Crug--who, to quote Waller, had drifted into a state of mind bordering on lunacy--was so completely taken off his feet that he again led her ladyship by her finger-tips to the piano, and, with his hand on his heart, and his eyes upraised, begged her to sing for him some of the songs of her native land and in the tongue of her own people; the Countess complying so graciously and singing with such consummate taste and skill, throwing her soul into every line, that the men soon broke out in rounds of applause, crowding about her with the eagerness of bees around a hive--all except Waller and Oliver, who sat apart, quietly watching her out of the corners of their eyes.
The portrait was forgotten now; so were the sketches and tiles, and the work of the evening. So was everything else but the woman who dominated the room. She kept her seat on the piano-stool, the centre of the group, as a queen of the ballet sits on a painted throne, flashing her eyes from one to the other, wheeling about to dash off an air from some unknown opera--unknown to those who listened--laying her lighted cigarette on the music-rack as she played, and whirling back again to tell some anecdote of the composer who wrote it, or some incident connected with its production in Vienna or Warsaw or St. Petersburg--the club echoing her every whim.
It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that the staid and sober-minded Stone Mugs, under these conditions, completely lost their heads, and that when Oliver picked up an empty beer-mug, the symbol of the club used in all ceremonies, and began filling it with the names of the members which he had written on slips of paper, preparatory to the drawing of the lottery for the picture which he had just finished--every meeting-night a lottery was drawn, the lucky winner possessing the picture of the evening--Crug and Munson should have simultaneously sprung to their feet, and, waving their hands over their heads, have proposed, in one and the same breath, that "Our distinguished visitor" should have the privilege of adding her own name to those in Oliver's mug--the picture to be her own individual property should her patronymic be the first to be drawn from its open mouth.
Waller started to his feet to object, and the words of protest were half out of his mouth when Oliver stopped him. A woman was always a woman to Oliver, no matter what her past or present station in life might be. It was her *** that kept him loyal when any discourtesy was involved.
"Keep still, old man," he whispered. "They've gone crazy, but we can't help it. Get on your feet and vote."
When the sound of the "ayes" adopting Crug and Munson's motion had died away, Oliver inscribed her initials upon a small piece of paper, dropped it in the mug, held it high above the lady's head, and asked her to reach up her dainty fingers and pick out the name of the lucky possessor of "The Woman in Black," as the picture had now been christened. The white arm went up, the jewelled fingers felt about nervously among the little ballots, and then the Countess held up a twisted bit of paper.
A burst of applause filled the room. The scrap of paper bore the initials of the Countess! "The Woman in Black" was her property.
But the most extraordinary part by far of the evening's performance was still to come.
When the hour of midnight had arrived--the hour of dispersal, a rule rarely broken--the Countess called to Bianchi and directed him to go out into the hall and bring in her long black stockings and stout shoes, which she had taken off outside Fred's door, and which she had left hanging on a nail.
I can see her now--for I, too, was leaning over the same table, Oliver beside me, watching this most extraordinary woman of another world, a woman who had been the idol of almost every capital in Europe, and whom I knew (although Oliver did not) had been quietly conducted out of some of them between dark and daylight--I can see her now, I say, sitting on the piano-stool, facing the group, the long, black silk stockings that Bianchi had brought her in her hands.
I remember just the way in which, after loosening her dainty, red-heeled slippers, she swept aside her skirts, unfastened her garters, and, with the same unconsciousness and ease with which she would have slipped a pair of rubbers over a pair of shoes, drew the long black stockings over her flesh-colored ones, refastening the garters again, talking all the time, first to one and then the other; pausing only to accentuate some sentence with a wave of her shoe or stocking or cigarette, as the action suited the words.
That the group about her was composed solely of men made not the slightest difference. She was only trying to save those precious, flesh-colored silk stockings that concealed her white skin from the slush and snow of the streets. As to turning her back to her hosts during this little change of toilet--that was the last thing that entered her head. She would as soon have stepped into a closet to put on her gloves.
And then again, why should she be ashamed of her ankles and her well-turned instep and dainty toes, as compact in their silk covering as peas in a pod! She might have been, perhaps, in some one of the satin-lined drawing-rooms around Madison Square or Irving Place, but not here, breathing the blue smoke of a dozen pipes and among her own kind--the kind she had known and loved and charmed all her life.
After all it was but a question of economy. Broadway was a slough of mud and slush, and neither she nor Bianchi had the price of a carriage to spare.
Oliver watched her until the whole comedy was complete; then, picking up his wet sketch and handing it with the greatest care to Bianchi, who was to conduct her ladyship to her lodgings, he placed the long black cloak with the fur-trimming and watermelon-colored silk lining about her beautiful, bare shoulders, and, with the whole club following and waving their hands good-night, our young gentleman bowed her out and downstairs with all the deference and respect he would have shown the highest lady in the land.
