Chapter 29

Adoree Demorest, still in her glittering, hybrid costume, but heavy-limbed and dull with fatigue, paused outside her own door early that morning. The time lacked perhaps an hour of dawn, the street outside and the building itself was silent, yet from Adoree's parlor issued the sound of light fingers upon piano-keys. Adoree entered, to find Campbell Pope, with collar loosened and hair on end, seated at the instrument. The air within the room was blue and reeking with the odor of stale tobacco-smoke, and the ash-receiver at his elbow was piled high with burnt offerings, one of which was now sending an evil-smelling streamer toward the ceiling.

Pope rose at Adoree's entrance, eying her anxiously. "Is everything all right?" he cried.

"Is what all right?"

"The--er--Lorelei."

"Oh yes! What are you doing here?"

"I suppose I must apologize. You see, I heard the news and came here after the show. When I learned where you were I decided to wait and--and help."

"You decided to--help?" Adoree eyed the disheveled musician queerly. "By smelling up my parlor and playing my poor piano all night--is that how you help? What do you mean, 'help'?"

The critic appeared to realize for the first time the lateness of the hour. Glancing at his watch, he gasped:

"Why, I had no idea it was this time. I've been here all night, haven't I? You see, after I got in I was afraid to go out without explaining."

"What do you mean by saying you wanted to 'help'?" Miss Demorest repeated, curiously. "You've helped to break my lease--I'll be thrown out of this house sure."

Pope stammered, guiltily, "I was playing for Bob and Lorelei."

With one glove half off Adoree slowly seated herself, showing in her face an amazement that increased the man's embarrassment.

"I knew it was a serious matter," he explained, "and, being terribly fond of Bob and Lorelei, I naturally wanted to do what I could."

"Yes, go on."

Pope took a deeper breath, then burst out:

"Oh, I have a sixty-horse-power imagination, and it seems to me that music is a sort of--prayer; anyhow it's the only way I know of praying. Good music is divine language; it's what the angels speak, if there are any angels. Sometimes it seems to me that I can soar heavenward on the wings of--of melody and get close enough to make myself heard. In my own way I was sort of praying for those two children. Foolish, isn't it? I'm sorry I told you. It sounds nutty to me when I stop to consider it." Pope stirred uneasily under Adoree's gravely speculative eyes. "Lorelei's all right?"

Adoree nodded. "It's a boy." There was a moment of silence. "Did you ever see a brand-new baby?"