Then he ripped it out. Said the worst he could and ended with a curse!
The blood boiled in me. The old Nance never stood that; she used to
sneer at other women who did.
"Get out of here!" I cried. "Go--go, Tom Dorgan. I'll send every cent
I've got to you to Mother Douty's within two hours, but don't you
dare--"
"Don't YOU dare, you she-devil! Just make up your mind to drop these
newfangled airs, and mighty quick. I tell you you'll come with me
'cause I need you and I want you, and I want you now. And I'll keep
you when once I get you again. We'll hang together. No more o' this
one-sided lay-out for me, where you get all the soft and it's me for
the hard. You belong to me. Yes, you do. Just think back a bit,
Nance Olden, and remember the kind of customer I am. If you've forgot,
just let me remind you that what I know would put you behind bars, my
lady, and it shall, I swear, if I've got to go to the Chair for it!"
Tom! It was Tom talking that way to me. I couldn't bear it. I made a
rush for the door.
He got there, too, and catching me by the shoulder, he lifted his fist.
But it never fell, Mag. I think I could kill a man who struck me. But
just as I shut my eyes and shivered away from him, while I waited for
the blow, a knock came at the door and Fred Obermuller walked in.
"Eh? Oh! Excuse me. I didn't know there was anybody else. Nance,
your face is ghastly. What's up?" he said sharply.
He looked from me to Tom--Tom, standing off there ready to spring on
him, to dart past him, to fly out of the window--ready for anything;
only waiting to know what the thing was to be.
My senses came back to me then. The sight of Obermuller, with those
keen, quick eyes behind his glasses, his strong, square chin, and the
whole poise of his head and body that makes men wait to hear what he
has to say; the knowledge that that man was my friend, mine--Nancy
Olden's--lifted me out of the mud I'd sunk back in, and put my feet
again on a level with his.
"Tom," I said slowly, "Mr. Obermuller is a friend of mine. No--listen!
What we've been talking about is settled. Don't bring it up again. It
doesn't interest him and it can't change me; I swear to you, it can't;
nothing can. I'm going to ask Mr. Obermuller to help you without
telling him just what the scrape is, and--and I'm going to be sure that
he'll do it just because he--"
"Because you've taken up with him, have you?" Tom shouted savagely.
"Because she's your--"
"Tom!" I cried.
"Tom--oh, yes, now I remember." Obermuller got between us as he spoke.
"Your friend up--in the country that you went to see and couldn't. Not
a very good-looker, your friend, Nance. But--farming, I suppose,
Mr.--Tom?--plays the deuce with one's looks. And another thing it
does: it makes a man forget sometimes just how to behave in town. I'll
be charmed, Mr. Tom, to oblige a friend of Miss Olden's; but I must
insist that he does not talk like a--farmer."
He was quite close to Tom when he finished, and Tom was glaring up at
him. And, Mag, I didn't know which one I was most afraid for. Don't
you look at me that way, Mag Monahan, and don't you dare to guess
anything!
"If you think," growled Tom, "that I'm going to let you get off with
the girl, you're mighty--"
"Now, I've told you not to say that. The reason I'll do the thing
she's going to ask of me--if it's what I think it is--is because this
girl's a plucky little creature with a soul big enough to lift her out
of the muck you probably helped her into. It's because she's got
brains, talent, and a heart. It's because--well, it's because I feel
like it, and she deserves a friend."
"You don't know what she is." It was a snarl from Tom. "You don't--"
"Oh, yes, I do; you cur! I know what she was, too. And I even know
what she will be; but that doesn't concern you."
"The hell it don't!"
Obermuller turned his back on him. I was dumb and still. Tom Dorgan
had struck me after all.
"What is it you want me to do, Nance?" Obermuller asked.
"Get him away on a steamer--quick," I murmured--I couldn't look him in
the face--"without asking why, or what his name is."