Sylvia Scarlett

“ Sylvia said. "I'd forgotten my approaching triumph with the waiters; it's not likely that there'll be any audience when I appear. At nine P.M. sharp the program of the Petit Maxim opened with Miss Sylvia Scarlett's three songs. The gifted young lady—I've reached the age when it's a greater compliment to be called young than beautiful—played and sang with much verve. ”

“ Sylvia could have shaken herself for not giving a ready answer, but this new-comer seemed entitled to something better than rudeness, and her ready answers were usually rude.
“Now don’t go away,” the stranger begged. “It’s so refreshing to meet something alive in this wilderness of death. I’ve been inspecting a grave for a friend who is abroad, and I’m feeling thoroughly depressed. One can’t avoid reading epitaphs in a cemetery, can one? Or writing them?” he added, with a pleasant laugh. “I like yours much the best of any I’ve read so far. What a charming name. Sylvia Scarlett. ”

“ We learn that Miss Sylvia Scarlett, who recently registered such an emphatic success in her original entertainment at the Pierian Hall, will shortly wed Mr. Arthur Madden, whom many of our readers will remember for his rendering of “Somebody is sitting in the sunset” at the Frivolity Theater. ”

“ Sylvia smiled to see with what an ostentation of injured dignity she took the holy water and crossed herself before passing out through the baize door. The old woman's challenging humanity restored to Sylvia her sense of reality; emotion died away like a falling gale at eve, and she walked to the confessional imbued with an intention as practical as if she had been walking up-stairs to tidy her hair. The priest composed himself into a non-committal attitude and waited for Sylvia, who, now that she was kneeling, felt as if she were going to play an unrehearsed part. ”

“ Sylvia wished she had gone to Lillie Road with Arthur Madden when she had some money and could have paid Mrs. Meares what was owing to her. Now she had not a penny in the world; she had not even any clothes. The omnibus jogged on, and Sylvia’s thoughts jogged with it.
“I wonder if I shall always have adventures,” she said to herself, “but I wish I could sometimes have adventures that have nothing to do with love. It’s such a nuisance to be always running away for the same reason. It’s such a stupid reason. But it’s rather jolly to run away. It’s more fun than being like that girl in front.” ”

“ Sylvia pushed the old lady so hard that she sat down heavily in the gutter. Nobody else was in sight, and she ran as fast as she could until she found an omnibus, in which she traveled to Waterloo Bridge. There she bought fifty more chestnuts and walked slowly back to Kennington Park Road, vainly trying to find an explanation of the afternoon’s adventure.
Her father and Monkley were not back when Sylvia reached home, and she sat by the fire in the twilight, munching her chestnuts and pondering the whole extraordinary business. ”

“ Sylvia thought she could extend the pleasures of recognition beyond the mere mimicry of externals to a finer mimicry of essentials. She wanted an audience to clap not because she could bark sufficiently like a real dog to avoid being mistaken for a kangaroo, but because she could be sufficiently Mrs. Gainsborough not to be recognized as Mrs. Beardmore—yet without relying upon their respective sizes in corsets to mark the difference. She did not intend to use even make-up; the entertainment was always to be an improvisation. ”

“ At the end of six months Sylvia had evolved enough improvisations to make a start. She went to bed tired out with the last night’s work, and woke up in the morning with a sense of blankness at the realization of there being nothing to do that day. All the time she had been working she had been content to be alone; she had even looked forward to amusing herself in New York when her work was finished. Now the happy moment had come and she could feel nothing but this empty boredom. She wondered what Arthur was doing, and she reproached herself for the way in which she had discarded him. ”

“ He talked of his acres of roses, of the scent of them in the early morning, of the color of them at noon, and gave Sylvia a small bottle of attar that drenched with its stored-up sweetness even the smell of the massed soldiery. Sylvia, in her turn, talked to him of her life on the stage, described her success in London, and even confided in him her reason for abandoning it all.
"One has these impulses," he agreed. "But it is better not to give way to them. That is the advantage of my life as a rose-grower. There is always something to do. It is a tranquil and beautiful existence. ”

“ The negress who opened the door shook her head at the notion of letting Sylvia enter, but the waiting in the sun had irritated her and she pushed past and ran up-stairs. The negress had left the upper door open, and Sylvia was able to enter the flat. Lily was in bed, playing with her jewels as if they were toys.
“Sylvia!” she cried, in alarm. “He’ll kill you if he finds you here. He’s gone to fetch the priest. They’ll be back in a moment. Go away.”
Sylvia said she insisted on speaking to Camacho; she had some good advice to give him. ”

“ She seized the only weapon in reach—a hand-glass—and smashed it against his face. The suitor roared; the grand pimp squealed; Sylvia escaped to the stage, which was almost flush with the main dancing-hall. She forced her way through the orchestra, kicking the instruments right and left, and fell into the arms of a man more resplendent than the rest, but a rastaquouère of more Parisian cut, who in a dago-American accent promised to plug the first guy that tried to touch her.
Sylvia felt like Carmen on the arm of the Toreador when she and her protector walked out of the cabaret. ”

“ The dark, blue wavy line of Imbros and the dove-gray bulk of Lemnos were the only islands in sight, though, like lines of cloud upon the horizon, they could fancy the cliffs of Gallipoli and hear, so breathless was the calm, the faint grumbling of the guns.
"It was in Samothrace they set up the Winged Victory," Michael said. Then suddenly he turned to Sylvia and took her hand. "My dear, when I dragged you up the beach yesterday I thought you were dead, and I cursed myself for a coward because I had let you die without telling you. Sylvia, this adventure of ours, need it ever stop?" ”

“ My name isn't really Sylvia Scarlett, but Sylvia Snow; so what I suggest is that you shall go on calling yourself Queenie Walters on the stage, though when we try to get your passport you must be Queenie Snow. Trust me to get round the English authorities here, if it's necessary. We can always go back to England through Bulgaria and Greece, but we must save up enough money, and it 'll that might befall her more acutely than she would have feared for herself.
"Which must she be given first?" Sylvia asked herself. "A soul or a nationality? ”

“ Apart from these morbid fits, which were not very frequent, Sylvia enjoyed her stay at Markham Grange. In a way it encouraged the idea of marrying Philip; for the country life appealed to her not as to a cockney by the strangeness of its inhabitants and the mere quantity of grass in sight, but more deeply with those old ineffable longings of Hampstead.
At the end of the summer term the twins invited Sylvia to stay with them in Hertfordshire. She refused at first, because she felt that she could not bear the idea of being jealously disturbed by a second home. ”

“ Her eyes were ageless, limpid as a child's; and that her experience of evil should have left no sign of its habitation Sylvia was tempted to ascribe to the absence of a soul for evil to mar. The only indication that she was six years older than when they met in Granada was her added gracefulness of movement, the impulsive gracefulness of a gazelle rather than that serene gracefulness of a cat which had been Lily's beauty. ”

“ Want of food prevented Sylvia from sleeping, and in her overwrought spirit those good-night words of Queenie seemed to presage the collapse of everything.
"It shall not be. It shall not be," she vowed to herself. "I will not be defeated by squalid circumstances in this dreary little Rumanian town. If thirteen years ago I could sell my body to save my soul, now I can sell my body to save the soul of another. Surely that sacrifice will defeat futility. I had a presentiment of this situation when I was arguing with Philip that afternoon. ”

“ Sylvia surveyed life with a sense of pleasure that was nevertheless most unreasonably marred by a faint breath of restlessness, an almost imperceptible discontent. Life had always offered itself to her contemplation, whether of the past or of the future, as a set of vivid impressions that formed a crudely colored panorama of action without any emotional light and shade, the intervals between which, like the intervals of a theatrical performance, were only tolerable with plenty of chocolates to eat. ”

“ I may be fat, but I have got some feelings left. You’re a regular young spiteful. A porter wouldn’t treat luggage so rough. Give over, Sylvia.”
“What a fuss you make about nothing!” Sylvia said.
“Well, that ping-ping-pinging gets on my nerves. I feel as if I were coming out in black spots like a domino. Why don’t the young fellow give over? It’s a wonder his fingers aren’t worn out.”
The ringing continued until nearly midnight in bursts of half an hour at a stretch. Next morning Sylvia received a note from Fane in which he invited her to be sporting and let him see Lily. ”

“ Sylvia said to herself. “I expect I really am common, because apparently common people are always looking out for slights. I don’t look out for them now, but if I were to tell Phyllis all about myself, I’m sure I should begin to look out for them. No, I’ll just be friends with her up to a point, for so long as I stay at Hornton House; then we’ll separate forever. I’m really an absolute fraud. I’m just as much of a fraud now as when I was dressed up as a boy. I’m not real in this life. I haven’t been real since I came down to breakfast with Miss Ashley that first morning. ”

“ Sylvia all the time was wondering why the first man that had ever appealed to her in the least should be like the famous hero of literature that had always bored her. With an impulse to avenge Michael she asked the name of the man for whom Lily had betrayed him. ”

“ To hell with Gwendyr, thought Sylvia. Why shouldn’t their mother have been an actress?
“Oh, but they’re so conceited!” said Dorothy. “Enid Worsley never can pass a glass, and their frocks are most frightfully short. Don’t you remember when they danced at last breaking-up?”
“This is getting unbearable,” Sylvia thought.
“I think they’re rather dears,” Phyllis drawled. “They’re jolly pretty, anyway.”
Sylvia looked at Phyllis and decided that she was jolly pretty, too, with her golden hair and smocked linen frock of old rose; she would like to be friends with Phyllis. ”

“ Sylvia insisted.
“If I might venture—” the Dormouse began.
“One minute, please, Mr. Treherne,” interrupted the Mad Hatter. “What Mr. Fortescue wants, Miss Scarlett, is exaggeration—a leetle exaggeration. I believe that is what you want, Mr. Fortescue?”
“I don’t want a caricature,” snapped the March Hare. “The play is farcical enough as it is. What I want to impart is realism. I want Miss Scarlett to say the line as a French girl would say it.” ”

“ Sylvia began to speculate upon the causes that had led to this young Englishman’s being stranded in Sulphurville. There seemed no explanation, unless he were perhaps an actor who had been abandoned because he was too ill to travel with the company. At this idea she almost got out of bed to walk through the warm frog-haunted night to his rescue. She became sentimental about him in the dark. It seemed to her that nothing in the world was so pitiable as a sick artist ”

“ Sylvia finished her story by telling him of Queenie's escape with the juggler after the probable theft of Maud's passport.
"By Jove!" he exclaimed. "I'll bet they've gone to Salonika. We'll send a telegram to our people there and warn them to keep a lookout."
"What a paradox human sympathy is," Sylvia murmured. "Ever since I got to Nish it's been on my conscience that I didn't tell you about this girl before, and yet in Bucharest the notion of doing anything like that was positively disgusting to my sense of decency. And look at you! ”

“ It was pathetic to see the way in which the great, flaunting creature worshiped this plump bourgeoise with her metallic Levantine accent: anxious lest Odette's deference should seem too effusive, Sylvia found herself affecting an equally exaggerated demeanor to keep her friend in countenance, though when she looked at their hostess she nearly laughed aloud, so much did she resemble a little squat idol receiving the complimentary adoration of some splendid savage. ”

“ Sylvia left the Argentine worth nearly as much as Lily when she went away from Brazil, and as if her luck was bent upon an even longer run, she gained heavily at poker all the way back across the Atlantic.
When she reached Marseilles, Sylvia conceived a longing to meet Valentine again, and she telegraphed to Elène at Brussels for her address. It was with a quite exceptional anticipation that Sylvia asked the concierge if Madame Lataille was in. ”

“ Sylvia was so deeply engrossed in her task that she did not see that somebody was watching her until she had stepped back to admire her handiwork.
“You extraordinary girl!” said a pleasant voice.
Looking round, Sylvia saw a thin clean-shaven man of about thirty, who was leaning on a cane with an ivory crook and looking at her epitaph through gold-rimmed glasses. She blushed, to her annoyance, and snatched up the twig.
“What are you always running away from?” the stranger asked. “Or is that an indiscreet question?” ”