Part 32

"Well, this thing will be an ad for you, besides,--if the papers can be got to notice it. They're coy with their notices, confound them, since Tausig let them know that big Trust ads don't appear in the same papers that boom anti-Trust shows!"

"How long are you going to stand it, Mr. O?"

"Just as long as I can't help myself; not a minute longer."

"There ought to be a way--some way--"

"Yes, there ought, but there isn't. They've got things down to a fine point, and the fellow they don't fear has got to fear them.... I'll put your number early to-night, so that you can get off by nine. Good luck, Nance."

At nine, then, behold Nancy Olden in her white muslin dress, long-sleeved and high-necked, and just to her shoe-tops, with a big white muslin sash around her waist. Oh, she's no baby, is Nance, but she looks like one in this rig with her short hair--or rather, like a school-girl; which makes the stunts she does in mimicking the corkers of the profession all the more surprising.

"We're just a little party," said Mrs. Paul Gates, coming into the bedroom where I was taking of my wraps. "And I'm so glad you could come, for my principal guest, Mr. Latimer, is an invalid, who used to love the theaters, but hasn't been to one since his attack many years ago. I count on your giving him, in a way, a condensed history in action of what is going on on the stage."

I told her I would. But I didn't just know what I was saying. Think of Latimer there, Maggie, and think of our last meeting! It made me tremble. Not that I fancied for a moment he'd betray me. The man that helps you twice don't hurt you the third time. No, it wasn't that; it was only that I longed to do well--well before him, so that--

And then I found myself in an alcove off the parlors, separated from them by heavy curtains. It was such a pretty little red bower. Right behind me was the red of the Turkish drapery of a cozy corner, and just as I took my place under the great chandelier, the servants pulled the curtains apart and the lights went out in the parlors.

In that minute I got it, Mag--yes, stage fright. Got it bad. I suppose it was coming to me, but Lordy! I hadn't ever known before what it was. I could see the black of the men's clothes in the long parlors in front of me, and the white of the women's necks and arms. There were soft ends of talk trailing after the first silence, and everything was so strange that I seemed to hear two men's voices which sounded familiar--Latimer's silken voice, and another, a heavy, coarse bass, that was the last to be quieted.

I fancied that when that last voice should stop I could begin, but all at once my mind seemed to turn a somersault, and, instead of looking out upon them, I seemed to be looking in on myself--to see a white-faced little girl in a white dress, standing alone under a blaze of light in a glare of red, gazing fearfully at this queer, new audience.

Fail? Me? Not Nancy, Maggie. I just took me by the shoulders.

"Nancy Olden, you little thief!" I cried to me inside of me. "How dare you! I'd rather you'd steal the silver on this woman's dressing-table than cheat her out of what she expects and what's coming to her."

Nance really didn't dare. So she began.

The first one was bad. I gave 'em Duse's Francesca. You've never heard the wailing music in that woman's voice when she says:

"There is no escape, Smaragdi. You have said it; The shadow is a glass to me, and God Lets me be lost."

I gave them Duse just to show them how swell I was myself; which shows what a ninny I was. The thing the world loves is the opposite of what it is. The pat-pat-pat of their gloves came in to me when I got through. They were too polite to hiss. But it wasn't necessary. I was hissing myself. Inside of me there was a long, nasty hiss-ss-ss!

I couldn't bear it. I couldn't bear to be a failure with Latimer listening, though out there in that queer half-light I couldn't see him at all, but could only make out the couch where I knew he must be lying.

I just jumped into something else to retrieve myself. I can do Carter's Du Barry to the Queen's taste, Maggie. That rotten voice of hers, like Mother Douty's, but stronger and surer; that rocky old face pretending to look young and beautiful inside that talented red hair of hers; that whining "Denny! Denny!" she squawks out every other minute. Oh, I can do Du Barry all right!

They thought I could, too, those black and white shadows out there on the other side of the velvet curtains. But I cared less for what they thought than for the fact that I had drowned that sputtering hiss-ss-ss inside of me, and that Latimer was among them.

I gave them Warfield, then; I was always good at taking off the sheenies in the alley behind the Cruelty--remember? I gave them that little pinch-nosed Maude Adams, and dry, corking little Mrs. Fiske, and Henry Miller when he smooths down his white breeches lovingly and sings Sally in our Alley, and strutting old Mansfield, and--

Say, isn't it funny, Mag, that I've seen 'em all and know all they can do? They've been my college education, that crowd. Not a bad one, either, when you come to think of what I wanted from it.

They pulled the curtains down at the end and I went back to the bedroom. I had my hat and jacket on when Mrs. Gates and some of the younger ladies came to see me there, but I caught no glimpse of Latimer. You'd think--wouldn't you--that he'd have made an opportunity to say just one nice word to me in that easy, soft voice of his? I tried to believe that perhaps he hadn't really seen me, lying down, as he must have been, or that he hadn't recognized me, but I knew that I couldn't make myself believe that; and the lack of just that word from him spoiled all my satisfaction with myself, and I walked out with Mrs. Gates through the hall and past the dining-room feeling as hurt as though I'd deserved that a man like Latimer should notice me.

The dining-room was all lighted, but empty--the colored, shaded candlesticks glowing down on the cut glass and silver, on delicate china and flowers. The ladies and gentlemen hadn't come out to supper yet; at least, only one was there. He was standing with his back to me, before the sideboard, pouring out a glass of something from a decanter. He turned at the rustle of my starched skirt, and, as I passed the door, he saw me. I saw him, too, and hurried away.

Yes, I knew him. Just you wait.

I got home here earlier than I'd expected, and I'd just got off my hat and jacket and put away that snug little check when there came a ring at the bell.

I thought it was you, Mag--that you'd forgotten your key. I was so sure of it that I pulled the door open wide with a flourish and--

And admitted--Edward!