She began to revive the magnificent dreams that had floated in her mind
for months. No need to tell the people at home of her dismissal and
disgrace; no need to go back to the island. She would be somebody in
her own right yet. Of course, she would have to study, to struggle, to
endure disappointments, but she would triumph in the end. And when at
length she was great and famous she would be good to other poor girls;
and as often as she thought of John Storm in his solitude in his cell,
though there might be a pang, a red stream running somewhere within,
she would comfort herself with the thought that she, too, was doing her
best; she, too, had her place, and it was a useful and worthy one.
Before that time came, however, there would be managers to influence and
engagements to seek, and perhaps teachers to pay for. But Drake was rich
and generous and powerful; he had a great opinion of her talents, and he
would stop at nothing.
Leaping out of bed, she sat down at the table as she was and wrote to
him:
“Dear Mr. Drake: Try to see me to-night. I want your advice immediately.
What do you think? I have got myself 'noticed' at last, and as a
consequence I am to leave at the end of my term. So things are urgent,
you see. I 'wave my lily hand' to you. Glory.
“P.S.--save time I suggest the hour and the place: eight o'clock, St.
James's Park, by the bridge going down from Marlborough House.”
Drake received this note as he was sitting alone in his chambers smoking
a cigarette after drinking a cup of tea, in that hour of glamour that
is between the lights. It seemed to bring with it a secret breath of
passion out of the atmosphere in which it had been written. At the first
impulse it went up to his lips, but at the next moment he was smitten
by the memory of something, and he thought: “I will do what is right; I
will play the game fair.”
He dined that night with a group of civil servants at his club in St.
James's Street, but at a quarter to eight, notwithstanding some playful
bantering, he put on his overcoat and turned toward the park. The autumn
night was soft and peaceful; the stars were out and the moon had risen;
a fragrant mist came up from the lake, and the smoke of his cigar was
hardly troubled by the breeze that pattered the withered tassels of
the laburnums. Big Ben was striking eight as he reached the end of the
little bridge, and almost immediately afterward he was aware of soft and
hurrying footsteps approaching him.
Glory had come down by the Mall. The whispering of the big white trees
in the moonlight was like company, and she sang to herself as she
walked. Her heart seemed to have gone into her heels since yesterday,
for her step was light and sometimes she ran a few paces. She arrived
out of breath as the great clock was striking, and seeing the figure of
a gentleman in evening dress by the end of the bridge, she stopped to
collect herself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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