Anna the Adventuress

"It is an accident," he answered. "Besides, it is not so. You sing

better than Annabel ever did, you have even a better style. 'Alcide'

or no 'Alcide,' there is not a music hall manager in London or Paris

who would not give you an engagement on your own merits."

"Perhaps not," she answered. "And yet in a very few weeks I shall have

done with it all. Do you think that I shall ever make an actress, my

friend?"

"I doubt it," he answered bluntly. "You have not feeling enough."

She smiled at him.

"It is like old times," she said, "to hear these home truths. All the

same, I don't admit it."

He shook his head.

"To be an actress," he said, "you require a special and peculiar

temperament. I do not believe that there has ever lived a really great

actress whose moral character from the ordinary point of view would

bear inspection."

"Then I," she said, "have too much character."

"Too much character, and too little sentiment," he answered. "Too much

sensibility and too cold a heart. Too easily roused emotions and too

little passion. How could you draw the curtain aside which hides the

great and holy places of life--you, who have never loved?"

"You have become French to the core," she murmured. "You would believe

that life is kindled by the passions alone."

There was silence between them. Then a servant girl brought in a

telegram. Anna tore it open and passed it to Courtlaw. It was from

Brendon.

"Hill gradually recovering consciousness. Doctor says depositions

to-night. Recovery impossible.--BRENDON."

He looked at her gravely.

"I think," he said, "that some one ought to warn her."

"It is Number 8, Cavendish Square," she answered simply.

* * * * * Courtlaw found himself ushered without questions into Annabel's long

low drawing-room, fragrant with flowers and somewhat to his surprise,

crowded with guests. From the further end of the apartment came the

low music of a violin. Servants were passing backwards and forwards

with tea and chocolate. For a moment he did not recognize Annabel.

Then she came a few steps to meet him.

"Mr. Courtlaw, is it not," she remarked, with lifted eyebrows. "Really

it is very kind of you to have found me out."

He was bereft of words for a moment, and in that moment she escaped,

having passed him on deftly to one of the later arrivals.

"Lady Mackinnor," she said, "I am sure that you must have heard of Mr.

David Courtlaw. Permit me to make him known to you--Mr. Courtlaw--Lady

Mackinnor."

With a murmured word of excuse she glided away, and Courtlaw, who

had come with a mission which seemed to him to be one of life or

death, was left to listen to the latest art jargon from Chelsea. He

bore it as long as he could, watching all the time with fascinated

eyes Annabel moving gracefully about amongst her guests, always gay,

with a smile and a whisper for nearly everybody. Grudgingly he admired

her. To him she had always appeared as a mere pleasure-loving

parasite--something quite insignificant. He had pictured her, if

indeed she had ever had the courage to do this thing, as sitting

alone, convulsed with guilty fear, starting at her own shadow, a slave

to constant terror. And instead he found her playing the great lady,

and playing it well. She knew, or guessed his mission too, for more

than once their eyes met, and she laughed mockingly at him. At last he

could bear it no longer. He left his companion in the midst of a

glowing eulogy of Bastien Leparge, and boldly intercepted his hostess

as she moved from one group to join another.