Anna the Adventuress

"It was your own fault," she exclaimed. "He would never have found you

out if you had not personated me."

"On the contrary," Anna whispered quietly, "we met in a small

boarding-house where I was stopping."

"You have not told me yet," Annabel said, "how it is that you have

dared to personate me. To call yourself 'Alcide'! Your hair, your

gestures, your voice, all mine! Oh, how dared you do it?"

"You must not forget," Anna said calmly, "that it is necessary for me

also--to live. I arrived here with something less than five pounds in

my pocket. My reception at West Kensington you know of. I was the

black sheep, I was hurried out of the way. You did not complain then

that I personated you--no, nor when Sir John came to me in Paris, and

for your sake I lied."

"You did not----"

"Wait, Annabel! When I arrived in London I went to live in the

cheapest place I could find. I set myself to find employment. I

offered myself as a clerk, as a milliner, as a shop girl. I would even

have taken a place as waitress in a tea shop. I walked London till the

soles of my shoes were worn through, and my toes were blistered. I ate

only enough to keep body and soul together."

"There was no need for such heroism," Annabel said coldly. "You had

only to ask----"

"Do you think," Anna interrupted, with a note of passion trembling

also in her tone, "that I would have taken alms from Sir John, the man

to whom I had lied for your sake. It was not possible. I went at last

when I had barely a shilling in my purse to a dramatic agent. By

chance I went to one who had known you in Paris."

"Well!"

"He greeted me effusively. He offered me at once an engagement. I told

him that I was not 'Alcide.' He only laughed. He had seen the

announcement of your marriage in the papers, and he imagined that I

simply wanted to remain unknown because of your husband's puritanism.

I sang to him, and he was satisfied. I did not appear, I have never

announced myself as 'Alcide.' It was the Press who forced the identity

upon me."

"They were my posters," Annabel said. "The ones Cariolus did for me."

"The posters at least," Anna answered quietly, "I have some claim to.

You know very well that you took from my easel David Courtlaw's study

of me, and sent it to Cariolus. You denied it at the time--but

unfortunately I have proof. Mr. Courtlaw found the study in Cariolus'

studio."

Annabel laughed hardly.

"What did it matter?" she cried. "We are, or rather we were, so much

alike then that the portrait of either of us would have done for the

other. It saved me the bother of being studied."