The Unseen Bridegroom | Page 6

will play anything better than she plays the 'Cricket.' She is Fanchon
herself--saucy, daring, generous, irresistible Fanchon! And she is
beautiful as the angels above."
The play went on; Fanchon danced, and sobbed, and sung, and wept,
and was mischievous as a scratching kitten, and gentle as a turtle-dove;
took all the hearts by storm, and was triumphantly reunited to her lover
at last.
I don't know how many young men in that audience were left without
an atom of heart, how many would have given their two ears to be in
handsome Landry Barbeaud's boots.
The roof nearly rose with the thunders of applause when the curtain fell,
and Carl Walraven got up with the rest, his head whirling, his brain
dizzy.

"Good Heaven!" he thought, stumbling along the dark, chilly streets to
his hotel, "what a perfectly dazzling little witch she is! Was there ever
such another sparkling, bewildering little fairy in the world before?"
Mr. Walraven spent the night in a fever of impatience. He was one of
those men who, when they set their hearts on anything, find no peace,
no rest, until they obtain it. He had come here partly through curiosity,
partly because he dare not refuse Miriam; he had seen Mary Dane, and
lo! at first sight he was dazzled and bewitched.
Next morning, at breakfast, Mr. Walraven obtained all the information
he desired concerning Miss Mollie Dane. Some half dozen of the actors
were stopping at the hotel, and proved very willing, under the influence
of brandy and water, to give the free-handed stranger Miss Dane's
biography as far as they knew it.
She was just as charming off the stage as on; just as pretty, just as
saucy, just as captivating. She was wild and full of tricks as an
unbroken colt; but she was a thoroughly good girl, for all that, lavish of
her money to all who needed, and snubbing lovers incontinently. She
was stopping up the street at another hotel, and she would in all
probability be easily accessible about noon.
The seedy, strolling players drank their diluted brandy, smoked their
cigars, and told Mr. Walraven all this. They rather laughed at the New
York millionaire when he was out of sight. He had fallen in love with
pretty, blue-eyed Mollie, no doubt, and that was a very stale story with
the shabby players.
Noon came, and, speckless and respectable to the last degree, Mr.
Walraven presented himself at the other hotel, and sent up his card with
a waiter to Miss Dane.
The waiter ushered him into the hotel parlor, cold and prim as it is in
the nature of hotel parlors to be. Mr. Walraven sat down and stared
vaguely at the papered walls, rather at a loss as to what he should say to
this piquant Mollie, and wondering how he would feel if she laughed at
him.

"And she will laugh," he thought, with a mental groan; "she's the sort of
girl that laughs at everything. And she may refuse, too; there is no
making sure of a woman; and then what will Miriam say?"
He paused with a gasp. There was a quick patter of light feet down the
stairs, the last two cleared with a jump, a swish of silken skirts, a little
gush of perfume, and then, bright as a flash of light, blue-eyed Mollie
stood before him. She held his card in her fingers, and all the yellow
hair fell over her plump shoulders, like amber sunshine over snow.
"Mr. Carl Walraven?" Miss Dane said, with a smile and a graceful little
bow.
Mr. Carl Walraven rose up and returned that pretty courtesy with a
salute stiff and constrained.
"Yes, Miss Dane."
"Pray resume your seat, Mr. Walraven," with an airy wave of a little
white hand. "To what do I owe this visit?"
She fluttered into a big black arm-chair as she spoke, folded the little
white hands, and glanced across with brightly expectant eyes.
"You must think this call, from an utter stranger, rather singular, Miss
Dane," Mr. Walraven began, considerably at a loss.
Miss Dane laughed.
"Oh, dear, no! not at all--the sort of thing I am used to, I assure you!
May I ask its purport?"
"Miss Dane, you must pardon me," said Mr. Walraven, plunging
desperately head first into his mission, "but I saw you play last night,
and I have--yes, I have taken a violent fancy to you."
Miss Mollie Dane never flinched. The wicked sparkle in the dancing
eyes grew a trifle wickeder, perhaps, but that was all.

"Yes," she said, composedly; "go on."
"You take it very coolly," remarked the gentleman, rather taken aback
himself. "You don't appear the least surprised."
"Of course not! I told you I was used to it. Never knew a