The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, July 17, 1904, Page 3

throwing her note over to me. He'd have liked to throw it at me if it'd been heavy enough to hurt; he was so \ thumping mad. You see, there it was on the pro- gramm Lord Harold Gray Lady Gray No wonder Obermuller was raging. I looked at him. You don’t like to tackle a fellow like that when he’s dancing hot. And yet you ache to help ‘him and—yes, yourself. “Lord Harcld's here yet, and the jew- els?™ 1 asked. He gave 2 short ned. ing. But so was I “Then all he wants is a Lady?"” “That's all,” he sald sarcastically. “Well, what's the matter with me He gasped. “There’s nothing your nerve, Olden.” “Thank you so much.” It was the way Gray says it when she tries to have an h accent. Jress me up, Fred Obermul in Gray's new silk gown and the Gray jewels, and you'd never He was think- the matter with P “I'd never sct eyes on you again.” u'd er know, if you were in the aud that it wasn't Gray her- self. I can take her off to the life, and if the prompter’ll stand by—" ked at me for a full minute. it, Olden,” he said. 1 did. 1 flew to Gray's dressing-room. She’'d gone home deathly ili, of course. . gave me the best seamstress in She let out the walst t and pulled over the lace to cover into that mass of silk and ilk on silk, and Nance Ol- Beryl Blackburn did my Grace Weston put on my Topham, himself, hung me orzeous shining diamonds and emeralds, till I felt like an idol loaded with booty. There were so many standing round me, rig- Zing me up, that I didn’t get a glimpse the mirror till the second before Ginger called me. But in that second in that second, Mag Monahan, I saw fairy w blazing cheeks and shin- ing eyes, with a diamond coronet in brown hair, puffed high, and pearls on her bare neck and arms, and ds over the waist, and rubies and pearis on her fingers, and sprays of diamonds like frost on the lace of her skirt, and diamond buckles on her very slippers, and the rose diamond, like a n, outshining ail the rest; and—and, Mag, it was me! How did it go? Well, wouldn't it make you think you were a Lady, sure enough, if you couldn’t move without that lace trzin billowing after you; ithout being dazzled with diamond- without a truly Lord tagging you? He kept y ¥ d They place. with those 1 pearls eme head, Lord Harold did —even if it a mutton-head. That helped me at fir: He was so cold, so stupid, so slow, so good-tempered just himself. And after the first plunge— I tell you, Mag Mconahan, there's one thing that's stronger than wine to a woman—it's being beautiful. Oh! And 1 was beautiful. T knew it before I got that quick hush, with the full applause after it. And because I was beautiful, I got saucy, and then calm, and then I caught Fred Obermuller's voice—he had taken the book from the prompter and stood there himself —and after that it was easy sailing. He was there yet when the act was over, and I trailed out, followed by my Lord. He let the prompt-book fall from his hands and reached them both out to me. I flirted my jeweled fan at him and swept him a courte: Cool? No, I wasn't. Not a bit of it. He was daffy with the sight of me in all that glory, and I knew it. “Nance,” he whispered, “you won- derful girl, if I didn't know about that little thief up at the Bronsonia I'd— I'd marry you alive, just for the fun of piling pretty things on you.” “The deuce you would!” I sailed past him, with Topham and my Lord in my wake. They didn’t leave me till they'd stripped me clean. I feit like a Christmas tree the day after. But, somehow, I didn’t care. VIIL Is that you, Mag? Well, it's about time you came home to look after me. Fine chaperon you make, Miss Mona- han! Why, didn’t I tell you the very day we took this flat what a chaperon was, and that you'd have to be mine? Imagine Nancy Olden without a chap- eron. Shocking’ , 'tisn’t late. Sit down, Maggle, re, and let me get the stool and k to you. Think of us two—Cruelty . both of us—two mangy kittens [ ted by the old cats in a city’s al- leys, and left mewing with cold and hunger and dirt, out in the wet—think of us two in our own flat, Mag! I say, it makes me proud of us! There are times when I look at every stick of furniture we own, and I try to pretend to it all that I'm used to a decent roof over my head, and a dining-room, kitchen, parlor, bed- room and bath. Oh, and I forgot the telephone the other tenant left here till its lease is up. But at other times I stand here in the middle of it and cry out to it, in my heart: “Look at me, Nancy Olden, a house- holder, a rent-payer, the head of the family, even if it's only a family of two and the other one Mag! Look at me, with my name in the directory, a-paying milk bills and meat bills and bread bills! Look at me with a place of my own, where nobody’s right's greater than my own: where no one a right but me and Mag; a place vhere—iwhere there's nothing to hide from the police!” There's the rub, Mag, as Hamlet says-—(1 went to see it the other night, =0 that I could take off the Ophelia— THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL. she used to be a good mimic herself, before she tried to be a leading lady). It spoils you, this sense of safeness that goes with the honesty graft. You lose the quickness of the hunter and the nerve of the hunted. And—worse vou lose your taste for the old risky life. You grow proud and fat, and you love every stick in the dear, quiet lit- U= place that’s your home—your own heme. You love it so that you'd be ashamed to sneak. round where it covld see you—you who'd always walked upright.before it with the step of the mistress; with nothing in the world to be ashamed of: nothing to wrevent your staring each honest dish- pan n the face! ou try—if you're me—to n in here—Tom Dorgan in stripes and savage sulks still—all these months- ept away from the world, even the world behind bars! Maggie, don’t you wish Tom was a ventriloquist or—or an acrobat or-— but this isn’t what T had to tell you. Do you know what a society enter- tainer is, Miss Monahan? No? Well, look at me. Yes, I'm one. Miss Nance Olden, whose services are worth $50 a night-—at least, they were one night. Ginger brought me the note that made me a society entertainer. It was from a Mrs. Paul B. Gates, who had been “charmed by your clever impersona- ticns, Miss Olden, and write to know if you have the leisure to entertain some friends at my house on Thursday of this week.” Had I the leisure—well, rather! I showed the note to Gray, just to make her jealous. (Oh, yes, she goes on all right in the act with Lord Harold every night. Catch her letting me wear those things of hers twice!) Well, she just turned up her nose. Of course, you won't accept?” she said. Of course, T will.” “Oh! I only thought you'd feel as I should about appearing before a lot of snobs, who'll treat you like a serv- ant ¢nd—" “Who'll do nothing of the sort and who'll pay you well for it,” put in Obermuiler. He had come up and ng the note I had handed to “You just say yes, Nance,” he went on, after Gray had bounced off tc her dressing-room. “It isn’t such a bad graft and—and this is just be- tween us two, mind—that little beg- gar, Tausig, has begun his tricks since you turned his offer down. They can make things hot for me, and if they do, it won't be so bad for you to go in for this sort of thing—unless you go over to the Trust— I shook my head. “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 Tryst ads don't appear in the same papers that boom anti-Trust shows!"” “How long are you going to stand Mr. 02" “Just as long as I can't help my- self; 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'II 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 schoolgirl; 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 talking off 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 mary years ago. I count on your giv- ing 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 al- cove oft the parlors, separated from them by heavy curtains. It was such a pretty little red bower.. Right be- hind me was the red of the Turkish drapery of a cozy corner, and just as I took my place under the great chan- delier, 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 w-~ I couid 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 = ned to hear two -ien’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 som- er:ault, and, ir.stead of looking out up- on them, I seemed to be looking in on myself—to see a white-faced little girl in a white dress, sianding alone under a blaze of light in a glare cZ red, ~az- ing fearfully at this queer, new audi- ence. Fail? Me? Not Nancy, Maggie. I it, 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. Ban. The first one was ®ad. 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. sald it The sbadow in a glass to me, and God Lets me be Tost.” 1 gave them Duse just to shew them how swell I was myself; which shows what a ninny I w: 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 gofthrough. They were foo polite to h But it wasi't necessary. [ was hissing my- self. Insidex of me there was a long, nasty hiss-ss-ss! 1 couldn't bear it. I couldn’t bear to be a failure with Latimer listening, though out there in that queecr half- light 1 couldn’t see him at all, but could only make out the couch where 1 knew he must be lying. T just jumped into something else to retrieve myself. I can do Carter's Du Barry to the Queen’s taste, Magsgie. 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 tal- ented red hair of hers; that whining “Denny! Denny!” she squawks out every other minute. Oh, 1 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—re- member? 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 educa- tion, that crowd. Not a bad one, either, when you come to think of what I wanted from it. They pulled the curtain 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 1 knew that I couldn’t make my: ‘beliewes that; and the lack of j at word from him spoiled all my_satisfaction with myself, and 1 walked out wi Mrs. Gates through the hall and/past the dining-room feeling as hurt as though T'd deserved that a man like Latimer should notice me. The dining-room was all lighted, but empty—the Colored, shaded candle- sticks 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. 1 got home here earlier than I'd ex- pected, and I'd just gof off my hat and Jacket and put away that snuglittle 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 wide with a flourish and— And admitted—Edward! Yes, Edward, husband of the Dowa- ger. The same red-faced, big-necked old fellow, husky-voiced with whisky now, just as he was before, He must hav: been keeping it up steadily ever since the day out in the country when Tom lifted his watch. It'll take more than one lost watch to cure Edward. “I—followed you home, Miss Murie- son,” he said, grabbing me by the hand and pushing the door closed be- hind him. “Or is it Miss Murieson? ‘Which is your stage name, and which your real one? And have you really learned to remember it? For my part, any old name will smell as sweet, now that I'm close to the rose.” I jerked my hand away from him. I didn’t ask you to call,” I said, haughty as the Dowager herself was when first I saw her in her gorgeous parlor,~the Bighon’s card in her hand. “No, I noticed that,” he roared jovi- ally. “You skinned out the front door the moment you saw me. All that was left to me was to skin after.” “Why 7" “Why!” He slapped his leg as though he'd heard the best joke in the world. “To renew our acquaintance, of course. To ask you if you wouldn't like me to buy you a red coat and hat like the one you left behind you that day Over in Philadelphia, “when you cut your visit so short. To insist upon my privilege of relationship. To call that wink you gave me in the hall that ¢ay, you little devil. Now, don’t look @t me like that. I say, let's be friends; won't you?” “Not for a red coat trimmed with chinchilla,” T cried. He got between me and the door. “Prices gone up?” he inquired So she be- You have pleasantly. “Who's the stock 2" “Never you mind, so long as his name isn’t Ramsey.” “But why shouldn't his name be Ramsey?” he .cooed. “Just because it isn't. I'm expect- ing a friend. Hadn’t- you better go home to Mrs, Dowager Diamonds?” “Bully! Is that what you call her? No, I'll stay and meet your friend.” “Better not.” “Oh: I'm not afraid. Does he know " as much about you as I do?” “More.” “About your weakness for girls’ coats?” “Yes.” ‘Y You do know it all, don’t you? And yet you care for me, Maggie Monahan! I retreated before him into the din- ing-room. What in the world to do to get rid of him! - “I think you'd better go home, Mr. Ramsay,” I said again, decidedly. “1f you don't, I'll have to eall the janitor to put you out.” “Call, sweetheart. He'll put you out with me; for I'll tell him a thing or two about you, and we'll go and find a better place than this. Stock can't be quoted so high, after all, if this is the best prospectus your friend can put up. . . . Why don’t you call?” I looked at him. I was thinking. “Well?” he demanded. “I've changed my mind.” Oh, Mag, Mag, did you ever see the man-—ugly as a cannibal he may be and old as the cannibal’'s great-grand- father-—that couldn’t be persuaded he was a lady-killer? His manner changed altogether. He piumped down on the lounge and patted the place beside him invitingly, giving me a wink that was deadly. “But, Mrs. Dowager!” I exclaimed coquettishly. ““Oh, that's all right, little one! She hasn't even misséd me yet. When she’s playing bridge she forgets even to be Jealuus." “Playing bridge,” I murmured sweetly, ‘“way off in Philadelphia, while you, you naughty man—" Oh, he loved that! “Not so naughty as—as I'd like to be,” he bellowed, heavily witty. *“And she isn't 'way off in Philadelphia either. She’s just round the corner at Mrs. Gates’, and—what's the matter?” “Nothing—nothing. Did she recognize me?” “‘Oh, that's what scared you, is it? She didn’t recognize you. Neither did I till T got that second glimpse of you with your hat and jacket on. But even if she had—ho! ho! ho! I say; do you know, you cbuldn’t convince the Bishop and Henrietta, If you'd talk till dooms- day, that that red coat and hat we advertised weren't taken by a little girl that was daffy. Fact; I swear it! They admit you took the coat, you little witch, but it was when you were out of your mind—of course—of course! “Ihe very fact that she left the coat behind her and took nothing else from the house ghowg.a mind diseased,’ in- sisted Henrietta. Of course—of course! ‘And ber coming for no reason at all to your house,' adds the Bishop. Say, what was the reason?” Maggie, I'll tell you a hard thing; it isn’t when people think worse of you than you are, but better, that you feel most uncomfortable. I got pale and sick inside of me at the thought of my poor little Bishop. I loved him for be- leving me straight and— “I've been dying of curfosity to know what was in your wise little head that day,” he went on. “Qh, it was wise all right; that wink you gave me was perfectly sane; there was method in that madness of yours.” “I will tell you, Mr. Ramsay,” T said sweetly, “at supper.” “Supper!” “Yes, the supper you're going to get for me."” His bellowing laughter filled the place. Maggie, our little flat and our few things don't go well with sounds like that. “Oh, you're all alike, you women!"” he. roared. “All right, supper it is. Where shall we go—Rector's I pouted. “It's so much more cozy right here,” I said. “I'll telephone. There's Bro- phy's, just round the corner, and they send in the loveliest things.” “Oh, they do! Well, teil ’em to begin sending.” I 'thought he'd follow me out in the hall to the phone, but he was having some trouble in pulling out his purse—to count out his money, I suppose. I got Central and asked for the number. Oh, yes, I knew it all right; I had called up that same num- ber once, already, to-day. Brophy's? ‘Why, Maggie Monahan, you ought to know there’s no Brophy’s. At least none that I ever heard about. With my hand over the mouthpiece, so that nobody heard but Edward, I ordered a supper fit for a king—or a chorus girl! What didn't I order! Champagne, broiled lobster, crab meat, stuffed pimentoes, kirschkaffee—every- thing I'd ever heard Beryl Blackbyrn tell about. e “Say, say,” interrupted-Edward, com- ing out after me. *“THat’s enough of that stuff. Tell him ’-(d in a Scotch and soda and—wh&8t—" it For at that moment the connection was made and I cut in sweetly with: “Mrs. Edward Ramsey?—just a min- ute.” d Mag, you should have seen the man’s face! Tt was red, it was white; it was turious, it was frightened. I put my hand over the mouthpiece and turned cn him then. “I've got her on the 'phone at Mrs. Gates’ house. Shall 1 tell your wife where you are, Edward? * ¢ * Just a moment, Mrs. Ramsay, hold the wire; some one wants to speak with you.” “You little devil!” His voice was thick with rage. “Yes, you called me that some time ago, but not in that tone. Quick, now— the door or * ¢ * Waiting, Mrs. bulling other “sel; Ramsay 2" He moved toward the door. “How'll I know you won't tell her when I'm gone?” he growled. “Merely by my saying that I won't,” I answered curtly. “You're in no po- sition to dictate terms; I am.” But I could, without leaving the 'phone, latch the chain on the door be- hind him, leaving it half open. So he must have heard the rest. “Yes, Mrs. Ramsay, waiting?” I croaked like the driest kind of hello- girl. “I was mistaken. It was a mes- sage left to be delivered to you—not some one wanting to speak with you. ‘Who am 1? Why, this is Central. Here is the message: ‘Wil be with you in half an hour.” Signed ‘Edward.’ * * * Yes, that's right. Thank you. Good night.” [ hung up, gave the door a touch that shut it in his face and went back into the dining-room to throw open the windows. The place smelled of alcohol; the moral atmos- phere left behind by that bad old man sickened me. I leaned out and looked at the stars and tried to think of something sweet . and wholesome and strengthening. “Ah, Nance,” I cried ™ myself with a sob—T had pretended to take it lightly enough when he was here, but now— “if you had heard of a girl who, like vourself this evening, unexpectedly met two men she had known, and the good man ignored her and the bad one followed her—oh, Nancy—what sort of girl would you think she was at heart? What sort of hope could you imagine her treasuring for her own future? And what sort of significance would you at- tach to—" And just then the bell rang again. This time | was sure it was you. And, Oh, Maggie, I ran to the door eager for the touch of your hand and the look in your eyes. I was afraid to be alone with my own thoughts. I was afraid of the conclusion to which they were leading me. Maggie, if ever a girl need- ed comfort and encouragement and heartening, 1 did then. And I got it, dear. For there was a man at the door, with a great basket of azaleas—pale, pink earth-stars they are, the sweet, innocent things—and a letter for me. Here it is. Let me read it to you. “My Dear Miss Omar—Once upon a time there was a Luckless Pot, marred in the making, that had the luck to be of service to a Pipkin. “It was a saucy Pipkin, though a very winning one, and it had all ths health and strength the poor Pot lacked —physically. Morally — morally, that young Pipkin was in a most unwhole- some condition. Already its fair, smooth surface was scratched and fouled. It was unmindful of the treas- ure of good it contained, and its re- sponsibility to keep that good intact. And it seemed destined to crash itself to pieces among pots of baser metal. “What the Luckless Pot did was lit- tle—being ignorant of the art by which diamonds may be attained easily and honestly—but it gave the little Pipkin a chance. > ‘“What the Pipkin did with that chance the Pot learned to-night, with such pleasure and satisfac- tion as made it impossible for him not to share it with her. So while he sent Burnett cut to the conservatory to cut azaleas, he wrote her a note to try to convey to her what he felt when, in that nicely polished, neatly decorated and self-respecting vessel on exhibition in Mrs. Gates’ red room, he recognized the poor little Pipkin of other days. ‘“The Pot, as you know, was a sort of stranded bit of clay that had never filled the use for which nots are cre- ated. He had little human to interest him. The fate of the Pipkin, therefore, he had often nondered on, and in spite of improbabilities had had faith in a certain quality of brave sincerity the little thing showed—a quality that shone through acquired faults like a star in a murky sky. “This justification of his faith in the Pipkin may seem a small matter to make so much of. And yet the Pot— that sleeps not well o’ nights, as is the case with damaged pots—will take to bed with him to-night a pretty, pleas- ant thought due just to this. “But do not think the Pot an idealist, If he were he might have been tempted to mistake the Pipkin for a statelier, more pretentious Vessel—a Vase, say, all graceful curves and embossed sides, but shallow, perhaps, possibly lacking breadth. No, the Pipkin is a pipkin, made of common clay—even though it has the uncommon sweetness and strength to overcome the tendencies of clay—and fashioned for those common uses of life, deprivation of which to anything that comes from the Potter's hands is theé most erduring, the most uncommon SorTow. “Oh, pretty little Pipkin, thank the Potter, who made you as you are, as you will be—a thing that can cheer and stay men’s souls by ministering to the human needs of them. For you, be sure, the Potter's ‘a good fellow and ‘twill all be well.” “For the Pot—he sails shortlv, or rather he is to be carted abroad by some optimistic friends whose hopes he does not share—to a celebrated repair shop for damaged pots. Whether he shall return patched and mended into temporary semblance of a useful Ves- whether he shall continue to be merely the same old Luckless Pot, or whether he shall return at all, O Pip- kin, does not matter much. “But it has been well that, before we two behind the veil had passed, we met again, and you left me such a fragrant memory. LATIMER.” = s e . Oh, Maggie, Maggie, some day I hope to see that man and tell him how sore- 1y the Pipkin needed the Pot's letter! . IX. It's all come so quick, Maggie, and it was over so soon that I hardly re- member the beginning. Nobody on earth could have expected it less than I, when I came off in the afternoon. 1 don't know what 1 was thinking of as I came into my dress- ing-room, that used to be Gray's—the sight of him seemed to cut me off from myself as with a knife—but it wasn't of him. It may have been that I was chuck- ling to myself at the thought of Nancy Olden with a dressing-room all to her- self. I can't ever quite get used to that, you know, though I sail around there with all the airs of a leading lady. Sometimes I see a twinkle in Fred Obermuller’'s eye when I catch him watching me, and goodness knows he's been glum enough of late, but it wasn't— 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, lit- tle 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 schoes, 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 vears—ago. But, you see, Topham had never served an apprenticeship behind curtains, so he didn't suspect. “Lordy, Nancy,” 1 laughed to myself, “some one thinks you've got a rose diamond and—" And at that moment he parted 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 goed 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 dras- ging his big hulk 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 volce, 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 ladyfled airs of her! you going to faint, Miss Olden?” T got up. “No—no. S8it 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 sup- pose? “You're sure noboedy’ll come in?" he asked. I turned the key in the lock, forget- ting that it didn't really lock. “Oh, yes, 'm sure,” I said. “Why?" “Why! You have got slow. Just be- cause I didn't say good-by to them fel- lows 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 man- er, 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— * tough, cheap and tough. There's some- thing 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 go 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."” 1 shook myself free and faced him. “I've been—Tom Dorgan, I've been to hear the greatest actors and art- resses 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. T'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 dif- ferent 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 Ilittle ignorant traveler in a great country where she'd sized uo the world from the few fool crooks she was thrown in with. She—" “Aw, cut it!” “Tom—does—doesn’t it mean any- thing to you? Can't it mean lots to both of us now that—" “Cut it, T tell you! Think I killed one guard and beat the other till I'd broke every bone in his body to come '?8’ the Ain't