Magsie had awakened to a sense of pleasure impending. It was many
months since she had felt so important and so sure of herself. Her
self-esteem had received more than one blow of late. Bowman had
attempted to persuade her to take "The Bad Little Lady" on the road;
Magsie had indignantly declined. He had then offered her a poor part in
a summer farce; about this Magsie had not yet made up her mind.
Now, she said to herself, reading Warren's note over her late breakfast
tray, perhaps she might treat Mr. Bowman to the snubbing she had long
been anxious to give him. Perhaps she might spend the summer quietly,
inconspicuously, somewhere, placidly awaiting the hour when she would
come out gloriously before the world as Warren Gregory's wife. Not at
all a bad prospect for the daughter of old Mrs. Torrence's companion
and housekeeper.
A caller was announced and was admitted, a thin, restless woman who
looked thirty-five despite or perhaps because of the rouge on her
sunken cheeks and the smart gown she wore. The years had not treated
Carol Pickering kindly: she was an embittered, dissatisfied woman now,
noisily interested in the stage as a possible escape from matrimony for
herself, and hence interested in Magsie, with whom she had lately
formed a sort of suspicious and resentful intimacy.
Joe Pickering had entirely justified in eight years the misgivings felt
toward him by everyone who had Carol Breckenridge's interests at heart.
His wife had come to him rich, and a few hours after their wedding her
father's death had more than doubled the fortune left her by her
grandmother. But it would be a sturdy legacy indeed that might hope to
resist such inroads as the aimless and ill-matched young couple made
upon it from their first day together.
Idly acquiring, idly losing, being cheated and robbed on all sides,
they drifted through an unhappy and exciting year or two, finally
investing much of their money in bonds, and a handsome residue in that
favorite dream of such young wasters: the breeding of horses for the
polo market. "What if we lose it all--which we won't--we've still got
the bonds!" Joe Pickering, leaden pockets under his eyes, his weak lips
hanging loose, had said with his unsteady laugh. What inevitably
followed, and what he had not foreseen, was that he should lose more
than half the bonds, too. They were seriously crippled now, and began
to quarrel, to hate each other for a greater part of the time; and
their little son's handsome dark eyes fell on some sad scenes. But now,
in the child's sixth year, they were still together, still appearing in
public, and still, in that mysterious way known only to their type,
rushing about on motor parties, buying champagne, and entertaining
after a fashion in their cramped but pretentious apartment.
Of late Billy had been seriously considering the stage. She was but
twenty-six, after all, and she still had a girl's thirst for admiration
and for excitement. She had called on Magsie, entertained the young
actress, and the two had discovered a certain affinity. Magsie was
delighted to see her now. They greeted each other affectionately, and
Magsie, sending out her tray, settled herself comfortably in her
pillows, and took the interested Carol entirely into her confidence,
with the single reservation of Warren Gregory's name.
"Handsome, and rich as Croesus, and his wife would divorce him, and
belongs to one of the best families," summarized Billy. "Why, I think
you would be a fool to do anything else!"
"S'pose I would," dimpled Magsie in interesting embarrassment.
"Have a heart, and tell me who it is," teased Carol, slipping her foot
from her low shoe to study a hole in the heel of her silk stocking.
"Oh, I couldn't!" Magsie protested.
"Well, I shall guess, if I can," the other woman warned her. And
presently she added: "I'll tell you what, if you do give it up, I'm
going straight to Bowman, and ask for your place in your new show!
There's nothing about it that I couldn't do, and I believe he might
give me a chance! I'll tell you what: you wait until the last moment
before you tell him, and then he can't be prepared in advance. And I'll
risk having Jacqueline make me a couple of gowns, and be all ready to
jump in. I'll learn the part, too," said Billy kindling; "you'll coach
me in it, won't you?"
"Of course I will!" Magsie agreed, but she did not say it heartily. The
conversation was not extremely pleasing to Magsie at the moment. She
loved Warren, of course, but it was certainly a good deal to resign,
even to marry a Gregory of New York! Why, here was Billy, who had been
a rich man's daughter, and had married the man of her choice, and had a
nice child, mad to step into her shoes!
And it was a painful reflection that probably Billy could do it. Billy
was smart, she had a dash and finish about her that might well catch a
manager's eye, and more than that, it was a rather poor part. It was no
such part as Magsie had had in "The Bad Little Lady." There was a
comedian in this cast, and a matinee idol for a leading man, and Magsie
must content herself with a part and a salary much smaller than was
given to either of these.
She thought of Warren, and also fleetingly of Bryan Masters, and even
of Richie Gardiner, and decided that it was a bitter and empty world,
and she wished she had never been born. Bowman would be smart enough to
see that he need pay Billy almost no salary, that she might be a
discovery--the discovery for which all managers are always so
pathetically on the alert, and that in case the play failed--Magsie was
sure, this morning, that it would be the flattest failure ever seen on
Broadway--he would have no irate leading lady to pacify; Billy would be
only too grateful for the opportunity to try and fail.
"Farce is the most difficult thing in the world to play," she said, now
clinging desperately to her little distinction.
"Oh, I know that!" Billy answered absently. She would have a smart
apartment on the Drive, and dear little old Breck should drive with her
in the Park, and go to the smartest boys' school in the country--
"And of course, I may not marry!" said Magsie.
Carol hardly heard her. She was looking about the comfortable hotel
apartment, all in a pretty disorder now, with Magsie's various
possessions scattered about. There were pictures of actors on the
mantel, heavily autographed, and flowers thrust carelessly into vases.
There was a great sheaf of Killarney roses; the envelope that had held
a card still dangled from their stems. Carol would have given a great
deal to know whose card had been torn from it, and whose name was
ringing just now in Magsie's brain. She even cared enough to
tentatively interrogate Anna, Magsie's faithful Swedish woman.
"Well, perhaps we shall have a change here, Anna?" Billy said brightly
but cautiously, when she was in the hall. She wondered whether the
woman would let her slip a bill into her hand.
"Maybe," said Anna impassively.
"How shall you like keeping house for a man and wife?" Billy pursued.
"Aye do that bayfore," remarked Anna, responsive to this kindly
interest; "aye ban hahr savan yahre, now, en des country."
"And do you like Miss Clay's young man?" Billy said boldly. But at this
shift of topic the light faded from Anna's infantile blue eyes, and a
wary look replaced it.
"She got more as one feller," she remarked discouragingly. Billy,
outfaced, departed, feeling rather contemptible as she walked down the
street. Joe was at home; she had left him in bed when she left the
house at ten o'clock, and little Breck had been rather listlessly
chatting with the colored boy in the elevator, and had begged his
mother to take him downtown. Billy was really sorry for the little boy,
but she did not know what to do about it; she wondered what other women
did with little lonely boys of six. If she went home, it would not
materially better the situation; the cook was cross to-day anyway, and
would be crosser if Joe shouted for his breakfast in his usual
ungracious manner. She could not go to Jacqueline and talk dresses
unless she was willing to pay something on the last bill.
Billy thought of the bank, as she always did think of the bank, when
her reflections reached this point. There were the bonds, not as many
as they had been, but still fine, salable bonds. She could pay the
cook, pay the dressmaker, take Breck home a game, look at hats, spend
the day in exactly the manner that pleased her best. She had promised
Joe that they would discuss the sale of the next one together when they
had sold the last bond, a month ago, and avoid it if possible. But what
difference did one make?--a paltry fifty dollars a year! Perhaps it
would be possible not to tell Joe--
Billy looked in her purse. She had a dollar bill and fifty cents, more
than enough to take her to the bank in appropriate style. She signalled
a taxicab.
Magsie did not see Warren the next day, but they had tea and a talk on
the day following. She told him gayly that he needed cheering, and
presently took him into Tiffany's, where Warren found himself buying
her a coveted emerald. Somehow during the afternoon he found himself
talking and planning as if they really loved each other, and really
were to be married. But it was an unsatisfactory hour. Magsie was
excited and nervous, and was rather relieved than otherwise that her
interviews with her admirer were necessarily short. As a matter of
fact, the undisciplined little creature was overtired and unreasonable.
She would have given her whole future for a quiet week in bed, with
frivolous novels to read, and Anna to spoil her, no captious manager to
please, no exhausting performances to madden her with a sense of her
own and other people's imperfections, and no Warren to worry her with
his long face.
Added to Magsie's trials, in this dreadful week, was an interview with
the imposing mother of young Richie Gardiner, a handsome, florid lady,
who had inherited a large fortune from the miner husband whose fortunes
she had gallantly shared through some extraordinary adventures in Nome.
Mrs. Gardiner idolized her son; she was not inclined to be generous to
the little flippant actress who had broken his heart. Richie would not
go to the healing desert, he would not go to any place out of sound of
Miss Clay's voice, out of the light of Miss Clay's eyes. Mrs. Gardiner
had no objection to Magsie's person, nor to her profession, the fact
being that her own origin had been even more humble than that of Miss
Clay, but she wanted the treasure of her boy's love to be appreciated;
she had been envying, since the hour of his birth, the woman who should
win Richie's love.
Stout, overdressed, deep-voiced, she came to see the actress, and they
both cried; Magsie said that she was sorry--she was so bitterly
sorry--but, yes, there was someone else. Mrs. Gardiner shrugged
philosophically, wiped her eyes, drew a deep breath. No help for it!
Presently she heavily departed; her solid weight, her tinkling
spangles, and her rainbow plumes vanished into the limousine, and she
was whirled away.
Magsie sighed; these complications were romantic. What could one do?