Man With Two Left Feet | Page 2

It was hard, and yet he felt the sting of her words, and in his
bosom the first seeds of dissatisfaction with his occupation took root.
You might have thought that this frankness on the girl's part would
have kept Henry from falling in love with her. Certainly the dignified
thing would have been to change his seat at table, and take his meals
next to someone who appreciated the romance of detective work a little
more. But no, he remained where he was, and presently Cupid, who
never shoots with a surer aim than through the steam of boarding-house
hash, sniped him where he sat.
He proposed to Alice Weston. She refused him.
'It's not because I'm not fond of you. I think you're the nicest man I ever
met.' A good deal of assiduous attention had enabled Henry to win this
place in her affections. He had worked patiently and well before
actually putting his fortune to the test. 'I'd marry you tomorrow if things
were different. But I'm on the stage, and I mean to stick there. Most of
the girls want to get off it, but not me. And one thing I'll never do is
marry someone who isn't in the profession. My sister Genevieve did,
and look what happened to her. She married a commercial traveller,
and take it from me he travelled. She never saw him for more than five
minutes in the year, except when he was selling gent's hosiery in the
same town where she was doing her refined speciality, and then he'd
just wave his hand and whiz by, and start travelling again. My husband
has got to be close by, where I can see him. I'm sorry, Henry, but I
know I'm right.'
It seemed final, but Henry did not wholly despair. He was a resolute
young man. You have to be to wait outside restaurants in the rain for
any length of time.

He had an inspiration. He sought out a dramatic agent.
'I want to go on the stage, in musical comedy.'
'Let's see you dance.'
'I can't dance.'
'Sing,' said the agent. 'Stop singing,' added the agent, hastily.
'You go away and have a nice cup of hot tea,' said the agent, soothingly,
'and you'll be as right as anything in the morning.'
Henry went away.
A few days later, at the Bureau, his fellow-detective Simmonds hailed
him.
'Here, you! The boss wants you. Buck up!'
Mr Stafford was talking into the telephone. He replaced the receiver as
Henry entered.
'Oh, Rice, here's a woman wants her husband shadowed while he's on
the road. He's an actor. I'm sending you. Go to this address, and get
photographs and all particulars. You'll have to catch the eleven o'clock
train on Friday.'
'Yes, sir.'
'He's in "The Girl From Brighton" company. They open at Bristol.'
It sometimes seemed to Henry as if Fate did it on purpose. If the
commission had had to do with any other company, it would have been
well enough, for, professionally speaking, it was the most important
with which he had ever been entrusted. If he had never met Alice
Weston, and heard her views upon detective work, he would have been
pleased and flattered. Things being as they were, it was Henry's
considered opinion that Fate had slipped one over on him.

In the first place, what torture to be always near her, unable to reveal
himself; to watch her while she disported herself in the company of
other men. He would be disguised, and she would not recognize him;
but he would recognize her, and his sufferings would be dreadful.
In the second place, to have to do his creeping about and spying
practically in her presence--
Still, business was business.
At five minutes to eleven on the morning named he was at the station, a
false beard and spectacles shielding his identity from the public eye. If
you had asked him he would have said that he was a Scotch business
man. As a matter of fact, he looked far more like a motor-car coming
through a haystack.
The platform was crowded. Friends of the company had come to see
the company off. Henry looked on discreetly from behind a stout porter,
whose bulk formed a capital screen. In spite of himself, he was
impressed. The stage at close quarters always thrilled him. He
recognized celebrities. The fat man in the brown suit was Walter
Jelliffe, the comedian and star of the company. He stared keenly at him
through the spectacles. Others of the famous were scattered about. He
saw Alice. She was talking to a man with a face like a hatchet, and
smiling, too, as if she enjoyed it. Behind the matted foliage which he
had inflicted on his face, Henry's