The Old Maids' Club. Israel Zangwill
sing you my Fin de Siècle Love Song."
"For Heaven's sake, don't use that poor overworked phrase!"
"Why not? It has only a few years to live. List to my sonnet."
So saying, he strummed the strings and sang in an aristocratic baritone:
AD CHLOEN.—A Valedictory.
O Chloe, you are very, very dear,
And far above your rivals in the town,
Who all in vain essay to beat you down,
Embittered by your haughtiness austere.
Too high you are for lowly me, I fear.
You would not stoop to pick up e'en a crown,
Nor cede the slightest lowering of a gown,
Though in men's eyes far fairer to appear.
With this my message, kindly current go,
At half-penny per word—it should be less—
To Chloe, telegraphical address
(Thus written to economize two d) Of Messrs. Robinson, De Vere & Co., Costumers, 90, Ludgate Hill, E. C.
Lillie laughed. "My actress's name is something like Chloe. It is Clorinda—Clorinda Bell. She tells me she is very celebrated."
"Oh, yes, I've heard of her," he said.
"There is a sneer in your tones. Have you heard anything to her disadvantage?"
"Only that she is virtuous and in Society."
"The very woman for an Old Maid! She is beautiful, too."
"Is she? I thought she was one of those actresses who reserve their beauty for the stage."
"Oh, no. She always wears it. Here is her photograph. Isn't that a lovely face?"
"It is a lovely photograph. Does she hope to achieve recognition by it, I wonder?"
"Sceptic!"
"I doubt all charms but yours."
"Well, you shall see her."
"All right, but mention her name clearly when you introduce me. Women are such changing creatures—to-day pretty, to-morrow plain, yesterday ugly. I have to be reintroduced to most of my female acquaintances three times a week. May I wait to see Clorinda?"
"No, not to-day. She has to undergo the Preliminary Exam. Perhaps she may not even matriculate. Where you come in is at the graduation stage."
"I see. To pass them as Bachelors—I mean Old Maids. I say, how will you get them to wear stuff gowns?"
The bell rang loudly. "That may be she. Good-bye, Lord Silverdale. Remember you are Honorary Trier of the Old Maids' Club, and don't forget those chocolate creams."
CHAPTER III.
THE MAN IN THE IRONED MASK.
The episode that turned Clorinda Bell's thoughts in the direction of Old Maidenhood was not wanting in strangeness. She was an actress of whom everybody spoke well, excepting actresses. This was because she was so respectable. Respectability is all very well for persons who possess no other ability; but bohemians rightly feel that genius should be above that sort of thing. Clorinda never went anywhere without her mother. This lady—a portly taciturn dame, whose hair had felt the snows of sixty winters—was as much a part of her as a thorn is of a rose. She accompanied her always—except when she was singing—and loomed like some more substantial shadow before or behind her at balls and receptions, at concerts and operas, private views and church bazaars. Her mother was always with her behind the scenes. She helped her to make up and to unmake. She became the St. Peter of the dressing-room in her absence. At the Green Room Club they will tell you how a royal personage asking permission to come and congratulate her, received the answer: "I shall be most honored—in the presence of my mother."
There were those who wished Clorinda had been born an orphan.
But the graver sort held Miss Bell up as a typical harbinger of the new era, when actresses would keep mothers instead of dog-carts. There was no intrinsic reason, they said, why actresses should not be received at Court, and visit the homes of the poor. Clorinda was very charming. She was tall and fair as a lily, with dashes of color stolen from the rose and the daffodil, for her eyes had a sparkle and her cheeks a flush and her hair was usually golden. Not the least of her physical charms was the fact that she had numerous admirers. But it was understood that she kept them at a distance and that they worshipped there. The Society journals, to which Clorinda was indebted for considerable information about herself, often stated that she intended to enter a convent, as her higher nature found scant satisfaction in stage triumphs, and she had refused to exchange her hand either for a coronet or a pile of dollars. They frequently stated the opposite, but a Society journal cannot always be contradicting a contemporary. It must sometimes contradict itself, as a proof of impartiality. Clorinda let all these rumors surge about her unheeded, and her managers had to pay for the advertisement. The money came back to them, though, for Clorinda was a sure draw. She brought the odor of sanctity over the footlights, and people have almost as much curiosity to see a saint as a sinner—especially when the saint is beautiful.
Gentlemen in particular paid frequent pilgrimages to the shrine of the saint, and adored her from the ten-and-sixpenny pews. There was at this period a noteworthy figure in London dress circles and stalls, an inveterate first-nighter, whose identity was the subject of considerable speculation. He was a mystery in a swallow-tail coat. No one had ever seen him out of it. He seemed to go through life armed with a white breastplate, starched shot-proof and dazzling as a grenadier's cuirass. What wonder that a wit (who had become a dramatic critic through drink) called him. "The Man in the Ironed Mask." Between the acts he wore a cloak, a crush-hat and a cigarette. Nobody ever spoke to him nor did he ever reply. He could not be dumb, because he had been heard to murmur "Brava, bravissima," in a soft but incorrect foreign manner. He was very handsome, with a high, white forehead of the Goth order of architecture, and dark, Moorish eyes. Nobody even knew his name, for he went to the play quite anonymously. The pit took him for a critic, and the critics for a minor poet. He had appeared on the scene (or before it) only twelve months ago, but already he was a distinguished man. Even the actors and actresses had come to hear of him, and not a few had peeped at him between their speeches. He was certainly a sight for the "gods."
Latterly he had taken to frequenting the Lymarket, where Miss Clorinda Bell was "starring" for a season of legitimate drama. It was the only kind the scrupulous actress would play in. Whenever there was no first night on anywhere else, he went to see Clorinda. Only a few rivals and the company knew of his constancy to the entertainment. Clorinda was, it will be remembered, one of the company.
It was the entr'acte and the orchestra was playing a gavotte, to which the eighteenth-century figures on the drop scene were dancing. The Man in the Ironed Mask strolled in the lobby among the critics, overhearing the views they were not going to express in print. Clorinda Bell's mother was brushing her child's magnificent hair into a more tragical attitude in view of the fifth act. The little room was sacred to the "star," the desire of so many moths. Neither maid nor dresser entered it, for Mrs. Bell was as devoted to her daughter as her daughter to her, and tended her as zealously as if she were a stranger.
"Yes, but why doesn't he speak?" said Clorinda.
"You haven't given him a chance, darling," said her mother.
"Nonsense—there is the language of flowers. All my lovers commence by talking that."
"You get so many bouquets, dear. It may be—as you say his appearance is so distinguished—that he dislikes so commonplace a method."
"Well, if he doesn't want to throw his love at my feet,