XIII.
Just what I'd been hoping for I don't know, but I knew that my chancehad come that morning.
For a week I had been talking Obermuller's comedy to Mason, thesecretary. In the evenings I stood about in the wings and watched theVan Twiller company in Brambles. There was one fat role in it that Ijust ached for, but I lost all that ache and found another, when Ioverheard two of the women talking about Obermuller and me one night.
"He found her and made her," one of 'em said; "just dug her out of theground. See what he's done for her; taught her every blessed thing sheknows; wrote her mimicking monologues for her; gave her her chance,and--and now--Well, Tausig don't pay salaries for nothing, and she getshers as regularly as I draw mine. What more I don't know. But shehasn't set foot on the stage yet under Tausig, and they sayObermuller--"
I didn't get the rest of it, so I don't know what they say aboutObermuller. I only know what they've said to him about me. 'Tisn'thard to make men believe those things. But I had to stand it. Whatcould I do? I couldn't tell Fred Obermuller that I was making over hisplay, soul and as much body as I could remember, to Tausig's secretary.He'd have found that harder to believe than the other thing.
It hasn't been a very happy week for me, I can tell you, Maggie. But Iforgot it all, every shiver and ache of it, when I came into the officethat morning, as usual, and found Mason alone.
Not altogether alone--he had his bottle. And he had had it and othersof the same family all the night before. The poor drunken wretchhadn't been home at all. He was worse than he'd been that morningthree days before, when I had stood facing him and talking to him,while with my hands behind my back I was taking a wax impression of thelock of the desk; and he as unconscious of it all as Tausig himself.
The last page I had dictated the day before, which he'd beentranscribing from his notes, lay in front of him; the gas was stillburning directly above him, and a shade he wore over his weak eyes hadbeen knocked awry as his poor old bald head went bumping down on thetype-writer before him.
The thing that favored me was Tausig's distrust of everybody connectedwith him. He hates his partners only a bit less than he hates the menoutside the Trust. The bigger and richer the Syndicate grows, the morepower and prosperity it has, the more he begrudges them their share ofit; the more he wants it all for himself. He is madly suspicious ofhis clerks, and hires others to watch them, to spy upon them. He iscontinually moving his valuables from place to place, partly because hetrusts no man; partly because he's so deathly afraid his right handwill find out what his left is doing. He is a full partner of Braunand Lowenthal--with mental reservations. He has no confidence ineither of them. Half his schemes he keeps from them; the other half hetells them--part of. He's for ever afraid that the Syndicate of whichhe's the head will fall to pieces and become another Syndicate of whichhe won't be head.
It all makes him an unhappy, restless little beast; but it helped meto-day. If it'd been any question of safe combinations and tangledthings like that, the game would have been all up for Nancy O. But inhis official safe Tausig keeps only such papers as he wants Braun andLowenthal to see. And in his private desk in his private office hekeeps--
I stole past Mason, sleeping with his forehead on the type-writerkeys--he'll be lettered like the obelisk when he wakes up--and creptinto the next room to see just what Tausig keeps in that private deskof his.
Oh, yes, it was locked. But hadn't I been carrying the key to it everyminute for the last forty-eight hours? There must be a mine of stuffin that desk of Tausig's, Mag. The touch of every paper in it is slimywith some dirty trick, some bad secret, some mean action. It's a pitythat I hadn't time to go through 'em all; it would have beeninteresting; but under a bundle of women's letters, which that old foxkeeps for no good reason, I'll bet, I lit on a paper that made my heartgo bumping like a cart over cobbles.
Yes, there it was, just as Obermuller had vowed it was, with Tausig'scramped little signature followed by Heffelfinger's, Dixon's andWeinstock's; a scheme to crush the business life out of men by thecleverest, up-to-date Trust deviltry; a thing that our Uncle Sammy justwon't stand for.
And neither will Nancy Olden, Miss Monahan.
She grabbed that precious paper with a gasp of delight and closed thedesk.
But she bungled a bit there, for Mason lifted his head and blinkeddazedly at her for a moment, recognized her and shook his head.
"No--work to-day," he said.
"No--I know. I'll just look over what we've done, Mr. Mason," sheanswered cheerfully.
His poor head went down again with a bob, and she caught up thetype-written sheets of Obermuller's play. She waited a minute longer;half because she wanted to make sure Mason was asleep again before shetore the sheets across and crammed them down into the waste-basket;half because she pitied the old fellow and was sorry to take advantageof his condition. But she knew a cure for this last sorry--a way she'dhelp him later; and when she danced out into the hall she was the veryhappiest burglar in a world chock full of opportunities.
Oh, she was in such a twitter as she did it! All that old delight indoing somebody else up, a vague somebody whose meannesses she didn'tknow, was as nothing to the joy of doing Tausig up. She was dancing ona volcano again, that incorrigible Nance! Oh, but such a volcano,Maggie! It atoned for a year of days when there was nothing doing; noexcitement, no risk, nothing to keep a girl interested and alive.
And, Maggie darlin', it was a wonderful volcano, that ones that lastone, for it worked both ways. It paid up for what I haven't done thispast year and what I'll never do again in the years to come. It madeup to me for all I've missed and all I'm going to miss. It was areward of demerit for not being respectable, and a preventive offurther sins. Oh, it was such a volcano as never was. It was a drinkand a blue ribbon in one. It was a bang-up end and a bully beginning.It was--
It was Tausig coming in as I was going out. Suddenly I realized that,but I was in such a mad whirl of excitement that I almost ran over thelittle fellow before I could stop myself.
"Phew! What a whirlwind you are!" he cried. "Where are you going?"
"Oh, good morning, Mr. Tausig," I said sweetly. "I never dreamed you'dbe down so early in the morning."
"What're you doing with the paper?" he demanded suspiciously.
My eye followed his. I could have beaten Nancy Olden in that minutefor not having sense enough to hide that precious agreement, instead ofcarrying it rolled up in her hand.
"Just taking it home to go over it," I said carelessly, trying to passhim.
But he barred my way.
"Where's Mason?" he asked.
"Poor Mason!" I said. "He's--he's asleep."
"Drunk again?"
I nodded. How to get away!
"That settles his hash. Out he goes to-day ... It seems to me you'rein a deuce of a hurry," he added, as I tried to get out again. "Comein; I want to talk something over with you."
"Not this morning," I said saucily. I wanted to cry. "I've got anengagement to lunch, and I want to go over this stuff for Mason beforeone."
"Hm! An engagement. Who with, now?"
My chin shot up in the air. He laughed, that cold, noiseless littlelaugh of his.
"But suppose I want you to come to lunch with me?"
"Oh, thank you, Mr. Tausig. But how could I break my engagement with--"
"With Braun?"
"How did you guess it?" I laughed. "There's no keeping anything fromyou."
He was immensely satisfied with his little self. "I know him--that oldrascal," he said slowly. "I say, Olden, just do break that engagementwith Braun." "I oughtn't--really."
"But do--eh? Finish your work here and we'll go off together, us two,at twelve-thirty, and leave him cooling his heels here when he comes."He rubbed his hands gleefully.
"But I'm not dressed."
"You'll do for me."
"But not for me. Listen: let me hurry home now and I'll throw Braunov
er and be back here to meet you at twelve-thirty."
He pursed up his thin little lips and shook his head. But I slippedpast him in that minute and got out into the street.
"At twelve-thirty," I called back as I hurried off.
I got around the corner in a jiffy. Oh, I could hardly walk, Mag! Iwanted to fly and dance and skip. I wanted to kick up my heels as thechildren were doing in the Square, while the organ ground out, Ain't Ita Shame? I actually did a step or two with them, to their delight, andthe first thing I knew I felt a bit of a hand in mine like a cool pinksnowflake and--
Oh, a baby, Mag! A girl-baby more than a year old and less than twoyears young; too little to talk; too big not to walk; facing the worldwith a winning smile and jabbering things in her soft little lingo,knowing that every woman she meets will understand.
I did, all right. She was saying to me as she kicked out her soft,heelless little boot:
"Nancy Olden, I choose you. Nancy Olden, I love you. Nancy Olden, Idare you not to love me. Nancy Olden, I defy you not to laugh back atme!"
Where in the world she dropped from, heaven knows. The organ-grinderpicked up the shafts of his wagon and trundled it away. Thepiccaninnies melted like magic. But that gay little flirt, about ayear and a half old, just held on to my finger and gabbled--poetry.
I didn't realize just then that she was a lost, strayed or stolen. Iexpected every moment some nurse or conceited mamma to appear and dragher away from me. And I looked down at her--oh, she was just a littlebunch of soft stuff; her face was a giggling dimple, framed in a biground hat-halo, that had fallen from her chicken-blond head; and herwhite dress, with the blue ribbons at the shoulders, was just a littlebit dirty. I like 'em a little bit dirty. Why? Perhaps because I canimagine having a little coquette of my own a bit dirty like that, andcan't just see Nance Olden with a spick-and-span clean baby, allfeathers and lace, like a bored little grown-up.
"You're a mouse," I gurgled down at her. "You're a sweetheart. You'rea--"
And suddenly I heard a cry and rush behind me.
It was a false alarm; just a long-legged girl of twelve rushing roundthe corner, followed by a lot of others. It hadn't been meant for me,of course, but in the second when I had remembered that precious paperand Tausig's rage when he should miss it, I had pulled my hand awayfrom that bit baby's and started to run.
The poor little tot! There isn't any reason in the world for thefancies they take any more than for our own; eh, Mag? Why should shehave been attracted to me just because I was so undignified as to dancewith the piccaninnies?
But do you know what that little thing did? She thought I was playingwith her. She gave a crow of delight and came bowling after me.
That finished me. I stooped and picked her up in my arms, throwing herup in the air to hear her crow and feel her come down again.
"Mouse," I said, "we'll just have a little trip together. The nursethat'd lose you deserves to worry till you're found. The mother that'slucky enough to own you will be benefited hereafter by a sharp scare onyour account just now. Come on, sweetheart!"
Oh, the feel of a baby in your arms, Mag! It makes the Cruelty seem aperfectly unreal thing, a thing one should be unutterably ashamed ofimagining, of accusing human nature of; a thing only an irredeemablyvile thing could imagine. Just the weight of that little body ridinglike a bonny boat at anchor on your arm, just the cocky little way itsits up, chirping and confident; just the light touch of a bit of ahand on your collar; just that is enough to push down brick walls; todestroy pictures of bruised and maimed children that endure after theinjuries are healed; to scatter records that even I--I, NancyOlden--can't believe and believe, too, that other women have carriedtheir babies, as I did some other woman's baby, across the Square.
On the other side I set her down. I didn't want to. I was greedy ofevery moment that I had her. But I wanted to get some change readybefore climbing up the steps to the L-station.
She clutched my dress as we stood there a minute in a perfectlyirresistible way. I know now why men marry baby-women: it's to feelthat delicious, helpless clutch of weak fingers; the clutch ofdependence, of trust, of appeal.
I looked down at her with that same silly adoration I've seen onMolly's face for her poor, lacking, twisted boy. At least, I did inthe beginning. But gradually the expression of my face must havechanged; for all at once I discovered what had been done to me.
My purse was gone.
Yes, Maggie Monahan, clean gone! My pocket had been as neatly pickedas I myself--well, never mind, as what. I threw back my head andlaughed aloud. Nance Olden, the great doer-up, had been done up socleverly, so surely, so prettily, that she hadn't had an inkling of it.
I wished I could get a glimpse of the clever girl that did it. Agirl--of course, it was! Do you think any boy's fingers could do a joblike that and me not even know?
But I didn't stop to wish very long. Here was I with the thing Ivalued most in the world still clutched in my hand, and not a nickel tomy name to get me, the paper, and the baby on our way.
It was the baby, of course, that decided me. You can't be veryenterprising when you're carrying a pink lump of sweetness that's alla-smile at the moment, but may get all a-tear the next.
"It's you for the nearest police station, you young tough!" I said,squeezing her. "I can't take you home now and show you to Mag."
But she giggled and gurgled back at me, the abandoned thing, as thoughthe police station was just the properest place for a young lady of heryears.
It was not so very near, either, that station. My arm ached when I gotthere from carrying her, but my heart ached, too, to leave her. I toldthe matron how and where the little thing had picked me up. At firstshe wouldn't leave me, but--the fickle little thing--a glass of milktransferred all her smiles and wiles to the matron. Then we both wentover her clothes to find a name or an initial or a laundry mark. Butwe found nothing. The matron offered me a glass of milk, too, but Iwas in a hurry to be gone. She was a nice matron; so nice that I wasjust about to ask her for the loan of car-fare when--
When I heard a voice, Maggie, in the office adjoining. I knew thatvoice all right, and I knew that I had to make a decision quick.
I did. I threw the whole thing into the lap of Fate. And when Iopened the door and faced him I was smiling.
Oh, yes, it was Tausig.