The Price of a Dinner

by J. J. Bell

 

THE PRICE OF
A DINNER

By J. J. BELL

ILLUSTRATED BY E. G. OAKDALE

THE lounge of the Planet Hotel was deserted. The guests, resident and casual, had gone to dine—a listener might have caught the hum of humanity and the sigh of music escaping from the great restaurant—yes, all had gone save a drowsy old gentleman, an elderly couple who talked furtively, uneasy in their rich and palmy surroundings, and, at the other end of the place, a young man in correct evening-dress with a good-looking but haggard countenance.

Alan Moore raised his heavy eyes and took a lingering survey of the lounge. A reader of faces might have found despair, and possibly shame, in Alan's. Well, he was famishing, and he had one sixpence in the pocket of his immaculate vest, which coin—contemptible gratuity in these days—would be required when he wanted his coat and hat from the cloakroom.

Not so long ago, and not so seldom, Alan Moore had entertained friends at the Planet. To-night, an hour past, he had entered the lounge—not a little diffidently—hoping, as he put it brutally to himself, to sponge an invitation from some good-natured acquaintance. Do not judge him too hardly. For six months he had been dining on the husks, and to-night even the husks were not available. Besides, he was already being punished, for, as it happened, not one familiar face had he found in the gay crowd.

Now he reviled himself for a despicable ass. With the sixpence he could have made certain of the husks. Yet what a day it had been, waiting in the chilly, unprovisioned studio since eight o'clock for the cheque promised by the wealthy patron, which cheque the postman had never brought! Until the last delivery was past, he had hoped against hope, figuring to himself a meal of delicate food, finely cooked, exquisitely served.

A sensation of faintness came upon him; he lay back wearily and closed his eyes till the weakness passed. Very gradually his mind comprehended what his reopened eyes were staring at. On a deep chair not two yards distant was a lady's handbag, a costly thing in the latest fashion; it rested closely against the chair's arm and, being similarly coloured, might easily have escaped casual notice.

The meaning of his interest in the bag dawned on Alan Moore, and he withdrew his gaze, only, however, to let it return. This happened several times.

He made up his mind to go; he got up.… There was still no one in the lounge saving the slumberer and elderly couple, and they were almost hidden by palms. Alan's tongue wandered over his dry lips. He would have given much for a cigarette. Then everything about him seemed to slacken.

He sat down again—in the chair containing the bag. Never boy, his hand blindly seeking the touch of his first love, groped more fearfully than did Alan. Then, somehow, the bag was open, and his face was scarlet. And then his face was pale, and his hand was within the bag. His fingers felt a foolish little hanky, and a faint fragrance came up to his nostrils; they encountered the coolness of a bunch of violets, but no purse. They roved round the sides, touched one or two vanities, passed on and stopped, trembling, at the unmistakable feel of Bank of England paper.

With infinite caution he drew it from the pocket and unfolded it, while to his overstrained senses it seemed positively to crackle. There were two notes, and after an age he got them separated. One he refolded and replaced in its pocket; the other—well, at last it was in his vest, and he was wiping his pale, moist face.

An evening journal lay on the table near his hand. He tore a short strip from its margin, and on it, with an old dance programme pencil, wrote "IOU five pounds," and added his name and address. He folded and dropped in the paper, and closed the bag. He rose, swayed a little, steadied himself, and passed out of the lounge in the direction of the cloakroom.

And then some crazy impulse sent him right about and into the restaurant. He had only borrowed the money! People were beginning to leave for the theatres. The head waiter, recognising him, got him a small table to himself. He was faint, but no longer hungry. From sheer lack of mental energy he ordered the table d'hôte and a pint of white wine, the name of which seemed to have drifted into his mind. Still, after the soup, he began to eat with something approaching relish.

A very young man being entertained by his sister, a fair, pretty girl, on the occasion of his birthday, stared across the room.

"Yonder is Alan Moore, the artist—did the green and grey thing you got stuck on in the Savile Galleries to-day."

"Do you know him, Ronnie?" the girl asked, with some interest.

"I know about him," answered the youth, "and I must say I'm surprised to see him in a place like this."

"Why?"

"Everybody knows he was broke to the world a few months ago. Silly ass backed bills for a pal and lost every stiver he had—thousands, I believe."

"Oh, poor man!"

"If a chap plays that sort of mug's game, he deserves to suffer," observed Ronnie, with all the virtuous superiority of youth. "Wonder where he's got the money now?"

"Sold a picture, I should think."

"Alan Moore's pictures don't sell—at least, they didn't. Not a bad-looking chap, all the same."

"He looks as if he had been ill," she remarked, and then her brother directed her attention to a fragile-looking woman, with sturdy ankles, who wrote what he termed "mystic poetry—awful rot."

Alan Moore had eaten his entrée and was about to refill his glass, when it came upon him, simply, inexorably, that he could remain in the restaurant no longer. He was a thief, after all! Possibly it was merely the indirect result of the food and slight stimulant.

In sheer need of tobacco, he ordered cigarettes, lit one at the match proffered by the waiter, and asked for his bill. Presently it lay on a plate in front of him. He took the folded note from his vest and, as though it burned him, dropped it on the bill. The waiter retired a few steps with the plate, turned and came back, setting it down again with the note unfolded. He offered a pencil, saying respectfully—

"Might I trouble m'sieu to write his name and address?"

Alan gave a little start, but took the pencil and made to turn over the note. For the next ten seconds he sat in darkness, the blood buzzing in his ears.

A hundred-pound note in the Planet restaurant is not a daily happening; on the other hand, it is not a startling event.

"How would m'sieu like the change?" the waiter softly inquired, and Alan's wits began to come together again.

"Oh, fives or tens," he managed to reply, and wrote his name and address. It did not occur to him to give false ones.

He poured out wine, and forgot to drink it.

"Ripping dinner! Thousand thanks, Anna, old girl!" Ronnie was saying to his sister.

"Well, you aren't twenty every day, Ronnie," she returned kindly, "and there's only the two of us, you know. Goodness, where's my bag?"

"You must have left it in the lounge. I'll fetch it."

During his absence Miss Anna Delmar looked perturbed, but his speedy return with her property brought a smile of relief as well as of thanks.

"Sit down, Ronnie; you haven't got your present yet." She opened the bag and passed him a little folded paper with the pleasantest feel in the world.

"Oh, I say," he said in a hushed voice, "a cool hundred!"

Anna's grey eyes stared, her mouth opened, her hand went out and came back. It was quite clear to her that Ronnie held but one note. Yet, if she said a word, the excitable boy would make such a fuss—a scene even. Besides, it would spoil his birthday pleasure.

"Well, you are a sister!" he went on. "I don't wonder—never did, of course—at old Nunky Peter leaving you all his stuff."

Anna tried to smile, while she surreptitiously felt about in her bag, though she knew she had folded the two notes together just as she received them at the bank. She took out hanky and bunch of violets, saw a torn scrap of paper on the latter, and flicked it impatiently aside. It fluttered beneath the table, and in due season was swept away by the cleaners.

Ronnie was too much taken up with his prize to be otherwise observant. This gave her time to recover from her blank dismay; she was a young woman who thought quickly. And, fortunately, she could always manage Ronnie.

"Old boy," she said, rising, still a little pale, "I'm going to leave you to pay the bill, and then we'll meet in the lounge and have coffee. By the way, let me have some change—just a little."

"Right O," said Ronnie, who was carrying her purse for the evening. "Wish I'd been staying in Town another night. I'd give you a proper blow-out, not but what this would be hard to beat. Still, something a little more Bohemian, you know—eh?"

Anna laughed and left him. At the door she said to the head waiter: "I want to see the manager, please—in private. Oh, no, it isn't a complaint!"—and slipped something into the ready palm.

Presently she was closeted with the manager and the chief cashier, whom he had summoned.

"Madame can, of course, identify her note—Madame has the number," said the manager with stiff suavity.

Anna's frown was for herself. "No, I haven't," she answered. "I got the note from my bank this afternoon; I expect the banker will be able to tell me the number in the morning."

"Without a doubt."

"I am sorry to have troubled you hastily."

"Madame did perfectly right to report her loss at the earliest moment. We shall keep our eyes open. It might be well to inform the police, even though we have not yet the number. At the same time"—the manager smiled deprecatingly—"one hopes that Madame will be sympathising enough to understand that it is unpleasant for the hotel as well as for——"

"Oh, yes, I see that, and the last thing I want is publicity. I was careless, and perhaps I deserve to lose. Still——"

"Madame may rest assured that we shall do all we can," said the manager less stiffly, and recorded Anna in his mind as the first reasonable woman who had ever lodged a complaint in that office, and he had been in charge for twenty years.

"Thank you," said Anna. "You shall have the number in the morning. Please say nothing to the police in the meantime."

The manager bowed and laid his hand on the door.

"Oh, one moment," said Anna. "There's one little thing I can tell you about the note. It was not quite new, and in one of the corners—the left, I think—there was a little oblong stamped in green, with U. B. L. inside."

At that the silent cashier gave an involuntary jerk, and the manager looked at him. Now, had Anna been less "reasonable," it is possible that the manager would have been more discreet. He held out his hand, and the cashier gave him a hundred-pound note.

"It is, of course, impossible," said the manager, whose private business motto was "You never can tell," and paused for a moment, regarding the paper. "This note was paid in a few minutes ago by a customer who is known to us. It can be only a coincidence that it bears a stamp similar to the one Madame has described. The Union Bank is a large concern. Still, Madame is entitled to examine it. After all, all depends on the number."

Anna scarcely heard the last sentence. She had turned the note over. A sense of suffocation was upon her, a sickness of heart. She became conscious that the men were watching her; she knew she was pale. She knew also that she must lie, and lie quickly. She nerved herself.

"No," she said, returning the note, and raised her head. "It is just a coincidence, as you say. For a moment the green stamp—— But the note I have lost was a little shabbier than this one." She smiled frankly. "Thank you for your courtesy." She bowed and went out.

Manager and cashier eyed each other.

As she was making her way to the lounge, Alan Moore came from the restaurant, looking neither to right nor left. At that moment Anna's predominant feelings were those of anger and disgust, but at the sight of the white, set face—a mask of despair it seemed to her—though the anger remained, the disgust was overborne by a sudden pity. "How can he be a mean thief—that nice-looking boy?" Yet she was certain that the note was hers; she had memorised the last three figures of its number, and could not hope that the bank would give her different figures in the morning.

She passed on to join her brother in the lounge, and the thief went his way.

He reached his studio like a man at the last gasp. On the floor lay a letter which had not come through the post. It contained a cheque for forty guineas, and the writer, among other pleasant things, wrote—

"I want more of your work, and I want my friends to know it. If Saturday afternoon will suit you, I shall bring several people—all potential purchasers—to your studio."

Alan Moore hid his face. "How could I have done it?"

In the morning the manager of the Planet, somewhat to his surprise, received a letter giving a number and requesting that the police should not be brought in. The number had been inspired by a taxi-cab.

In his studio, after a hasty visit to the bank, Alan awaited he knew not what. A detective, a lawyer, an irate gentleman, an hysterical bejewelled woman—he had visions of these and many others. And he did not very much care which came to his door. The long night of shameful reflection had left him apathetic.

The morning passed without a knock. He had no inclination for food. It was late in the afternoon when, roused from a short doze, he opened his door.

In the dusk stood a girl.

"You are Mr. Moore, I think," she said, and ere he could reply: "I have seen your picture in the Savile Galleries, and should like to buy it, if it is for sale."

He came to himself. "Would you care to come in?" he said doubtfully.

"Thank you—for a moment."

He closed the door, gave her a chair, switched on the light—and recognised the handbag.

For a space he stood there, a stricken man. She saw his agony.

"Oh, please!" she whispered, tears springing.

The power of action, but not of speech, returned. He went to a bureau, came back and, downcast, presented a hundred-pound note.

She took it, checked an exclamation, and said: "I did not come just for—for this. At first I had no thought of coming at all; but afterwards.…" With a little helpless gesture she paused. Then: "You see, I saw you last night——"

He winced.

"—in the restaurant," she went on quickly. "My brother, though he does not know you, told me who you were. We had been looking at your picture that very afternoon." Again she halted.

"Ah," he said hoarsely, bitterly, "you did not take me then for a——"

"Nor now," she said quietly, with sudden courage, "or I should not be here."

"You are very merciful. My IOU was an impudence, though it would show you that I had not thought to take more than five pounds."

"Your IOU!" she cried, with a puzzled frown.

"On a scrap of newspaper—there was nothing else at hand."

"Oh, dear! I threw it aside when I was hunting for the note. Your IOU! Why, then, Mr. Moore.…" The fair face lightened with relief.

"No, no!" he said wearily. "I stole your money, and nothing can alter that. I simply picked your——"

"Oh, please!"

"And now——" He stopped short. "But—but how did you find me out?"

It was Anna's turn to wince, but she answered in a breath: "I went to the manager—he showed me the note—I said it wasn't mine——"

He was holding his hand to his heart as though it hurt him. "But why did you spare me? Had it been anyone but you, what would have been the result for me? Gaol almost for certain—disgrace without question!"

She shivered slightly. "Mr. Moore," she said, after a moment, "I have no one in the world but my brother Ronnie. He is only twenty, and in all but years ages younger than I. All last night I kept thinking how dreadful it would be if some day he lost everything through helping a friend—you see, I know that much—and had to suffer as you must have suffered. Last night, in the restaurant, I thought you looked as if you had been very ill. Forgive me, please, but were you starv—hungry? Never mind! I was once hungry myself and—and pretty desperate, too, in the days before my uncle came home from abroad. Then, in the morning, I wondered if I might not come to see you; but I hadn't the courage. Yet all day the thought stayed, and at last I had to come. Of course I know that it's rather unusual," Anna concluded a little primly, without, perhaps, having recognised that it is the rather unusual things that make life tolerable.

Alan said nothing; he no longer dared to glance at her. The girl's simple tenderness made him want to throw himself at her feet.

For a little while silence, and then she resumed, with more awkwardness than before in voice and manner—

"And so I came—oh, please, don't be offended!—to see if I could be of any help. I'm awfully fond of pictures, you know, and I've hardly any in my flat, and—and——"

"Don't, for Heaven's sake!" he said under his breath; and, hoarsely: "Will you read this? I found it when I got back last night, with your ninety-nine pounds in my pocket." He gave her the letter, and moved into the shadow, where he seated himself, in trembling weakness, at the table.

There was stillness till, with a little exclamation of unaffected delight, she cried—

"Oh, how lovely!"

It was too much for Alan. He bowed himself upon the table and gave way. She was shy concern and compunction. She had seen that the man was worn out, and now she guessed something else.

"Mr. Moore," she said almost sternly, "have you had any lunch? Will you, please, get something to eat at once? But be sure to eat it slowly."

Possibly the practical nature of her remarks helped Alan to pull himself together. He got up shamefaced, yet with something of the hopelessness fallen from him.

"I can never thank you," he stammered.

And all at once Anna became timid. "I think I must be going," she said.

"May I not know your name?" he ventured.

She told him, moving to the door. There she held out her hand, and the action was shy but quite natural.

"Oh, God bless you," he said thickly "you're perfectly wonderful! And I suppose I shall never see you again."

She did not answer, and, like a man in a trance, he watched her go down the stair, take the turn, and pass from his sight—dissolve into a mist, so it seemed.

Yet it all happened so recently that one may hesitate to call this the end of the story.