A headlight raced down the track toward her and the city, and she gathered up what was left of her scattered wits. As the train slowed up she stepped into the shadows, and her eye fell on the open baggage-car. She smiled grimly. “Faith! I have a notion I like brakemen and baggagemen better than conductors.”
And so it came to pass as the train started that the baggageman, who happened to be standing in the doorway, was somewhat startled to see a small figure come racing toward it out of the dusk and land sprawling on the floor beside him.
“A girl tramp!” he ejaculated in amazement and disgust, and then, as he helped her to her feet, “Don’t you know you’re breaking the law?”
She laughed. “From the feelings, I thought it was something else.” She sobered and turned on him fiercely. “I want ye to understand I’ve paid my fare on the train out, which entitled me to one continuous passage—with my trunk. Well, I’m returning—as my trunk, I’ll take up no more room and I’ll ask no more privileges.”
“That may sound sensible, but it’s not law,” and the man grinned broadly. “I’m sorry, miss, but off you go at the next station.”
“All right,” agreed Patsy; “only please don’t argue. Sure, I’m sick entirely of arguing.”
She dropped down on a trunk and buried her face in her hands. The baggageman watched her, hypnotized with curiosity and wonder. At the next station he helped her to drop through the opening she had entered, and called a shamefaced “good-by” after her in the dusk.
She hunted up the station-agent and received scanty encouragement: Very likely he had seen such a man; there were many of that description getting off every day. They generally went to the Inn—Brambleside Inn. The season was just open and society people were beginning to come. No, there was no conveyance. The Inn’s ’buses did not meet any train after the six-thirty from town, unless ordered especially by guests. Was she expected?
Patsy was about to shake her head when a roadster swung around the corner of the station and came to a dead stop in front of where she and the station-master were standing.
The driver peered at her through his goggles in a questioning, hesitating manner. “Is this—are you Miss St. Regis?” he finally asked.
“Miriam St. Regis?” Patsy intended it for a question, realizing even as she spoke the absurdity of inquiring the name of an English actress at such a place.
But the driver took it for a statement of identity. “Yes, of course, Miss Miriam St. Regis. Mr. Blake made a mistake and thought because your box came from town you’d be coming that way. It wasn’t until your manager, Mr. Travis, telephoned half an hour ago that he realized you’d be on that southbound train. Awfully sorry to have kept you waiting. Step right in, please.”
Whereupon the driver removed himself from the roadster, assisted her to a seat, covered her with a rug—for early June evenings can be rather sharp—and the next moment Patsy found herself tearing down a stretch of country road with the purr of a motor as music to her ears.
“Sure, I don’t know who wrote the play and starred me in it,” she mused, dreamily, “but he certainly knows how to handle situations.”
For the space of a few breaths she gave herself over completely to the luxury of bodily comfort and mental inertia. It seemed as if she would have been content to keep on whirling into an eternity of darkness—with a destination so remote, and a mission so obscure, as not to be of the slightest disturbance to her immediate consciousness. All she asked of fate that moment was the blessedness of nothing; and for answer—her mind was jerked back ruthlessly to the curse of more complexities.
The lights of a large building in the distance reminded her there was more work for her wits before her and no time to lose. “I must think—think—think, and it grows harder every minute. If Miriam St. Regis is coming here, it means, like as not, she’s filling in between seasons, entertaining. Well, until she comes, they’re all hearty welcome to the mistake they’ve made. And afterward—troth! there’ll be a corner in her room for me the night, or Saint Michael’s a sinner; either way, ’tis all right.”
The driver unbundled her and helped her out as courteously as he had helped her in. He led the way across a broad veranda to the main entrance, and there she fell behind him as he pushed open the great swinging door.
“Oh, that you, Masters? Did Miss St. Regis come?”
“Sure thing, sir; she’s right here.”
The next moment Patsy stood in a blaze of lights between a personally conducting chauffeur and a pompous hotel manager, who looked down upon her with distrustful scrutiny. She was wholly aware of every inch of her appearance—the shabbiness of her brown Norfolk suit, the rakishness of her boyish brown beaver hat, and the vagabond gloves. But of what value is the precedent of having been found hanging on the thorn of a Killarney rose-bush by the Physician to the King, of what value is the knowledge of past kinship with a certain Dan O’Connell, if one allows a little matter of clothes to spoil one’s entrance and murder one’s lines?
The blood came flushing back into Patsy’s cheeks, turning them the color of thorn bloom, and her eyes deepened to the blue of Killarney, sparkling as when the sun goes a-dancing. She smiled—a fresh, radiant, witching smile upon that clay lump of commercialism—until she saw his appraisement of her treble its original figure.
Then she said, sweetly: “I have had rather a hard time getting here, Mr. Blake; making connections in your country is not always as simple as one might expect. My room, please.” And with an air of a grand duchess Patsy O’Connell, late of the Irish National Players, Dublin, and later of the women’s free ward of the City Hospital, led the way across one of the most brilliant summer hotel foyers in America.
As she entered the elevator a young man stepped out—a young man with a small, blond, persevering mustache, a rather thin, esthetic, melancholy face, and a myopic squint. He wore a Balmacaan of Scotch tweed and carried a round, plush hat.
Patsy turned to the bell-boy. “Did that man arrive to-night?”
“Yes, miss; I took him up.”
“What is his name—do you know?”
“Can’t say, miss. I’ll find out, if you like.”
“There is no need. I rather think I know it myself.” And under her breath she ejaculated, “Saint Peter deliver us!”
IV
THE OCCUPANT OF A BALMACAAN COAT
Safe in her room, with the door closed and locked, Patsy stood transfixed before a trunk—likewise closed and locked.
“Thank Heaven for many blessings!” she said, fervently. “Thank Heaven Miriam St. Regis has worn wigs of every conceivable color and style on the stage, so there is small chance of any one here knowing the real color of her hair. Thank Heaven she’s given to missing her engagements and not wiring about it until the next day. Thank Heaven I’ve played with her long enough to imitate her mannerisms, and know her well enough to explain away the night, if the need ever comes. Thank Heaven that George Travis is an old friend and can help out, if I fail. Thank Heaven for