess that I was surprised and delighted. Miss Chatterton had the instincts of a lady and the generosity of a gentleman! A really lovable nature, my boy. That infernal ass deserved nothing so fine as her friendship!”)

The Captain raised her hand to his lips, bending over it with stately courtesy. Again their eyes met—and these two understood one another.

“Betty,” began Dillon, advancing.

She turned to him.

“Stay where you are, Brian,” she said, with a sudden note of command. “You must see that I don’t want to be mixed up in your quarrels. And—Captain O’Hagan is right. We cannot expect the world to understand us. You shouldn’t have come here to-night. No, I’m not angry with you, silly boy—but it wasn’t fair to me. I can see that, now. You had nearly made a big mistake, Brian. Good-bye.”

She held out her hand, firmly. Dillon turned away.

“All right,” she said, and shrugged her shoulders. “You’ll know I was a real pal one day.”

She leant lightly upon O’Hagan’s arm; and the two left the room. She smiled bravely as they passed the stage door-keeper and bade him cheerily good-night.

(“Gad, Raymond!” says O’Hagan, “that girl was a brick; for she was every bit as much in love with Dillon as Dillon was in love with his wife!”)

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