Anna the Adventuress

"You remember our first meeting?"

"Yes," he answered hoarsely. "I remember it very well indeed. You have

the look in your eyes to-night which you had that day, the look of a

frightened child."

She looked into her glass.

"I was frightened then," she declared. "I am frightened now. But it is

all very different. There was hope for me then. Now there is none. No,

none at all."

"You talk strangely, Anna," he said. "Go on!"

"People talked to you in Paris about us," she continued, "about Anna

the virtuous and Annabel the rake. You were accused of having been

seen with the latter. You denied it, remembering that I had called

myself Anna. You went even to our rooms and saw my sister. Anna lied

to you, I lied to you. I was Annabel the rake, 'Alcide' of the music

halls. My name is Annabel, not Anna. Do you understand?"

"I do not," he answered. "How could I, when your sister sings now at

the 'Unusual' every night and the name 'Alcide' flaunts from every

placard in London?"

"The likeness between us," she said, "before I began to disfigure

myself with rouge and ill-dressed hair, was remarkable. Anna failed in

her painting, our money was gone, and she was forced to earn her own

living. She came to London, and tried several things without any

success."

"But why----"

Sir John stopped short. With a moment of inward shame he remembered

his deportment towards Anna. It was scarcely likely that she would

have accepted his aid. Some one had once, in his hearing, called him a

prig. He remembered it suddenly. He thought of his severe attitude

towards the girl who was rightly and with contempt refusing his

measured help. He looked across at Annabel, and he groaned. This was

his humiliation as well as hers.

"Anna of course would not accept any money from us," she continued.

"She tried everything, and last of all she tried the stage. She went

to a dramatic agent, and he turned out to be the one who had heard me

sing in Paris. He refused to believe that Anna was not 'Alcide.' He

thought she wished to conceal her identity because of the connexion

with you, and he offered her an engagement at once. She was never

announced as 'Alcide,' but directly she walked on she simply became

'Alcide' to every one. She had a better voice than I, and the rest I

suppose is only a trick. The real 'Alcide'," she wound up with a faint

smile across the table at him, "is here."

He sat like a man turned to stone. Some part of the stiff vigour of

the man seemed to have subsided. He seemed to have shrunken in his

seat. His eyes were fixed upon her face, but he opened his lips twice

before he spoke.