And what do I do? That's what I was trying to tell you about the
Cruelty for. It's in a little act that was made for Lady Gray, that
there are four Charity girls on the stage, and I'm one of 'em.
Lady Gray? Why, Mag, how can you ever hope to get on if you don't know
who's who? How can you expect me to associate with you if you're so
ignorant? Yes--a real Lady, as real as the wife of a Lord can be.
Lord Harold Gray's a sure enough Lord, and she's his wife but--but a
chippy, just the same; that's what she is, in spite of the Gray
emeralds and that great Gray rose diamond she wears on the tiniest
chain around her scraggy neck. Do you know, Mag Monahan, that this
Lady Harold Gray was just a chorus girl--and a sweet chorus it must
have been if she sang there!--when she nabbed Lord Harold?
You'd better keep your eye on Nancy Olden, or first thing you know
she'll marry the Czar of Russia--or Tom Dorgan, poor fellow, when he
gets out! ... Well, just the same, Mag, if that white-faced, scrawny
little creature can be a Lady, a girl with ten times her brains, and at
least half a dozen times her good looks--oh, we're not shy on the
stage, Mag, about throwing bouquets at ourselves!
Can she act? Don't be silly, Mag! Can't you see that Obermuller's
just hiring her title and playing it in big letters on the bills for
all it's worth? She acts the Lady Patroness, come to look at us
Charity girls. She comes on, though, looking like a fairy princess.
Her dress is just blazing with diamonds. There's the Lady's coronet in
her hair. Her thin little arms are banded with gold and diamonds, and
on her neck--O Mag, Mag, that rose diamond is the color of rose-leaves
in a fountain's jet through which the sun is shining. It's long--long
as my thumb--I swear it is, Mag--nearly, and it blazes, oh, it blazes--
Well, it blazes dollars into Obermuller's box all right, for the Gray
jewels are advertised in the bill with this one at the head of the
list, the star of them all.
You see it's this way: Lord Harold Gray's bankrupt. He's poor as--as
Nance Olden. Isn't that funny? But he's got the family jewels all
right, to have as long as he lives. Nary a one can he sell, though,
for after his death, they go to the next Lord Gray. So he makes 'em
make a living for him, and as they can't go on and exhibit themselves,
Lady Gray sports 'em--and draws down two hundred dollars a week.
Yep--two hundred.
But do you know it isn't the two hundred dollars a week that makes me
envy her till I'm sick; it's that rose diamond. If you could only see
it, Mag, you'd sympathize with me, and understand why my fingers just
itched for it the first night I saw her come on.
'Pon my soul, Mag, the sight of it blazing on her neck dazzled me so
that it shut out all the staring audience that first night, and I even
forgot to have stage fright.
"What's doped you, Olden?" Obermuller asked when the curtain went down,
and we all hurried to the wings.
I was in the black dress with the white-bibbed apron, and I looked up
at him still dazed by the shine of that diamond and my longing for it.
You'd almost kill with your own hands for a diamond like that, Mag!
"Doped? Why--what didn't I do?" I asked him.
"That's just it," he said, looking at me curiously; but I could feel
his disappointment in me.
"You didn't do anything--not a blasted thing more than you were told to
do. The world's full of supers that can do that."
For just a minute I forgot the diamond.
"Then--it's a mistake? You were wrong and--and I can't be an actress?"
He threw back his head before he answered, puffing a mouthful of smoke
up at the ceiling, as he did the night he caught me. The gesture
itself seemed to remind him of what had made him think in the first
place he could make an actress of me. For he laughed down at me, and I
saw he remembered.
"Well," he said, "we'll wait and see... I was mistaken, though, sure
enough, about one thing that night." I looked up at him.
"You're a darn sight prettier than I thought you were. The gold brick
you sold me isn't all--"
He put out his hand to touch my chin. I side-stepped, and he turned
laughing to the stage.
But he called after me.
"Is a beauty success going to content you, Olden?"
"Well, we'll wait and see," I drawled back at him in his own throaty
bass.
Oh, I was drunk, Mag, drunk with thinking about that diamond! I didn't
care even to please Obermuller. I just wanted the feel of that diamond
in my hand. I wanted it lying on my own neck--the lovely, cool,
shining, rosy thing. It's like the sunrise, Mag, that beauty stone.
It's just a tiny pool of water blushing. It's--
How to get it! How to get away with it! On what we'd get for that
diamond, Tom and I--when his time is up--could live for all our lives
and whoop it up besides. We could live in Paris, where great grafters
live and grafting pays--where, if you've got wit and fifty thousand
dollars, and happen to be a "darn sight prettier," you can just spin
the world around your little finger!
But, do you know, even then I couldn't bear to think of selling the
pretty thing? It hurt me to think of anybody having it but just Nance
Olden.
But I hadn't got it yet.
Gray has a dressing-room to herself. And on her table--which is a big
box, open end down--just where the three-sided big mirror can multiply
the jewels and make you want 'em three times as bad, her big
russia-leather, silver-mounted box lies open, while she's dressing and
undressing. Other times it's locked tight, and his Lordship himself
has it tight in his own right hand, or his Lordship's man, Topham, has
it just as tight.
How to get that diamond! There was a hard nut for Nance Olden's sharp
teeth to crack. I only wanted that--never say I'm greedy, Mag--Gray
could keep all the rest of the things--the pigeon in rubies and pearls,
the tiara all in diamonds, the chain of pearls, and the blazing rings,
and the waist-trimming all of emeralds and diamond stars. But that
diamond, that huge rose diamond, I couldn't, I just couldn't let her
have it.
And yet I didn't know the first step to take toward getting it, till
Beryl Blackburn helped me out. She's one of the Charities, like me--a
tall bleached blonde with a pretty, pale face and gold-gray eyes. And,
if you'd believe her, there's not a man in the audience, afternoon or
evening, that isn't dead-gone on her.
"Guess who's my latest," she said to me this afternoon, while we four
Charities stood in the wings waiting. "Topham--old Topham!"
It all got clear to me then in a minute.
"Topham--nothing!" I sneered. "Beryl Big-head, Topham thinks of only
one thing--Milady's jewel-box. Don't you fool yourself."
"Oh, does he, Miss! Well, just to prove it, he let me try on the rose
diamond last night. There!"
"It's easy to say so but I don't see the proof. He'd lose his job so
quick it'd make his head spin if he did it."
"Not if he did, but if they knew he did. You'll not tell?"
"Not me. Why would I? I don't believe it, and I wouldn't expect
anybody else to. I don't believe you could get Topham to budge from
his chair in Gray's dressing-room if you'd--"
"What'll you bet?"
"I'll bet you the biggest box of chocolate creams at Huyler's."
"Done! I'll send for him to-night, just before Gray and her Lord come,
and you see--"
"How'll I see? Where'll I be?"
"Well, you be waiting in the little hall, right of Gray's dressing-room
at seven-thirty to-night and--you might as well bring the creams with
you."
Catch on, Mag? At seven-thirty in the evening I was waiting; but not
in the little hall of Gray's dressing-room. I hadn't gone home at all
after the afternoon performance--you know we play at three, and again
at eight-thirty. I had just hidden me away till the rest were gone,
and as soon as the coast was clear I got into Gray's dressing-room,
pushed aside the chintz curtains of the big box that makes her
dressing-table--and waited.
Lord, how the hours dragged! I hadn't had anything to eat since lunch,
and it got darker and darker in there, and hot and close and cramped.
I put in the time, much as I could, thinking of Tom. The very first
thing I'd do after cashing in, would be to get up to Sing Sing to see
him. I'm crazy to see him. I'd tell him the news and see if he
couldn't bribe a guard, or plan some scheme with me to get out soon.
Afraid--me? What of? If they found me under that box I'd just give
'em the Beryl story about the bet. How do you know they wouldn't
believe it? ... Oh, I don't care, you've got to take chances, Mag
Monahan, if you go in for big things. And this was big--huge. Do you
know how much that diamond's worth? And do you know how to spend fifty
thousand?
I spent it all there--in the box--every penny of it. When I got tired
spending money I dozed a bit and, in my dream, spent it over again.
And then I waked and tried to fancy new ways of getting rid of it, but
my head ached, and my back ached, and my whole body was so strained and
cramped that I was on the point of giving it all up when--that blessed
old Topham came in.
He set the big box down with a bang that nearly cracked my head. He
turned on the lights, and stood whistling Tommy Atkins. And then
suddenly there came a soft call, "Topham! Topham!"
I leaned back and bit my fingers till I knew I wouldn't shriek. The
Englishman listened a minute. Then the call came again, and Topham
creaked to the door and out.
In a twinkling I was out, too, you bet.
Mag! He hadn't opened the box at all! There it stood in the middle of
the space framed by the three glasses. I pulled at the lid. Locked!
I could have screamed with rage. But the sound of his step outside the
door sobered me. He was coming back. In a frantic hurry I turned
toward the window which I had unlocked when I came in four hours ago.
But I hadn't time to make it. I heard the old fellow's hand on the
door, and I tumbled back into the box in such a rush that the curtains
were still waving when he came in.
Slowly he began to place the jewels, one by one, in the order her
Ladyship puts them on. We Charity girls had often watched him from the
door--he never let one of us put a foot inside. He was method and
order itself. He never changed the order in which he lifted the
glittering things out, nor the places he put them back in. I put my
hand up against the top of the box, tracing the spot where each piece
would be lying. Think, Mag, just half an inch between me and quarter
of a million!
Oh, I was sore as I lay there! And I wasn't so cock-sure either that
I'd get out of it straight. I tried the Beryl story lots of ways on
myself, but somehow, every time I fancied myself telling it to
Obermuller, it got tangled up and lay dumb and heavy inside of me.
But at least it would be better to appear of my own will before the old
Englishman than be discovered by Lord Gray and his Lady. I had my
fingers on the curtains, and in another second I'd been out when--
"Miss Beryl Blackburn's compliments, Mr. Topham, and would you step to
the door, as there's something most important she wants to tell you."
Oh, I loved every syllable that call-boy spoke! There was a giggle
behind his voice, too; old Topham was the butt of every joke. The
first call, which had fooled me, must have been from some giddy girl
who wanted to guy the old fellow. She had fooled me all right. But
this--this one was the real article.
There was a pause--Topham must be looking about to be sure things were
safe. Then he creaked to the door and shut it carefully behind him.
It only took a minute, but in that minute--in that minute, Mag, I had
the rose diamond clutched safe in my fingers; I was on the top of the
big trunk and out of the window.
Oh, the feel of that beautiful thing in my hand! I'd 'a' loved it if
it hadn't been worth a penny, but as it was I adored it. I slipped the
chain under my collar, and the diamond slid down my neck, and I felt
its kiss on my skin. I flew down the black corridor, bumping into
scenery and nearly tripping two stage carpenters. I heard Ginger, the
call-boy, ahead of me and dodged behind some properties just in time.
He went whistling past and I got to the stage door.