Part 36

Yes, I'm going to tell you, but--it's rattled me a bit, Maggie. I'm so--so sorry, and a little--oh, just a little, little bit glad!

I'd slammed the door behind me--the old place is out of repair and the door won't shut except with a bang--and I had just squatted down on the floor to unbutton my high shoes, when I noticed the chintz curtains in front of the high dressing-box waver. They must have moved just like that when I was behind them months--it seems years--ago. But, you see, Topham had never served an apprenticeship behind curtains, so he didn't suspect.

"Lordy, Nancy," I laughed to myself, "some one thinks you've got a rose diamond and--"

And at that moment he parted the curtains and came out.

Yes--Tom--Tom Dorgan.

My heart came beating up to my throat and then, just as I thought I should choke, it slid down to my boots, sickening me. I didn't say a word. I sat there, my foot in my lap, staring at him.

Oh, Maggie-girl, it isn't good to get your first glimpse after all these months of the man you love crouched like a big bull in a small space, poking his close-cropped black head out like a turtle that's not sure something won't be thrown at it, and then dragging his big bulk out and standing over you. He used to be trim--Tom--and taut, but in those shapeless things, the old trousers, the dirty white shirt, and the vest too big for him--

"Well," he said, "why don't you say something?"

Tom's voice--Mag, do you remember, the merry Irish boy's voice, with its chuckles like a brook gurgling as it runs?

No--'tisn't the same voice. It's--it's changed, Maggie. It's heavy and--and coarse--and--brutal. That's what it is. It sounds like--like the knout, like--

"Nance--what in hell's--"

"I think I'm--frightened, Tom."

"Oh, the ladyfied airs of her! Ain't you going to faint, Miss Olden?"

I got up.

"No--no. Sit down, Tom. Tell me about it. How--how did you get here?"

He went to the door, opened it a bit and looked out cautiously. Mag--Mag--it hurt me--that. Why, do you suppose?

"You're sure nobody'll come in?" he asked.

I turned the key in the lock, forgetting that it didn't really lock.

"Oh, yes, I'm sure," I said. "Why?"

"Why! You have got slow. Just because I didn't say good-by to them fellows up at the Pen, and--"

"Oh! You've escaped!"

"That's what. First jail-break in fifteen years. What d'ye think of your Tommy, old girl, eh? Ain't he the gamest? Ain't you proud of him?"

My God, Mag! Proud of him. He didn't know--he couldn't see--himself. He, shut in like a wild beast, couldn't see what this year has done for him. Oh, the change--the change in him! My boy Tommy, with the gay, gallus manner, and the pretty, jolly brogue, and the laughing mouth under his brown mustache. And this man--his face is old, Mag, old--oh!--and hard--and--and tough, cheap and tough. There's something in his eyes now and about his shaven mouth--oh, Maggie, Maggie!

"Look here, Nance." He caught me by the shoulders, knocking up my chin so that he could look down squarely at me. "What's your graft? What's it to be between us? What've ye been doing all this time? Out with it! I want to know."

I shook myself free and faced him.

"I've been--Tom Dorgan, I've been to hear the greatest actors and actresses in the world say and do the finest things in the world. I've watched princesses and kings--even if they're only stage ones. I've read a new book every night--a great picture book, in which the pictures move and speak--that's the stage, Tom Dorgan. Much of it wasn't true, but a girl who's been brought up by the Cruelty doesn't have to be told what's true and what's false. I've met these people and lived with them--as one does who thinks the same thoughts and feels what others feel. I know the world now, Tom Dorgan, the real world of men and women--not the little world of crooks, nor yet the littler one of fairy stories. I've got a glimpse, too, of that other world where all the scheming and lying and cheating is changed as if by magic into something that deceives all right, but doesn't hurt. It's the world of art and artists, Tom Dorgan, where people paint their lies, or write them, or act them; where they lift money all right from men's pockets, but lift their souls and their lives, too, away from the things that trouble and bore and--and degrade.

"You needn't sneer; it's made a different Nance out of me, Tom Dorgan. And, oh, but I'm sorry for the pert little beggar we both knew that lied and stole and hid and ran and skulked! She was like a poor little ignorant traveler in a great country where she'd sized up the world from the few fool crooks she was thrown in with. She--"

"Aw, cut it!"