XVI.
I don't remember much about the first part of the lunch. I was sohungry I wanted to eat everything in sight, and so happy that Icouldn't eat a thing.
But Mr. O. kept piling the things on my plate, and each time I beganto talk he'd say: "Not now--wait till you're rested, and not quite sofamished."
I laughed.
"Do I eat as though I was starved?"
"You--you look tired, Nance."
"Well," I said slowly, "it's been a hard week."
"It's been hard for me, too; harder, I think, than for you. It wasn'tfair to me to let me--think what I did and say what I did. I'm sosorry, Nance,--and ashamed. So ashamed! You might have told me."
"And have you put your foot down on the whole thing; not much!"
He laughed. He's got such a boyish laugh in spite of his chin and hiseye-glasses and the bigness of him. He filled my glass for me andhelped me again to the salad.
Oh, Mag, it's such fun to be a woman and have a man wait on you likethat! It's such fun to be hungry and to sit down to a jolly littletable just big enough for two, with carnations nodding in the tall slimvase, with a fat, soft-footed, quick-handed waiter dancing behind you,and something tempting in every dish your eye falls on.
It's a gay, happy, easy world, Maggie darlin'. I vow I can't find adark corner in it--not to-day.
None but the swellest place in town was good enough, Obermuller hadsaid, for us to celebrate in. The waiters looked queerly at us when wecame in--me in my dusty shoes and mussed hair and old rig, and Mr. O.in his working togs. But do you suppose we cared?
He was smoking and I was pretending to eat fruit when at last I gotfairly launched on my story.
He listened to it all with never a word of interruption. Sometimes Ithought he was so interested that he couldn't bear to miss a word Isaid. And then again I fancied he wasn't listening at all to me; onlywatching me and listening to something inside of himself.
Can you see him, Mag, sitting opposite me there at the pretty littletable, off in a private room by ourselves? He looked so big and strongand masterful, with his eyes half closed, watching me, that I huggedmyself with delight to think that I--I, Nancy Olden, had done somethingfor him he couldn't do for himself.
It made me so proud, so tipsily vain, that as I leaned forward eagerlytalking, I felt that same intoxicating happiness I get on the stagewhen the audience is all with me, and the two of us--myself and themany-handed, good-natured other fellow over on the other side of thefootlights--go careering off on a jaunt of fun and fancy, like two goodplaymates.
He was silent a minute when I got through. Then he laid his cigaraside and stretched out his hand to me.
"And the reason, Nance--the reason for it all?"
I looked up at him. I'd never heard him speak like that.
"The reason?" I repeated.
"Yes, the reason." He had caught my hand.
"Why--to down that tiger Trust--and beat Tausig."
He laughed.
"And that was all? Nonsense, Nance Olden, there was another reason.There are other tiger trusts. Are you going to set up as a lady-errantand right all syndicate wrongs? No, there was another, a biggerreason, Nance. I'm going to tell it to you--what!"
I pulled my hand from his; but not before that fat waiter who'd come inwithout our noticing had got something to grin about.
"Beg pardon, sir," he said. "This message must be for you, sir. It'smarked immediate, and no one else--"
Obermuller took it and tore it open. He smiled the oddest smile as heread it, and he threw back his head and laughed a full, hearty bellowwhen he got to the end.
"Read it, Nance," he said, passing it over to me. "They sent it onfrom the office."
I read it. "Mr. Fred W. Obermuller, Manager Vaudeville Theater, NewYork City, N.Y.:
Dear Obermuller:--I have just learned from your little protegee, NanceOlden, of a comedy you've written. From what Miss Olden tells me ofthe plot and situations of And the Greatest of These--your title'sgreat--I judge the thing to be something altogether out of the common;and my secretary and reader, Mr. Mason, agrees with me that properlyinterpreted and perhaps touched up here and there, the comedy ought tomake a hit.
Would Miss Olden take the leading role, I wonder?
Can't you drop in this evening and talk the matter over? There's anopening for a fellow like you with us that's just developed within thepast few days, and--this is strictly confidential--I have succeeded inconvincing Braun and Lowenthal that their enmity is a foolish personalmatter which business men shouldn't let stand in the way of business.After all, just what is there between you and them? A mere trifle; amisunderstanding that half an hour's talk over a bottle of wine with agood cigar would drive away.
If you're the man I take you for you'll drop in this evening at the VanTwiller and bury the hatchet. They're good fellows, those two, andsmart men, even if they are stubborn as sin.
Counting on seeing you to-night, my dear fellow, I am most cordially, I. M. TAUSIG."
I dropped the letter and looked over at Obermuller.
"Miss Olden," he said severely, coming 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 letter was marked personal?" Obermuller said. He wasstill standing beside me.
"No--was it?" I got up, too, and began to pull on my gloves; but myfingers shook so I couldn't do a thing with them.
"Oh, yes, it was. That's why I showed it to you. Nance--Nance, don'tyou see that there's only one way out of this? There's only one womanin 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, Maggie, with himthere and his arms ready for me!
"I--I should think you'd be afraid," I whispered. I didn't dare lookat him.
He caught me to him then.
"Afraid you wouldn't care for an old fellow like me?" he laughed."Yes, that's the only fear I had. But I lost it, Nancy, NancyObermuller, when you flung that paper down before me. That's quite twohours ago--haven't I waited long enough?"
* * * * * * * * * * *
Oh, Mag--Mag, how can I tell him? Do you think he knows that I amgoing to be good--good! that I can be as good for a good man who lovesme, as I was bad for a bad man I loved!
In the Bishop's Carriage Page 16