



Produced by Al Haines.




[Illustration: Cover]




[Illustration: SHE PUT ALEXANDRIA INTO THE MOST COMFORTABLE OF HER
CHAIRS AND DREW ANOTHER CLOSE TO IT.  PAGE 103.]




                             THE HONEY-POT


                                   BY
                         THE COUNTESS BARCYNSKA

                    Author of "The Little Mother Who
                             Sits at Home."



                                NEW YORK
                         E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
                            681 FIFTH AVENUE
                                  1916




                            Copyright, 1916
                       BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY

                    FIRST IMPRESSION, FEBRUARY 1916
                    SECOND IMPRESSION, FEBRUARY 1916




_I am a traveler in the great World-path; my garments are dirty and my
feet are bleeding with thorns.  Where should I achieve flower-beauty,
the unsullied loveliness of a moment's life?  The gift that I proudly
bring you is the heart of a woman.  Here have all pains and joys
gathered, the hopes and fears and shames of a daughter of the dust; here
love springs up struggling toward immortal life.  Herein lies an
imperfection which yet is noble and grand.  If the flower service is
finished, my master, accept this as your servant for the days to come_.

--Rabindranath Tagore.




                             THE HONEY-POT



                                   I


In her petticoat, barefooted, because the morning was sultry, Miss Maggy
Delamere plied a well-worn hare's foot to her cheeks with the sure touch
of an artist.  Professionally speaking and adding a final "e" to the
term, that is what she was--chorus-lady by courtesy, showgirl in the
vernacular of the stage.  On her small dressing-table were ranged a
number of pots and bottles, unguents and creams.  A battered make-up box
containing remnants and ends of variously  grease sticks flanked
a looking-glass of inadequate size and small reflective power.  A beam
of sunlight striking across a corner of the table danced with minute
particles of dust from a powder-puff.

The astonishing amount of vigor she put into the process of facial
adornment, the prodigality with which she used pigments and washes, were
characteristic of her temperament, all generosity and recklessness.
Paint and powder were a habit with her, not an exigency.  No girl of
nineteen could have needed them less.  Her complexion, well-nigh
flawless, bloomed beneath the unnecessary veneer.  Not even a cracked
mirror could mitigate her good looks nor detract anything from her
vivacious expression.  It reflected a speaking face even when the lips
were still.

She was taking unusual pains with her appearance this morning.  A card
stuck in the edge of the looking-glass provided the reason.


               _Memo. from A. Stannard, Dramatic Agent._
                           PALL MALL THEATRE.
                 _Voice Trial, June 22nd, 10.45 a. m._


As everybody knows, the Pall Mall is the one London Theater of all
others to which ladies of the chorus most aspire.  In Maggy's case that
aspiration was intensified by real want of an engagement.  She had
recently succumbed to an attack of that childish complaint, measles, and
was more than usually hard-up.  Her choice of garments was as limited as
her means, yet twice she changed her mind about one or another of them
before she was satisfied that she looked her best. Her efforts to that
end finished with the tacking of several sheets of tissue paper to the
inside of her skirt to give it the rustle of a silk lining.  The
rustle--deceptive and effective as stage thunder--convincingly
accomplished, she felt ready to present herself before any stage-manager
in existence.

If her mood was serene vanity had no part in it.  Unlike the average
chorus-girl she was quite free from conceit of any kind.  She was too
good-looking to be unaware of it, but she did not trade on her
appearance further than professional principles strictly allowed.  She
asked no more of it than that it should bring her in from thirty
shillings to two pounds a week for honest work behind the footlights.
Commercialism with her ended there.  She was all heart, but free from
illusions.  Her mother had been on the stage before her.  Always on the
stage herself since childhood, familiarized with its careless,
hand-to-mouth existence, its trials and its exuberances, she had become
worldly-wise at ten and a woman at fifteen. But the