A Dangerous Woman

EAR Peter: I'm just off to seek fresh fields and pastures new. Italy is altogether too elegant for the likes of me, and if the spars of the old tub I've chartered for the purpose hold together, I'm proposing to spend the next few months cruising about in the South Seas. But before I shake off the dull dust of these civilised parts, here's just a word to the wise: Recall that blessed son and heir of your home to England, and do it quick. The climate here's a deal too heating to the blood young blood, anyway—and if you want to save his soul alive, you'll get him home.

To put it concisely, young Toby's in the toils of Dolores di Ravoglini, an extremely beautiful person who lives in a gorgeous villa on the Bay of Naples. An adventuress, of course, but unique in her own line. You don't see her anywhere in public. In fact, current gossip has it that she never goes outside the grounds of her villa. But her toils have caught, one at a time, more good fellows than one cares to think of, and some of them never get over it. Besides, her tastes, apparently, are catholic. I, personally, know of a rising young barrister who since his acquaintance with the fair Dolores, will rise no more, and equally well of a certain highly-placed personage who was only hurried home by his suite in time to save a European scandal. She's a dangerous woman, with this veil she has woven about herself of mystery, aloofness, wit and—the beauty; she'll swallow Toby at a gulp—make no more of him than a hors-d'oeuvre. So my advice to you, old son, is—get him home. You're asking for trouble if you leave him to his own devices out here any longer. Yours ever, Jim.”

The man to whom this letter was addressed read it through for the second time, and the clouded expression for which it was responsible deepened on his face. It was an arresting face, that of a man of forty-eight or thereabouts, finely chiselled and sensitive, with keen grey eyes and a clean-shaven mouth closing in a straight, stern line which was oddly contradicted by the sweet-tempered uplift at its corners.

“Dolores!” Peter Bettington repeated the name aloud. It was curious that from the shock of dismay with which the letter had smitten him the one salient point which emerged, with a surprising clarity, was the fact that the woman who was evidently in a fair way to spoil his son's life bore the same name as the woman who had played a part in the days of his own youth, “Nearly five and twenty years ago,” he mused.

A quarter of a century is a big slice out of life; but to Peter, looking back along the vista of the years, it did not seem as long as that since the time when he and that other Dolores—Dolores Daventry—had played at love together throughout the whole of a golden summer by the Cornish sea. He could see her now, with the eyes of his mind, as clearly as he had seen her then with the adoring eyes of ardent youth—a slip of a girl with night-black hair and cream-white skin, like some wonderful black and white etching, looking up at him with the dark, fringed pools of eyes which had been the gift of her Italian mother. Born of mixed English and Latin parentage, the South had predominated unmistakably in her temperament. She had all the fire and passion and allure of her maternal ancestry.

How he had worshipped her! Probably—almost certainly—he would have married her if Barbara Grey had not chanced to cross his path just then—Barbara, restfully simple and sincere, with serene blue eves and nondescript fair hair, and that frank, half-boyish camaraderie and charm which seems to be the peculiar heritage of the Englishwoman. The strange, indefinable call of race had to be reckoned with. Unconsciously Bettington reacted to it, and before long, with suddenly clarified vision, he was wondering how on earth the exotic, feverish beauty of Dolores could ever have appealed to him. The glamour and the spell were gone.

Subsequently, when his engagement to Barbara Grey was announced, Dolores had been one of the first to offer her felicitations—with an insouciant gaiety which had effectually disposed of the idea that her heart had been any more seriously involved than Peter's own, and during the years of perfect happiness which succeeded his marriage he had practically forgotten all about her. Once he remembered vaguely hearing that she had married, and later still came the news that she had divorced her husband, neither of which facts had seemed to be even remotely connected with his own life.

And now this gravely warning letter from Jim Burnaby, with its mention of the name Dolores, had suddenly reminded him of things which had long faded from his memory. It was only a coincidence, of course, the similarity of name. But for a moment it brought the past vividly before him. He could see again the gaunt, stark cliffs of Cornwall, with the dazzling blue sea breaking in a smother of flying  spume against their rugged sides, hear again the roar that did not drown the sweet voice and low laughter at his side  he could recapture the clean, sharp tang of brine in the air as  it mingled with the faint, elusive scent of stephanotis which had been wont to signify for him the presence of Dolores.

He brushed his hand across his eyes, deliberately dismissing the recollections which had suddenly risen up from the past to confront him. The present demanded his attention with an urgency which was overwhelming. Jim Burnaby was no alarmist. On the contrary he was about as tolerant and level-headed a man as you could find, and Peter knew suddenly that if Burnaby considered matters serious enough to counsel Toby's immediate recall from Italy the position of affairs must be critical.

Suddenly Peter came to a decision. Toby's welfare was the one thing that mattered to him. He was taking no risks. He would go to Italy himself instead of wiring the boy to return home—a mandate which might, or might not, be obeyed!

HE blow had fallen at last, after a long, fruitless discussion between father and son in the hotel bedroom overlooking the bay. Toby had been first distant, with a reticence Peter tried in vain to combat, then irritable, like a cornered animal. Finally with a sort of desperate pride and determination, he had flung down the gauntlet.

“I can't go home with you. I've asked her to marry me, and she's consented.”

“You think you're in love with her, I suppose?” Peter said at last.

“I don't think. I know,” Toby answered shortly.

Peter nodded quietly, then said deliberately: “You can't marry her, Toby.”

“I can, and I will!” returned Toby quickly. “Oh, I know what you think—that I'm too good for her, too young—all that hard-as-nails Puritanical rubbish!”

“No!” interrupted Peter, sharply. “You're wrong. What I'm thinking”—his eyes, fixed on Toby's face, narrowed suddenly—“is that Dolores di Ravoglini is not a fit woman to put in your mother's place. You think that, too, don't you?”

The boy's face whitened under the tan.

“That's not fair,” he cried in a stifled voice.

Toby had risen. He stood still, clenching and unclenching his hands. Then: “I'm going to marry her,” he said jerkily. “I can't throw her over. You would have a man treat a woman like that?—and such a woman!—she is wonderful—she's been wonderful to me. You have never seen her. You don't know—”

He turned away abruptly and flung out of the room.

Peter saw trouble ahead. The boy's attitude, his very straightness, would add a hundredfold to the difficulties of the task before him. And yet—Peter admitted it with a brief, whimsical smile—he would not have had him one whit less scrupulous.

An hour later found Bettington walking up the broad drive that led to Villa Violetta. It was the hottest part of the afternoon, and he walked slowly. He had chosen this time so that he should be certain of finding Dolores di Ravoglini at home.

The villa gardens were ablaze with flowers—the mingled perfume of them came borne to him on the drowsy, sun-warmed air. Presently he reached the villa itself, its white stucco almost hidden beneath a cloud of blossom. A deep silence pervaded the whole place, and the reverberation of the bell, as he pulled the old-fashioned handle, seemed to break through the stillness with a curious suggestion of violence.

An old Italian woman, her dark eyes bright and glancing like a robin's, peered at him scrutinisingly. Could he see the signora? She shook her head doubtfully. Peter smiled at her—that lovable, half whimsical smile of his which so few women could resist—and the old serving woman melted. Yes, it was true—the signora had finished her siesta. Perhaps she would receive the signoré inglese. The name? A swift expression of surprise crossed her face as Peter gave his name.

“I will go and see,” she said harshly; and abruptly closed the door in his face.

Presently the door reopened, and she beckoned him to enter. The Signora di Ravoglini would see him. He followed her into a cool, wide room, with the same chequered flooring, and enfolded in the semi-darkness of windows closely shuttered to keep out the heat.

For a moment, accustomed to the sunlit glare outside, Peter could distinguish but little. Then, his eyes adapting themselves to the half-light he discerned an immense divan at the further end of the room, heaped with rich-hued cushions, from which a woman had just risen and now stood awaiting him. As he approached she said something in rapid Italian to the old serving woman, who nodded, and, proceeding to one of the windows, opened the shutters, letting in a stream of light before she quitted the room.

The light fell full on the figure of the woman who had risen, and Peter, in the act of advancing towards her, halted suddenly. “Dolores!”

The name escaped him involuntarily. Older, of course, but with the same slender, quick grace, the same night-black hair and amazing beauty, Dolores di Ravoglini—the Dolores he had known five and twenty years ago! She regarded him through half-closed eyes.

“Yes. Didn't you guess?” I thought you must have guessed, Peter,” she went on rallyingly, “and came to see what I was like now.”

She was sure of herself, sure of her undimmed beauty.

“I can't answer that now,” he replied gravely. “I haven't found out yet—what you are like—now.”

“What do you mean?” she asked sharply. She sank back on the divan and gestured toward a chair.

“I mean that I don't know yet whether you are going to be generous—and fair, or whether—”

“Ah, I understand, my friend. Toby told you that I am to be his wife.”

“He's told me that he has asked you to be his wife,” corrected Peter quietly.

“And I have accepted his offer. Oh, I shall make him happy. Do not worry yourself on that score, amico mio.”

“For a year—two years, perhaps,” admitted Peter. “After that, he'll begin to realize things. He won't thank you then for spoiling his life.”

“I didn't thank you for spoiling—mine.”

There was a new note in her voice, something poignant and anguished. He started up, incredulous, conscious of a great and terrible fear.

“Dolores! Do you know what you are saying? Did you mean that?”

She lowered her lids for an instant, and when she looked at him again the expression in her eyes was merely derisive.

“Ah! I see you are just as conceited as most other men, amico, only too ready to believe that some poor woman has been breaking her heart for you all these years! But you need not reproach yourself on my account. I have had much of romance since that summer in Cornwall.”

She laughed amusedly, a little ripple of sound that lightly ridiculed his sudden uprush of horrified self-reproach.

“I've no doubt you have,” he responded savagely. “But I haven't any intention of letting you add Toby to the number. I came to ask you to release him.”

“Has he asked for it?” quietly.

“No. He considers himself bound.”

“He is more honourable than his father was,” she said tauntingly.

“An engagement can be broken,” he hazarded.

Her eyes flashed dangerously.

“There are men who do not break engagements, and as for Dolores di Ravoglini—men do not desire to play her false.”

There was mockery in the dark eyes—“If Toby himself asks me to release him, I will—I promise. But on no other condition.”

She had named the one contingency which could never arise. If Toby's freedom depended on his asking for it himself, he would never get it.

There was nothing for it but to accept defeat. Peter left the villa, walking very slowly, with bent head.

Later that evening, passing through the rooms of the English club, he chanced to overhear a remark which suggested an idea to him. The name of Dolores di Ravoglini came from a couple of men gossiping together.

“She's not to be seen nowadays, least of all by the likes of me,” said one of them laughing cynically. “She's out for the propriety stakes—marriage and a good position. She's nabbed young Bettington.”

“Why, he's only a youngster!” protested the other.

“True. But he or any other man would serve, provided he can give her what she wants.”

“Any other man!” The words were like a searchlight flashed across the dark confusion of Peter's troubled thoughts, and in an instant he realized that here was the one possible way by which Toby could be saved. He wondered curiously why this solution of the problem had never occurred to him. It was a terrible way out, involving the complete surrender of his own life. But it meant the saving of Toby's.

He stated his proposition very simply to Dolores.

“It would effectually cure Toby of his infatuation,” he added, “and his honour would be unhurt. I don't want to hurt that”—swiftly. “It must be you who breaks off the engagement.”

“It would certainly cure him,” admitted Dolores drily. “You are quite ready to marry me, Peter?”

“I am ready,” he answered steadily.

“You don't like me,” she flashed at him suddenly, her eyes on fire.

The grave, grey eyes met hers without flinching.

“No,” he said, “I don't like you.”

“I'm afraid you'd make a poor sort of husband,” she remarked uncertainly. “I'm not quite sure that the prospect is altogether attractive.”

A sudden fear caught Peter in its grip. He had so nearly won, so nearly carried Toby into safety.

“I'll be any sort of husband you wish,” he said roughly. “You shall have the rest of my life to do as you like with.”

“It's a handsome offer,” she commented, with a slight shrug of supple shoulders.

“It is everything I have to give”—quietly.

For a moment she was silent, her head bent, her nervous, quick fingers trifling with the pearls that lay in a rope of white luster along her neck, and curled in her lap. Peter waited in tense anxiety. At last she lifted her eyes.

“I want—love.” She spoke very low. “Have you forgotten how to love Peter?”

He stooped his head and his lips met hers. With closed eyes, caught breath, she trembled a moment in his arms.

“Well?” he queried. “Have you decided? Will you marry me?”

“I'll tell you in three days' time, I must—I must have a little while to think. But come and see me. We must get to know each other, learn each other all over again, Peter.”

He acquiesced. There was no other course open to him. For two days he came and went at the villa, schooling himself to pay the cost of Toby's freedom.

The second evening, as he was leaving her, she leaned towards him in all the soft abandonment of surrender.

“I think I have decided, Peter,” she said, a little break in her voice: “Tomorrow—tomorrow I will give you—Everything I have to give.”

She used his own words.

He went out into the night with the set mouth of a man who has won, but in the winning lost all.

It was not until the following evening that he turned his steps towards the villa. Giulietta, Dolores' old Italian servant, had telephoned him earlier in the day that the signora was lying down with a bad headache, but that she would expect him to dinner as usual. Accordingly, at eight o'clock, he made his way very slowly up the flowered drive to the door of the villa. Contrary to custom, it stood open. Fragments of paper, an oddment or two of string, and a few scraps of straw littered the doorstep untidily. An atmosphere of silence pervaded the place. No one answered the bell and, after a momentary hesitation, Peter crossed the threshold and entered the silent house.

He passed through the paved hall, through the room where the fountain played and into a smaller room beyond. Each was empty, nor were there any of the wonted signs of habitation. An air of neatness prevailed as though the inhabitants of the house had gone away, leaving everything in order for the next tenant.

“Dolores! Giulietta!”

Instinctively Peter called aloud, but there came no reply.

He strode hastily out on to the verandah. There on the table lay a square, white envelope, addressed to him in Dolores' careless handwriting.

A muttered curse escaped him. So she had fooled him after all! With a hand that shook a little he tore open the letter, dreading to read the confirmation of his fear.

“Peter”—the letter ran—“when you get this I shall have gone away—left Naples. Tell Toby I was everything he did not believe me to be. That will cure him, my friend. It will hurt him a little at first, but he is young, and he will forget.

“It was good of you to offer yourself as a substitute, Peter, rather brave and splendid of you, all things considered. But I can't take what you offer, because you happen to be the one man in the world I've ever loved, or ever shall love. I kept you near me these last two days, though I could see you hated it. But now that you know everything, I don't think you'll grudge them to me. They are the only good things life has ever given me.

Dolores.”

Alone on the verandah, with the warm night scents around him, and the light of the pale moon threading the falling dusk, Peter bared his head in salutation.

“Rather brave and splendid of you, Dolores, all things considered,” he said.

His voice was queerly uneven.