by Leroy Scott
CHAPTER XXIII
When Miss Sherwood's invitation reached Maggie, Barney and Old Jimmiewere with her. The pair had growled a lot, though not directly atMaggie, at the seeming lack of progress Maggie had made during the pastweek. Barney was a firm enough believer in his rogue's creed of firstgetting your fish securely hooked; but, on the other hand, there was thedanger, if the hooked fish be allowed to remain too long in the water,that it would disastrously shake itself free of the barb and swim away.That was what Barney was afraid had been happening with Dick Sherwood.Therefore he was thinking of returning to his abandoned scheme ofselling stock to Dick. He might get Dick's money in that way, though ofcourse not so much money, and of course not so safely.
And another item which for some time had not been pleasing Barney wasthat Larry Brainard had not yet been finally taken care of, either bythe police or by that unofficial force to which he had given orders.So he had good reason for permitting himself the relaxation of scowlingwhen he was not on public exhibition.
But when Maggie, after reading the invitation, tossed it, together witha note from Dick, across to Barney without comment, the color of hisentire world changed for that favorite son of Broadway. The surlygloom of the end of a profitless enterprise became magically an auroraborealis of superior hopes:--no, something infinitely more substantialthan any heaven-painting flare of iridescent colors.
"Maggie, it's the real thing! At last!" he cried.
"What is it?" asked Old Jimmie.
Barney gave him the letter. Jimmie read it through, then handed it back,slowly shaking his head.
"I don't see nothing to get excited about," said the ever-doubtful,ever-hesitant Jimmie. "It's only an invitation."
"Aw, hell!" ejaculated the exasperated Barney in disgust. "If some onehanded you a government bond all you could see would be a cigar coupon!That invitation, together with this note from Dick Sherwood saying he'llcall and take Maggie out, means that the fish is all ready to be landed.Try to come back to life, Jimmie. If you knew anything at all aboutbig-league society, you'd know that sending invitations to meet thefamily--that's the way these swells do things when they're all set to dobusiness. We're all ready for the killing--the big clean-up!"
He turned to Maggie. "Great stuff, Maggie. I knew you could put it over.Of course you're going?"
"Of course," replied Maggie with a composure which was wholly of hermanner.
A sudden doubt came out of this glory to becloud Barney's master mind."I don't know," he said slowly. "It's one proposition to make oneof these men swells believe that a woman is the real thing. And it'sanother proposition to put it over on one of these women swells. They'vegot eyes for every little detail, and they know the difference betweenthe genuine article and an imitation. I've heard a lot about this MissSherwood; they say she's one of the cleverest of the swells. Think youcan walk into her house and put it over on her, Maggie?"
"Of course--why not?" answered Maggie, again with that composure whichwas prompted by her pride's desire to make Barney, and every one else,believe her equal to any situation.
Barney's animation returned. "All right. If you think you can swing it,you can swing it, and the job's the same as finished and we're made!"
Left to herself, and the imposing propriety and magnificent stupidityof Miss Grierson, Maggie made no attempt to keep up her appearance ofconfidence. All her thoughts were upon this opportunity whichinsisted upon looking to her like a menace. She tried to whip herself-confidence, of which she was so proud, into a condition of constantpregnancy. But the plain fact was that Maggie, the misguided child of astolen birthright, whose soaring spirit was striving so hard to live upto the traditions and conventions of cynicism, whose young ambition itwas to outshine and surpass all possible competitors in this world inwhich she had been placed, who in her pride believed she knew so much oflife--the plain fact was that Maggie was in a state bordering on funk.
This invitation from Miss Sherwood was an ordeal she had never countedon. She had watched the fine ladies at the millinery shop and whileselling cigarettes at the Ritzmore, when she had been modeling hermanners, and had believed herself just as fine a lady as they. But thathad been in the abstract. Now she was face to face with a situation thatwas painfully concrete--a real test: she had to place herself into closecontrast with, and under the close observation of, a real lady, and inthat lady's own home. And in all her life she had not once been in afine home! In fine hotels, yes--but fine hotels were the commonrefuge of butcher, baker, floor-walker, thief, swell, and each hadapproximately the same attention; and all she now felt she had reallylearned were a few such matters as the use of table silver and fingerbowls.
It came to her that Barney, in his moment of doubt, had spoken moresoundly than he had imagined when he had said that it was easier to foola man about a woman than it was to fool a woman. How tragically truethat was! While trying to learn to be a lady by working in smart shops,she had learned that the occasional man who had ventured in afterwoman's gear was hopelessly ignorant and bought whatever was skillfullythrust upon him, but that it was impossible to slip an inferior orunsuitable or out-dated article over on the woman who really knew.
And Miss Sherwood was the kind of woman who really knew! Who kneweverything. Could she possibly, possibly pass herself off on MissSherwood as the genuine article?...
Could Larry have foreseen the very real misery--for any doubt of herown qualities, any fear of her ability to carry herself well in anysituation, are among the most acute of a proud woman's miseries--whichfor some twenty-four hours was brought upon Maggie by the well-meantintrigue of which he was pulling the hidden strings, he might, becauseof his love for Maggie, have discarded his design even while he wascreating it, and have sought a measure pregnant with less distress. Butperhaps it was just as well that Larry did not know. Perhaps, even, itwas just as well that he did not know what his grandmother knew.
Maggie's pride would not let her evade the risk; and her instinctfor self-preservation dictated that she should reduce the risk to itsminimum. So she wrote her acceptance--Miss Grierson attended to thephrasing of her note--but expressed her regret that she would be able tocome only for the tea-hour. Drinking tea must be much the same, reasonedMaggie, whether it be drunk in a smart hotel or in a smart country home.
Maggie's native shrewdness suggested her simplest summer gown as likelyto have committed the fewest errors, and the invaluable stupidity ofMiss Grierson aided her toward correctness if not originality. WhenDick came he was delighted with her appearance. On the way out hewas ebulliently excited in his talk. Maggie averaged a fair degree ofsensibility in her responses, though only her ears heard him. She wasfar more excited than he, and every moment her excitement mounted, forevery moment she was speeding nearer the greatest ordeal of her life.
When at length they curved through the lawns of satin smoothness andDick slowed down the car before the long white house, splendid in itssimplicity, Maggie's excitement had added unto it a palpitant, chillingawe. And unto this was added consternation when, as they mounted thesteps, Miss Sherwood smilingly crossed the piazza and welcomed herwithout waiting for an introduction. Maggie mumbled some reply; shelater could not remember what it was. Indeed she never had met such awoman: so finished, so gracious, so unaffected, with a sparkle of humorin her brown eyes; and the rich plainness of her white linen frockmade Maggie conscious that her own supposed simplicity was cheap andostentatious. If Miss Sherwood had received her with hostility, doubt,or even chilled civility, the situation would have been easier; thearoused Maggie would then have made use of her own great endowment ofhauteur and self-esteem. But to be received with this frank cordiality,on a basis of a equality with this finished woman--that left Maggie forthe moment without arms. She had, in her high moments, believed herselfan adventuress whose poise and plans nothing could unbalance. Now shefound herself suddenly just a young girl of eighteen who didn't knowwhat to do.
Had Maggie but known it that sudden unconscious confusion, which seemed
to betray her, was really more effective for her purpose than wouldhave been the best of conscious acting. It established her at once as anunstagey ingenue--simple, unspoiled, unacquainted with the formulas andformalities of the world.
Miss Sherwood, in her easy possession of the situation, banished Dickwith "Run away for a while, Dick, and give us two women a chance to getacquainted." She had caught Maggie's embarrassment, and led her toa corner of the veranda which looked down upon the gardens and theglistering Sound. She spoke of the impersonal beauties spread beforetheir vision, until she judged that Maggie's first flutter had abated;then she led the way to wicker chairs beside a table where obviously teawas to be spread.
Miss Sherwood accepted Maggie for exactly what she seemed to be; andpresently she was saying in a low voice, with her smiling, unoffendingdirectness:
"Excuse the liberty of an older woman, Miss Cameron--but I don't wonderthat Dick likes you. You see, he's told me."
If Maggie had been at loss for her cue before, she had it now. It wasunpretentiousness.
"But, Miss Sherwood--I'm so crude," she faltered, acting her best. "OutWest I never had any chances to learn. Not any chances like your Easterngirls."
"That's no difference, my dear. You are a nice, simple girl--that's whatcounts!"
"Thank you," said Maggie.
"So few of our rich girls of the East know what it is to be simple,"continued Miss Sherwood. "Too many are all affectation, and pose, andforwardness. At twenty they know all there is to be known, they areblasees--cynical--ready for divorce before they are ready for marriage.By contrast you are so wholesome, so refreshing."
"Thank you," Maggie again murmured.
And as the two women sat there, sprung from the extremes of life, butfor the moment on the level of equals, and as the older talked on, theregrew up in Maggie two violently contradictory emotions. One was triumph.She had won out here, just as she had said she would win out; and wonout with what Barney had declared to be the most difficult person to getthe better of, a finished woman of the world. Indeed, that was triumph!
The other emotion she did not understand so well. And just thenshe could not analyze it. It was an unexpected dismay--a vague butpermeating sickness--a dazed sense that she was being carried byunfamiliar forces toward she knew not what.
She held fast to her sense of triumph. That was the more apprehendableand positive; triumph was what she had set forth to win. This sense oftriumph was at its highest, and she was resting in its elating security,when a car stopped before the house and a large man got out and startedup the steps. From the first moment there was something familiar toMaggie in his carriage, but not till Miss Sherwood, who had risen andcrossed toward him, greeted him as "Mr. Hunt," did Maggie recognize thewell-dressed visitor as the shabby, boisterous painter whom she had lastseen down at the Duchess's.
Panic seized upon her. Miss Sherwood was leading him toward where shesat and his first clear sight of her would mean the end. There wasno possible escape; she could only await her fate. And when she wasdenounced as a fraud, and her glittering victory was gone, she couldonly take herself away with as much of the defiance of admitted defeatas she could assume--and that wouldn't be much.
She gazed up at Hunt, whitely, awaiting extermination. Miss Sherwood'svoice came to her from an infinite distance, introducing them. Huntbowed, with a formally polite smile, and said formally, "I'm very gladto meet you, Miss Cameron."
Not till he and Miss Sherwood were seated and chatting did Maggierealize the fullness of the astounding fact that he had not recognizedher. This was far more upsetting to her than would have been recognitionand exposure; she had been all braced for that, but not for what hadactually happened. She was certain he must have known her; nothing hadreally changed about her except her dress, and only a few weeks hadpassed since he had been seeing her daily down at the Duchess's,and since she had been his model, and he had studied every line andexpression of her face with those sharp painter's eyes of his.
And so as the two chatted, she putting in a stumbling phrase when theyturned to her, Maggie Carlisle, Maggie Cameron, Maggie Ellison, thatgallant and all-confident adventuress who till the present had neveradmitted herself seriously disturbed by a problem, sat limply in herchair, a very young girl, indeed, and wondered how this thing couldpossibly be.