Chapter III: Eyes That Looked Into Eyes

“Magdalen!” she said with a sudden sharp appeal as the girl came back from putting Ronald to bed, “I can’t stand this. It’s only seven and I won’t sit thinking till twelve. Go and get Mrs. Taylor to sit with Ronald and we’ll go out to dinner. We’ve money.”

“Oh, don’t--to-night!” quickly. “We daren’t go anywhere with Barnysdale lying dead. It wouldn’t be decent.”

“Who’ll know?” contemptuously. “I tell you I’ll go alone if you won’t come. I can’t sit here.”

There was never any arguing with Dolly, and Magdalen knew it. With a heavy heart she went for the janitor’s wife, who was used to taking charge of Ronald; with a heart heavier still she put on her hat while Dolly’s strained voice called to her to hurry.

“I am hurrying,” she said sullenly, “but I think you’re doing a wild thing. We’re sure to meet some one who knows us. And I forgot to tell you, Starr-Dalton was here to-day!” significantly.

“What did you tell him?” Mrs. Arden turned sharply from the glass, her pinched face almost ugly.

“You don’t think I let him in! I let him kick till he was tired. It was just before you came. Didn’t you meet him?”

“No! I was in a hansom with the glass down. He’d never think of me in a hansom unless he paid for it.”

“Doll, you’ll pay him, won’t you, with the first money you get?” Magdalen’s voice was wistful.

“Yes. Don’t talk about it, please. I mayn’t get it, after all,” and the look she gave her own reflection was that of one hunted from one desperate extremity to another.

“Come on,” she cried impatiently. “I suppose we’ve got to eat. Let’s go to some place where we’re not known--somewhere that the band plays.”

Once out in the air she thought her nerves would steady, but in Oxford Street she caught Magdalen by the arm.

“Here’s Krug’s,” she cried; “it’s as good as any. My knees won’t stop shaking. I can’t go any further.”

Magdalen looked at the flaring restaurant. “All right,” she said, but as soon as they were inside the red-carpeted place she wished they had gone anywhere else. The smoke, the women’s hats, a certain silence that fell as the newcomers found a table, were all obvious signs enough. The girl rose deliberately and changed her seat so that she faced the looking-glassed wall instead of the room.

“It’s beastly!” she muttered trenchantly. “Look at the men and the women!”

“It’s cheap,” studying the menu. “The people don’t matter. Anyhow, it’s better than sitting at home and worrying,” her lips quivering--Dolly’s, who never cried.

“Don’t worry now,” said Magdalen gently. She had no idea what a striking figure she was in her plain black dress and hat, nor that half the men in the room were twisting round in the effort to see her face in the glass. But something made her look to her left and then sharply back again.

A tall man in evening clothes, with a hard-cut, brown face, was looking intently at her. There was something sweet in his gaze, though his eyes were not soft at all, but steely, and the line of his thin cheek and jaw was grim.

He had the grace to look down at his dinner as for one second he caught the tragic, fathomless glance fate had put into Magdalen Clyde’s eyes. But he looked up again at the lovely profile against the blue-walled room, at the strange rusty-iron hair, the languorous power in the firm, dull-rose lips. He was not especially sensitive, but to see such a face in this place angered him. There was blood in it and breeding, but there was as well a strange, pure beauty that took his breath.

When his dinner was finished he rose. The girl did not concern him, and might be like all the others, but he had a curious dislike to seeing her beside the riotous, rouged women at the next table. He never noticed Dolly Arden at all. As he turned to get his coat there was a sudden commotion in a distant corner.

A pale man with the hall-mark of death on his face had sprung up on drunken legs; he was gazing across the heads of his party and their mock diamonds at the two women in black.

“Doll!” he shouted. “By ----, it’s Doll!” He knocked over his chair, lurched against the next table and stood pointing, glassy-eyed, at Dolly Arden.

“Don’t move!” Magdalen whispered. “Don’t look! Oh, Doll, he can’t mean you! You don’t know him!”

Dolly turned her eyes and not her head; sat ghastly, immovable.

The man began to cross the room toward her; nearly fell over a girl, who screamed; struck passionately at the man with her; came nearer every instant to Dolly, whose lips were curled away from her teeth as if she saw death.

If she meant to or not, Magdalen never knew. She rose, turned and met the eyes of the dark, hard-faced man who was putting on his coat; met them with terror in hers, that were inky in the pallor of her face.

To be in a restaurant before Barnysdale was buried was bad enough; to be involved in the drunken row that was spreading like an epidemic from table to table, would ruin them. And worse than all was the look on Dolly’s face. She knew that consumption-wasted, staggering man who was getting closer every minute, calling more loudly on Dolly’s name.

“We must get out, quick!” Magdalen whispered, but her eyes never left those hard one’s that met them comprehendingly.

Dolly never answered, never stirred. It was as though she heard nothing but her own name over the hubbub; for as the author of the disturbance passed each table he hurled insults at the occupants, and the women who were concerned demanded loud vengeance.

“Quick, Dolly--come!” Magdalen repeated.

And just as if he had heard her the hawk-faced man opposite made a quick step, which was instantly retraced. He was too late. That drunken beast would be at the girl’s side before he was and, if he knew anything, would be unmanageable. He nodded sharply to the white-faced girl who had sprung before the other woman; moved carelessly against the wall and touched something with his elbow.

The room was in black darkness. He had switched off the electric light.

A hand that was light, yet firm as iron, fell on Magdalen Clyde’s shoulder.

“Come, both of you,” said a voice she would never forget to her dying day. “Hurry!”

The girl, clutching Dolly’s hand, felt herself pushed out of the room like a child.