The Bandbox. Vance Louis Joseph

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      “Then I advise your future husband to keep you away from zoos.”

      “Oh, Staff! But wouldn’t you want me to come to see you once in a while?”

      He jerked up one hand with the gesture of a man touched in a fencing-bout. “You win,” he laughed. “I should’ve known better…”

      But she made her regard tender consolation for his discomfiture. “You haven’t told me about the play – our play —my play?”

      “It’s finished.”

      “Not really, Staff?” She clasped her hands in a charmingly impulsive way. He nodded, smiling. “Is it good?”

      “You’ll have to tell me that – you and Max.”

      “Oh – Max! He’s got to like what I like. When will you read it to me?”

      “Whenever you wish.”

      “This afternoon?”

      “If you like.”

      “Oh, good! Now I’m off for my nap – only I know I shan’t sleep, I’m so excited. Bring the ’script to me at two – say, half-past. Come to my sitting-room; we can be alone and quiet, and after you’ve finished we can have tea together and talk and – talk our silly heads off. You darling!”

      She gave him a parting glance calculated to turn any man’s head, and swung off to her rooms, the very spirit of grace incarnate in her young and vigorous body.

      Staff watched her with a kindling eye, then shook his head as one who doubts – as if doubting his own worthiness – and went off to his own stateroom to run over the type-script of his fourth act: being fortunate in having chosen a ship which carried a typist, together with almost every other imaginable convenience and alleged luxury of life ashore.

      Punctual to the minute, manuscript under his arm, he knocked at the door of the sitting-room of the suite de luxe occupied by the actress. Her maid admitted him and after a moment or two Alison herself came out of her stateroom, in a wonderful Parisian tea-gown cunningly designed to render her even more bewilderingly bewitching than ever. Staff thought her so, beyond any question, and as unquestionably was his thought mirrored in his eyes as he rose and stood waiting for her greeting – very nearly a-tremble, if the truth’s to be told.

      Her colour deepened as she came toward him and then, pausing at arm’s length, before he could lift a hand, stretched forth both her own and caught him by the shoulders. “My dear!” she said softly; and her eyes were bright and melting. “My dear, dear boy! It’s so sweet to see you.” She came a step nearer, stood upon her tiptoes and lightly touched his cheek with her lips.

      “Alison …!” he cried in a broken voice.

      But already she had released him and moved away, with a lithe and gracious movement evading his arms. “No,” she told him firmly, shaking her head: “no more than that, Staff. You mustn’t – I won’t have you – carry on as if we were children —yet.”

      “But Alison – ”

      “No.” Again she shook her head. “If I want to kiss you, I’ve a perfect right to; but that doesn’t give you any licence to kiss me in return. Besides, I’m not at all sure I’m really and truly in love with you. Now do sit down.”

      He complied sulkily.

      “Are you in the habit of kissing men you don’t care for?”

      “Yes, frequently,” she told him, coolly taking the chair opposite; “I’m an actress – if you’ve forgotten the fact.”

      He pondered this, frowning. “I don’t like it,” he announced with conviction.

      “Neither do I – always.” She relished his exasperation for a moment longer, then changed her tone. “Do be sensible, Staff. I’m crazy to hear that play. How long do you mean to keep me waiting?”

      He knew her well enough to understand that her moods and whims must be humoured like a – well, like any other star’s. She was pertinaciously temperamental: that is to say, spoiled; beautiful women are so, for the most part – invariably so, if on the stage. That kind of temperament is part of an actress’ equipment, an asset, as much an item of her stock in trade as any trick of elocution or pantomime.

      So, knowing what he knew, Staff took himself in hand and prepared to make the best of the situation. With a philosophic shrug and the wry, quaint smile so peculiarly his own, he stretched forth a hand to take up his manuscript; but in the very act, remembering, withheld it.

      “Oh, I’d forgotten …”

      “What, my dear?” asked Alison, smiling back to his unsmiling stare.

      “What made you send me that bandbox?” he demanded without further preliminary; for he suspected that by surprising the author of that outrage, and by no other method, would he arrive at the truth.

      But though he watched the woman intently, he was able to detect no guilty start, no evidence of confusion. Her eyes were blank, and a little pucker of wonder showed between her brows: that was all.

      “Bandbox?” she repeated enquiringly. “What do you mean?”

      “I mean,” he pursued with a purposeful, omniscient air, “the thing you bought at Lucille’s, the day before we sailed, and had sent me without a word of explanation. What did you do it for?”

      Alison relaxed and sat back in her chair, laughing softly. “Dear boy,” she said – “do you know? – you’re quite mad – quite!”

      “Do you mean to say you didn’t – ?”

      “I can’t even surmise what you’re talking about.”

      “That’s funny.” He pondered this, staring. “I made sure it was you. Weren’t you in London last Friday?”

      “I? Oh, no. Why, didn’t I tell you I only left Paris Saturday morning? That’s why we had to travel all day to catch the boat at Queenstown, you know.”

      He frowned. “That’s true; you did say so… But I wish I could imagine what it all means.”

      “Tell me; I’m good at puzzles.”

      So he recounted the story of the bandbox incognito, Alison lending her attention with evident interest, some animation and much quiet amusement. But when he had finished, she shook her head.

      “How very odd!” she said wonderingly. “And you have no idea – ?”

      “Not the least in the world, now that you’ve established an alibi. Miss Searle knows, but – ”

      “What’s that?” demanded Alison quickly.

      “I say, Miss Searle knows, but she won’t tell.”

      “The girl who sat next to Bangs at lunch?”

      “Yes – ”

      “But how is that? I don’t quite understand.”

      “Oh, she says she was in the place СКАЧАТЬ