It was a night in June, and the pavements were dry under foot and the streets were filled with well-dressed people, going home from the play, and with groups of men in black and white, making their way to supper at the clubs. Hansoms of inky-black, with shining lamps inside and out, dashed noiselessly past on mysterious errands, chasing close on each other's heels on a mad race, each to its separate goal. From the cross streets rose the noises of early night, the rumble of the 'buses, the creaking of their brakes, as they unlocked, the cries of the "extras," and the merging of thousands of human voices in a dull murmur. The great world of London was closing its shutters for the night, and putting out the lights; and the new lodger from across the sea listened to it with his heart beating quickly, and laughed to stifle the touch of fear and homesickness that rose in him.
"I have seen a great play to-night," he said to the Lion, "nobly played by great players. What will they care for my poor wares?
I see that I have been over-bold. But we cannot go back now--not yet."He knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and nodded "good-night" to the great world beyond his window. "What fortunes lie with ye, ye lights of London town?" he quoted, smiling. And they heard him close the door of his bedroom, and lock it for the night.
The next morning he bought many geraniums from Prentiss and placed them along the broad cornice that stretched across the front of the house over the shop window. The flowers made a band of scarlet on either side of the Lion as brilliant as a Tommy's jacket.
"I am trying to propitiate the British Lion by placing flowers before his altar," the American said that morning to a visitor.
"The British public you mean," said the visitor; "they are each likely to tear you to pieces.""Yes, I have heard that the pit on the first night of a bad play is something awful," hazarded the American.
"Wait and see," said the visitor.
"Thank you," said the American, meekly.
Every one who came to the first floor front talked about a play.
It seemed to be something of great moment to the American. It was only a bundle of leaves printed in red and black inks and bound in brown paper covers. There were two of them, and the American called them by different names: one was his comedy and one was his tragedy.
"They are both likely to be tragedies," the Lion heard one of the visitors say to another, as they drove away together. "Our young friend takes it too seriously."The American spent most of his time by his desk at the window writing on little blue pads and tearing up what he wrote, or in reading over one of the plays to himself in a loud voice. In time the number of his visitors increased, and to some of these he would read his play; and after they had left him he was either depressed and silent or excited and jubilant. The Lion could always tell when he was happy because then he would go to the side table and pour himself out a drink and say, "Here's to me," but when he was depressed he would stand holding the glass in his hand, and finally pour the liquor back into the bottle again and say, "What's the use of that?"After he had been in London a month he wrote less and was more frequently abroad, sallying forth in beautiful raiment, and coming home by daylight.
And he gave suppers too, but they were less noisy than the Captain's had been, and the women who came to them were much more beautiful, and their voices when they spoke were sweet and low.
Sometimes one of the women sang, and the men sat in silence while the people in the street below stopped to listen, and would say, "Why, that is So-and-So singing," and the Lion and the Unicorn wondered how they could know who it was when they could not see her.
The lodger's visitors came to see him at all hours. They seemed to regard his rooms as a club, where they could always come for a bite to eat or to write notes; and others treated it like a lawyer's office and asked advice on all manner of strange subjects. Sometimes the visitor wanted to know whether the American thought she ought to take L?0 a week and go on tour, or stay in town and try to live on L?; or whether she should paint landscapes that would not sell, or racehorses that would; or whether Reggie really loved her and whether she really loved Reggie; or whether the new part in the piece at the Court was better than the old part at Terry's, and wasn't she getting too old to play "ingenues" anyway.
The lodger seemed to be a general adviser, and smoked and listened with grave consideration, and the Unicorn thought his judgment was most sympathetic and sensible.
Of all the beautiful ladies who came to call on the lodger the one the Unicorn liked the best was the one who wanted to know whether she loved Reggie and whether Reggie loved her. She discussed this so interestingly while she consumed tea and thin slices of bread that the Unicorn almost lost his balance in leaning forward to listen. Her name was Marion Cavendish and it was written over many photographs which stood in silver frames in the lodger's rooms. She used to make the tea herself, while the lodger sat and smoked; and she had a fascinating way of doubling the thin slices of bread into long strips and nibbling at them like a mouse at a piece of cheese. She had wonderful little teeth and Cupid's-bow lips, and she had a fashion of lifting her veil only high enough for one to see the two Cupid-bow lips.
When she did that the American used to laugh, at nothing apparently, and say, "Oh, I guess Reggie loves you well enough.""But do I love Reggie?" she would ask sadly, with her tea-cup held poised in air.
" I am sure I hope not," the lodger would reply, and she would put down the veil quickly, as one would drop a curtain over a beautiful picture, and rise with great dignity and say, "if you talk like that I shall not come again."She was sure that if she could only get some work to do her head would be filledwith more important matters than whether Reggie loved her or not.
