The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, July 31, 1904, Page 3

THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL. b —_— she'd glip through my hands, but a n rival volce piping out, “I'll ¥ ye the house, Missus,” was too i for her. th Kit at a safe distance in guard against treachery, e and enthusiastic following, street, turned a corner, one block and half up halted before a three- tone advance t stairs, leaving my and rang the bell. It ribly swagger a place, ieved me some. to see the lady whose baby this morning,” I said to the d the door. ho'll T tell her?” That stumped me. Not Nance f the Vaudeville, later of and latest of the No—not Nance Olden ler, ase,” 1 sald firmly, Murieson of the X-Ray, city editer has sent me Hooray for the power She showed me into a d T sat down and waited. d quiet and softly pret- ong parlor. The piano was « shades the ddenl: hat was a i & snowfl |f\»d her to my ay the chuckling thing as as what I came for. , I remembered the lithted her little white siip. ne, Mag. The under-petti- 2 sign of the paper I'd d in that minute. I with the heat, with e and worry, but I slipping out of things when of skirts, and there n he mother of my e ted me of hers g. coc g things = r I white trail r and mocked at n talking. g a news- rd rest of how the our pardon,” I finiehed ng you, but two things one to know if the baby £ safe, and the other,” I x about a paper with I'd pinoned B to s that She shook her head hat very minute that I no- ribbons pink; the morning you've had were 1 suggested ed and—" course,” said baby's thing 1 did when was to strip her and n 2 tub; the second, was to ¥ ng nurse for lei- at of her sight.” the soiled things she had on— with the blue ribbons?” she said. = ang for the maid and gave her - first find out,” as it a valuable paper?” she y,” 1 stammered. My thick with hope and dread. tes, you know, but I do I couldn’t carry the baby nned them on her skirt, The x-p_\f came in and dumped a lit- tle heap of white before me. I fell on my knees. Oh, yes, I prayed all right, but I searched, too. And there It was. Whet I said to that woman I don't know even now. I flew out through the hall and down the steps and— And there Kitty Wilson corralied me. that stickpin?” she “Herel—here, you darling' 1 sald, pressing it into her hand. “And, Kitty, whenever you feel like swiping another purse—just don't do it. It doesn’t pay. Just you come down to the Vaudeville and ask for Nance Olden some day, and Tl tell you why.” “Gee!" sald Kitty, impressed. “Shall —sball I call ye a bansom, lady?” Ehould she! The biessed inspiration of her! I got into the wagon and we drove down street—to the Vaudeville. I burst in past the stage doorkeeper, amazed to see me, and rushed into Fred Obermullers office. “There!” I cried, throwing that awful paper on the desk before him. “Now inch 'em, Fred Obermuller, as they inched you. It'll be the holiest black- that ever—oh, and will you pay the hansom?” XVL 1 don’t remember much about the first part of the lunch. I was so hun- gry I wanted to eat everything in sight, and so happy that I couldn’t eat & thing. But Mr. O. kept piling the things on plate, and each time I began to alk he'd say: “Not now—wait till you're rested, and not quite so fam- ished.” 1 laughed. “Do I eat as though I was starved?” “You—you look tired, Nance.” “Well,” 1 said slowly, “it's been & hard week.” it's been hard for mg, too; harder, I think, than for yon. It wasn't fair to me to let me—think what I did and say what I did. I'm so sorry, Nance— ashamed. ashamed! You it have told me.” And have you put your foot down on the whole thing; not much:™ He laughed. He's got su:a a boyish jaugh in spite of his chin and his eye- glasses and the bigness of him. e filled my glass for me and he'ped me agein to the salad. Oh, Mag, it's such fun t> be a womaj and have a man wait on you 'ike tnat! 1t's such fun to be hungrv .nd to sit down to a jolly little tabl> just big enough for two, with carnations nod- ding in the tall slim vase, with a fat, soft-footed, quick-handed waiter danc- ing behind you, and something tempt- ‘ug in every dish your eye falls on. ne It's a gay, happy, easy world, Mag- gle darlin’. I vow I can't find a dark corner in it—not to-day. None but the swellest place in town was good enough, Obermuller had said, for us to celebrate in. Ths waiters looked queerly at us when we came in —me in my dusty shoes and muszed hair and cid rig, and Mr. C. in his g togs. But do you suppose we He was smoking and I wos pretend- ing to eat fruit ween ai last I gct fairly launched on -ny story. He listened to it all with never a word of interrupticn. Sometimes I thought he was so interested that ha couldn’t bear to miss a4 werl I said. And then again I fancisd he wasn't listening at all to me; only walching me and listening to something inside of himself. Can you see him, Mag, sitting oppo- site me there at the pretty little table, off in a private room by ourselves? He looked so big and strong and mas- terful, with his eyes half closed, watch- ing me, that 1 hugged myself with de- light to think that I—I, Nancy Olden, had done something for him he could- n't do for himself. It made me so proud, so tipsily vain, that as 1 leaned forward eagerly ta'k- ing, 1 feit that same intoxicating hap- piness 1 get on the stage when ths audience is all with me, and the two of us—myself and the many-handed, d-natured other fellow over on the side of the footlights—go career- ng off on a jauut of fun and fancy, like two good playm: He was silent a minute 1 ough. Then he laid his cigar aside and stretched out his hand to me. And the reason, Nance—the reason it an?” I looked up at him. him speak like that. “The reason?” I repeated. “Yes, the reason.” He had caught my hand “Why—to down and beat Tausig.” He laughed. “And that w Olden, there w are other tiger when T got 1'd never heard that tiger Trust— a Nonsense, Nance s another reason. There trusts. Are you going to set up as a lady-errant and right all syndicate wrongs? No, there was an- other, a bigger reason, Nance. I'm go- ing to tell it to you—what!™ 1 pulied my hand from his; but not before that fat waiter whe'd come in without our noticing had got something to grin about. “Beg pardon, sir,” he said. “This message must be for you, sir. It's marked immediate, and no one else—" Obermuller took it and tore it open. He smiled the oddest smile as he read it and he threw back his head and laughed a full, hearty bellow when he gnl to the end. cad it, Nance,” he sald, passing it over to me. “They sent it on from the office.” I read it. Mr. Fred W. Obermuller, Manager Vaudeville Theater, New York City, N. ¥ “Dear Obermuller—I have just learned from your little protege, Nance Olden, dy you've written. From what Miss Olden tells me of the plot and situations of ‘And the Greatest of These'—your title’s great—I judge the thing to be something altogether ou€ of the ccmmon; and my secretary and reader, Mr. Mason, agrees with me that, properly interpreted and perhaps touched up here and there, the comedy ought to make a hit. “Would Miss Olden taxe the leading role, T wonder “Can’t you drop in this evening and talk the matter over? There's an open- ing for a fellow like you with us that's just developed within the past few days, and—this is ‘strictly confidential —1 have succeeded in convincing Braun and Lowenthal that their enmity is a foolish personal matter which busi- ness men shouldn’t let stand in the way of business. After all, just what is there between you and them? A mere trifle; a misunderstanding that half an hour’s talk over a bottle of wine with a good cigar would drive away. “If you're the man 1 take you for you'll drop in this evening at the Van Twiller and bury the hatchet. They're good fellows, those two, and smart men, even if they are stubborn as sin. “Counting on seeing you to-night, my dear fellow, I am most cordially, “L M. TAUSIG.” T dropped the letter and looked over at Obermulier. “Miss Olden,” he said severely, com- ing over to my side of the table, “have you the heart to harm a generous soul like that?” “He—he’s very prompt, Isn’t he, and most—"" And then we laughed together. “You notice the fetter was marked personal?”’ Obermuller said. He was still standing beside me. “No—was it?” I got up, too, and be- gan to pull on my gloves; but my fingers shook s0 I couldn't do a thing with them. *“Oh, yes, it was. That's why I showed it to you. . Nance—Nance, don't you see that there’s only one way out of this. There's only one woman in the world that would do this for me and that I could take it from.” I clasped my hands helplessly. Oh, what could I do, Maggle, with him there and his arms ready for me! “I—I should think you'd be afrald,” I whispered. I didn’t dare look at him. He caught me to him then. “Afraild you wouldn’t care for an old fellow llke me?” he laughed. “Yes, that's the only fear I had. But I lost it, Nancy, Nancy Obermuller, when you flung that paper down before me. That's quite two hours ago—haven't I waited long enough?” . . . . . . Oh, Mag—Mag, how can I tell him? Do you think he knows that I am go- ing to be good—good! that I can be as good for a good man who loves me as I was bad for a bad man I loved! XVIL PHILADELPHIA, January 27. Maggie, dear: I'm writing to you just before dinner while T wait for Fred. He's down at the box-office looking up advance sales. I tell you, Maggie Monahan, we're strictly in it—we Obetmulle: That Broadway hit of mine has preceded me here and we’ve got the town, I suspect, in advance, But I'm not writing to tell you this. T've got something more interesting to tell you, my dear old Cruelty chum. I want you to pretend to yourself that you see me, Mag, as I came out of the big Chestnut street store this after- noon, my arms full of bundles. I must have on that long coat to my heels, of dark, warm red, silk-lined, with the long, incurving back sweep and high chinchilla collar, that Fred ordered made for me the very day we were married. T must be wearing that jolly little, red-cloth toque caught up on the side with some®f the fur. Oh, yes, I knew I was more than a year behind the times when I got them, but a successful actress wears what she pleases, and the rest of the world wears what pleases her, too. Besides, fashions don’t mean so much to you when your husband tells you how be- coming—but this has nothing to do with the Bishop. Yes, the Bishop, Mag! 1 had just said, “Nance Olden—" To myself I still speak to me as Nancy Olden; it's good for me, Mag; keeps me humble and for ever grateful that I'm so happy. ‘Nance, you'll never be able to carry all these things and lift your buful train, too. And there’s never a hansom round when it's snow- ing and—" “TILL FROMT 170K G THE BUNCH OF LI LINERY™ the coat, Bishop Van Wagenen?” I said, leaning over to him. He stared. I suppose he'd just that moement remembered my leaving it be- hind that day at Mrs. Ramsay's. “Lord bless me!” he cried anxiously. “You haven't—you haven't again—" “No, I haven't.” Ah, Maggle, dear, it was worth a lot to me to be able to say that “no” to him. “It was given to me. Guess who gave it to me.” He shook his head. “My husband!” Maggie Monahan, he didn't even blink. Perhaps in the Bishop's set hus- bands are not uncommon, or very likely they don’t know what a husband like Fred Obermuller means. “I congratulate you, my child, or—or did it—were you—" “Why, I'd never seen Fred Ober- muller then,” I cried. “Can’t you tell ONE OF 777227 (Ko STEPFED UP And then L caught sight of the car- riage. Y aggie, the same fat, low, comfortable egant, sober carriage, wide and w -kept, with rubber-tired wheels. And the two heavy horses, fat and elegant and sober, too, and wide and well-kept. 1 knew whose it was the minute my eyes lighted on it, and I couldn’t—I just couldn’t st it The mian on the box—still wide and well-kept—was wide-awave this time. I nodded to him as 1 slipyed in and closed the door after me. “I'll wait for the Bishop,” I said, with a red-coated assurance that left him no alternative but to accept the situation respectfully. Oh, dear, dear! It was soft and warm inside as it had been that long, long-ago day. The seat was wide and roomy. The cushions had been done over—I resented that—but though a different material, they were a still darker plum. And instead of “Quo Vadis,” the Bishop had been reading “Resurrection.” I took it up and glanced over it as I sat there; but, you know, Mag, the heavyweight plays never appealed to me. I don't go in for the tragic—per- haps I saw too much of the real thing when I was little. At any rate, it seemed dull to me, and I put it aside and sat there absent- mindedly dreaming of a little girl-thief that I knew once when—when the han- dle of the door turned and the Bishop got in, and we were off. Oh, the little Bishop—the contrast between him and the fat, pompous rig caught me. He seemed littler and leaner than ever, his little white beard scantier, his soft eye kindller and his soft heart— “God bless my soul!” he exclaimed, jumping almost out of Wis neat little boots, while he looked sharply over his spectables. What did he see? Just a red-coated ghost dreaming in the corner of his carrlage. Ip made him doubt his eyes —his sanity. I don’t know what he'd done if that warm red ghost hadn’t got tired of dreaming and laughed outright. “Daddy,” I murmured sleepily. Oh, that little ramrod of a bishop! The blood rushed up under his clear, thin, baby-like skin and he sat up straight and solemn and awful—awful as such a tiny bishop could be. “I fear, Miss, you have made a mis- take,” he sald primly. I looked at him steadiry. “You know I haven’t,” I said gently. That took some of the starch out of him, but he eyed me suspiciously. “Why don’t you ask me where I got res a difference, Bishop?’ T “Don’t I look like a—an imposing mar- ried woman now? Don't I seem a bit— oh, just a bit nicer?” His eyes twinkled as he bent to look more closely at me. “You look—you look, my little girl, exactly like the prétty, big-eyed, wheedling-voiced child I wished tc have for my own daughter.” 1 caught his hand in both of mine. v, that's like my own, own Bish- 1 cried. 3 Mag—Mag, he was blushing like a boy, a prim, rather scared little school- boy that somehow, yet—oh, I knew he must feel kindly to me! I felt so fond of him. “You see, Bishop Van Wagenen,” 1 began softly, “I never had a father and—" “Bless me! But you told me that day you had mistaken me for—for him."” The baby! I had forgotten what that old Edward told me—that this trust- ing soul actually still believed all I'd told him. What was I to do? I tell you, Mag, it’s no light thing to get ac- customed to telling the truth. Here was I—just a clever little lie or two and the dear old Bishop would be hap- py and”contented again. But no; that fatal habit that I've acquired of tell- ing the truth to Fred and you mastered me—and I fell. “You know, Bishop,” I said, shut- ting my eyes and speaking fast to get it over—as I imagine you must, Mag, when you confess to Father Phelan— “that was all a—a little farce-comedy —the whole business—all of it—every last word of it!” “A comedy!” I opened my eyes to laugh at him; he was so bewildered. “I mean a—a fib; in fact, many of them. I—I was just—it was long ago —and I had to make you believe—" His soft old eves looked at me un- belleving. “You don’t mean to say you deliberately lied!” Now, that was what T did mean— just what I did mean—but not in that tone of voice. But what could T do? at him and nodded. Oh, Magsgle, I felt so little and so nasty! 1 haven’t felt like that since 1 left the Cruelty. And I'm not nasty, Maggie, and I'm Fred Obermuller's wife, and— And that put a backbone in me again. Fred Obermuller's wife just won't let anybody think worse of her than she can help—from sheer love and pride in that big, clever husband of hers. “Now, look here, Bishop Van Wag- enen,” I broke out, “if I were the aban- doned little wretch your eyes accuse op T just looked - pleaded. me of being I wouldn't be in your car- riage confessing to you this blessed minute when it’d be so mueh easier not to. Surely—surely, in your experience you must have met girls that go wrong —and then go right for ever and ever, Amen. And I'm very right now. But —but it has been hard for me at times. And at those times—ah, you must know how sincerely I mean it—at those times I used to try to recall the sound of your voice, when yvou said you'd like to take me home with you and Keep me. If I had been rour daughter you'd have had a heart full of loving care for me. And yet, if I had been, and had known that benevolent fatherhood, I should need it less—so much less than I did the day I begged a prayer from you. * * * But—it's all right now. You don’t know—do you?—I'm Nance Ol- den.” tell you. Even the Bishop had heard of Nancy Olden. But suddenly, unac- countably, there came a queer, sad look over his face, and his eyes wouldn't meet mine. 1 looked at him, puzzled. “You evidently forget that you have already told me you are the wife of Mr.—Mr. Ober— “Obermuller. Oh, that's all right.” I laughed aloud. I was so relieved. “Of course I am, and he’s my manager, and my playwright, and my secretary, and—my—my dear, dear boy. There I wasn't laughing at the end of it. I never can laugh when I try to tell what Fred is to me. But—funny?—that won him. “There! there!” he said, patting me on the shoulder. “Forgive me, my dear. I am indeed glad to know that you are living happily. I have often thought of you—" “Oh, have you?” “Yes—1 have even told Mrs. Van Wagenen about you and how I was at- tracted to you and believed—ahem Uh—oh, have you!” I gave a wrig- gle as I remembered that Maltese lace Maria wanted and that I—ugh! But, luckily, he didn’t notice. He had taken my hand and was looking at me over his spectacles in his dear fatherly old way. “Tell me now, my dear, is there any- thing that an old clergymen can do for you? I have an engagement near here and we may not meet again. I can’t hope to find you in my carriage many more times. You are happy—you are living worthily, child?. Pua.don me, but the stage—" ©Oh, the gentle courtesy of his man- ner! I loved his solicitude. Father- hungry girls like us, Maggie, know how to value a thing like that. “You know I said slowly, “the thing that keeps a woman straight and a man faithful is not a matter of bricks and mortar nor ways of thinking nor habits of living. It's something finer and stronger than these. It's the magic taboo of her love for him and his for her that makes them—sacred. With that to guard them—why— “Yes, yes,” he patted my hand softly. “Still, the old see the dangers of an environment that a young and- impul- sive woman like you, my ‘dear, might be blind to. Your assoclates—" “My asscciates? Oh, you've heard about Reryl Blackburn. Well—she's —she's just Beryl, you know. She wasn’t mad> to live any different. Some people steal and some drink and some gamble and some * * * Well, Beryl b-longs to the last class. She doesn't pretend to be better than she is. And, That made hiin sit up and stare, I* just between you and me, Bishop, I've red-haired nigger up at the block— more respect for a girl of that kind when you were b e to be bught In th than for Grace Weston, whose husband shown to th is my leading man, you know. Why. adopt you! she pulls the wool over his eyes and It was all so strs makes him the laughing stock of the Lkeep talking to ke I was talking away the Bishop abe going to fit up place upstairs. Pe doesn’t ay th there’ll more’s Then there to couldn’t real white-faced, have suce company. than I can Marie Avon, without two strings—" All at once I stopped. But wash't it like me to spoil it all by bubbling over? I tell you, Maggie, too much truth isn’t good for the Bishop's set; they don’t know how to digest it. ‘I was afraid that I'd lost him, for he spoke with a stately little primness as the carriagr just then came to a stop; I had been so interested talking I can’'t stand her any more who's never the the that I hadn’t noticed where we were eyes and t driving. queer trick “Ah, here we are!” he said. “I must pled with yc ask you to excuse me, Miss—ah, Mrs.— wilh the gc that is—there's a publ’~ meeting of the and the rest Soclety for the Prevention of Cruelty He put his 1 arm about to Children this afterncon that I must my sh d n nt whe: attend. Good-by, then—" saw ' aa t “Oh, are you bound for the Cruel Oh, he ands, L *t00?” I asked. “Why, so am I. And— _then we tuined to go downstair yes—yes—that's the Cruelty!” The Cruelty stands just where it did, Mag, when you and I nrst saw it; things do in Philadelphia, you know. There’s the same prim, official straight- up-and-downness about the brick front The steps don’t look so steep now the: building’s not so high, perhaps cause of a sky-scraper or two that've gone up since. But 1t chills your blood, Maggie, darlin’, just as it alway did, to think what it stands for. man’s inhumanity to man, but wome cruelty to children! Maggie, think of it, if you can, as though this were the first time you'd heard of such a thing! Would you believe it? I waked from that to find marching up the stairs behind the op’s rigid little back. Oh, it(was stiff and uncompromising: Ueryl Black- burn did that for me. Poor, pretty, pa- gan Beryl! My coming with the Bis scemed to come together, anyway made the people think he’d brought me, so I must be just all right I had the man bring in the toys I'd got out in the carriage, and I handed them over to the matron, saying: “They’re for the children. T want them to have ‘them all and now. please, to do whatever they want with them. There'll always e oth I'm going to.send them right aiong, if you'll let me, so that those v leave can take something of their ve own with them—something that never belonged to anybody else but - just themselves, you understand. ble. dun't you know, te be child or a tortured child or s child and have nothing to do but sit up in that bare, clean little room up- stairs with a lot of other strangelings —and just think on the crueity that's brought you here and the cruelty you may get into when you leave here. If 1'd had a doll-if Mag had only had a sot of dishes or a little tin kitchen—if the ber with the gouged eye could bave had a sst of tools—oh, can't you understand—"" 1 became conscious then that the ma- tron—a new one, Mag, ours is gone— her answ But her ht- was staring at me, and that the pec ed eyes rest stood around listening as though ¥d a sign gone mad, : Who came to my rescue?” Why, the Bishop, like the manly little fellow he fs. He forgave me even Beryl in that moment. “It's. Nance Clden, ladies,” he said. with a dignified little wave of his hand that served fo ran introduction. “She said softly a beging her Philadelphia engagement to- “of your fond night in ‘And the Greatest of These.’” ing abroad Oh, I'm used to it now, Maggie, but [ to do nct liKe it. All the lady-swells buzz- ed about me, and there Nance stood Venir o preening herself and crowing softly Her'l till—till from among the bunch of mil- like hands « linery one of them stepped up to me. an 1dish s She had a big smooth face with plenty you you very of chins. Her hair was white and her much: 3 the same nose was curved and she rustled in sum to charit silk 2nd- “T will She 1t was Mrs. Dowager Diamonds, alias Henrietta, alias Mrs. Edward Ramsay guess hov *And 1 “Clever! My, how clever!” she ex- lace and so f you'll a claimed, as though the sob in my voice it that I couldn’t control had been a bit of I prom a box for to- acting. night, Ma Mrs. King- She was feeling for her glasses. When don. The De e she’d love she got them and hooked them on her to come, the and is out of nose and got a good lgok at me—why, town, unfort E aid. she just dropped them with a smash “But you k won't you, rning upon the desk. Bishop?” she said, tu g to him. “And I looked for a minute from her to the you, Mrs. Van Bishop. The Bishop ¢t Was he thinke “I remember you very well, Mrs. ing of Beryl, I But I didn't Ran 1 hope you haven't forgotten hear his answer as at that me. I've ofte; wanted to thank you moment that I A's volce. for your kindnéss,” I said slowly, witle He had tcld going to call she as slowly recovered. “I think you'll for me. I °d that the be glad to know that I am thoroughly old Crue! ¢ ress me—as ll—cured. * * * Shall I tell Mrs. dreams of it have, you know; and he Ramsay how, Bishop?” wanted to me and me away I put it square up to him. And he from it. ju 2t nig en I've met it like the little man he is—per- waked shivering and m ng, I've felt haps, too, my bit of charity to the Cru- his dear arms lifting ut of the elty children had pleased him. black night-memo: “I don’t think it will be necessary, But it was anj g t a doleful Miss Olden,” he said, gently. “I can Nance he fourd and hurried down the do that for ydu at some future time.” And I could have hugged him; but I didn’t dare. We had tea there in the board rooms. snowy steps out to a hansom and off to rehearsal. For the Bishop had sald to me, “God bless you. child,” when he shooks hands with both of us at part Oh, Mag, remember how we used to ing, and the very Cruelty seemed to peep _{nto those awful, imposing board smile & grim benediction, as we dreve rooms!. Remember how strange and off together, on Fred and resentful you feit—like a poor little Y O. JOE ROSENBERG'S. | JOE ROSENBERG'S. ORCRORCRCE R0 The 0.Z. 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