Inheritance and succession -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction
Marise ordered the violet-table to be taken from the theatre to the
Plaza Hotel, where she and her mother had a suite. She thought it would
give her more pleasure there, where much of her time was passed, and the
wonderful violets had not lost their freshness: they were so firm and
vital that they looked as if they would never fade. But on the second
night of "The Song," when Marise arrived in her dressing-room, another
anonymous gift awaited her.
It was smaller than the table, but not less original; a black bowl, half
full of water bright and pale green as aquamarines, on the surface of
which floated three pink pond-lilies. The bowl stood on the star's
dressing-table, and, switching on the electric lights, a gleam as of
drowned emeralds sparkled under the lilies. Marise cried out in delight,
and ran to look for a card. This time he would reveal himself! (She knew
it was "he," and that it was the same man who had sent the table.) But
no. There was neither card nor note. Messenger boys had brought the
bowl. They had driven up in a taxi. If only Marise had dreamed of
receiving a second gift from the same source, she would have watched--or
even employed a detective. She was so excited and curious that she
feared for her acting that night.
With the bowl and the lilies had come a large jar of crystals for
tinting the water: green, glittering lumps, like precious stones from
Aladdin's Cave, and that was precisely the label on the jar of jewels:
"Aladdin's Cave." Marise was childishly thrilled. When Belloc peeped in,
she showed her treasures, and learned that "Aladdin's Cave" was the name
chosen by a queer artist, new, but famous already for his
exhibition-shop in a cellar of that Bohemian haunt known as Greenwich
Village.
Next morning the girl went there in a taxi: and when she had bought
exotic enamels, and transparent vases filled with synthetic sapphires,
she told "Aladdin" about the bowl. Like Herté, he shook his head. He was
but another man who "could not go beyond a District messenger boy."
The stage door-keeper was now warned to find out what he could, if
another anonymous gift appeared. Also, Céline was sent early to the
theatre. Marise could not, however, quite bring herself to engage a
detective. She was tempted to do so, and urged by her mother, who had
visions of a mysterious millionaire ready to take the place of Severance
if the Englishman failed after all. But the girl felt that to set
sleuth-hounds on its track would kill romance. It would, she told Mums,
be like deliberately rubbing the bloom off hothouse grapes before you
ate them. And as it turned out, she was glad she had listened to
sentiment; for on the third night her only offerings were chocolates and
flowers ticketed conspicuously with their givers' names.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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