In the Bishop's Carriage Part 34

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-errant and right all syndicate wrongs? No, there was another, a bigger reason, 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 in without our noticing had got something to grin about.

"Beg pardon, sir," he said. "This message must be for you, sir. It's marked immediate, and no one else--"

Obermuller took it and tore it open. He smiled the oddest smile as he read it, and he threw back his head and laughed a full, hearty bellow when he got to the end.

"Read it, Nance," he said, pa.s.sing it over to me. "They sent it on from the office."

I read it. "Mr. Fred W. Obermuller, Manager Vaudeville Theater, New York City, N.Y.:

Dear Obermuller:--I have just learned from your little protegee, Nance Olden, of a comedy you've written. From what Miss Olden tells me of the plot and situations of And the Greatest of These--your t.i.tle's great--I judge the thing to be something altogether out of the common; and my secretary and reader, Mr. Mason, agrees with me that properly interpreted and perhaps touched up here and there, the comedy ought to make 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 an opening for a fellow like you with us that's just developed within the past few days, and--this is strictly confidential--I have succeeded in convincing Braun and Lowenthal that their enmity is a foolish personal matter 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; a misunderstanding that half an hour's talk over a bottle of wine with a good cigar would drive away.

If you're the man I take you for you'll drop in this evening at the Van Twiller and bury the hatchet. They're good fellows, those two, and smart 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 was still standing beside me.

"No--was it?" I got up, too, and began to pull on my gloves; but my fingers 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't you see that there's only one way out of this? There's only one woman in 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 him there and his arms ready for me!

"I--I should think you'd be afraid," I whispered. I didn't dare look at 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, Nancy Obermuller, when you flung that paper down before me. That's quite two hours ago--haven't I waited long enough?"

Oh, Mag--Mag, how can I tell him? Do you think he knows that I am going to be good--good! that I can be as good for a good man who loves me, as I was bad for a bad man I loved!

XVII.

PHILADELPHIA, January 27.

Maggie, dear:

I'm writing to you just before dinner while I wait for Fred. He's down at the box-office looking up advance sales. I tell you, Maggie Monahan, we're strictly in it--we Obermullers. That Broadway hit of mine has preceded me here, and we've got the town, I suspect, in advance.

But I'm not writing to tell you this. I've got something more interesting to tell you, my dear old Cruelty chum.

I want you to pretend to yourself that you see me, Mag, as I came out of the big Chestnut Street store this afternoon, my arms full of bundles. I must have on that long coat to my heels, of dark, warm red, silk-lined, with the long, incurving back sweep and high chinchilla collar, that Fred ordered made for me the very day we were married. I must be wearing that jolly little, red-cloth toque caught up on the side with some of the fur.

Oh, yes, I knew I was more than a year behind the times when I got them, but a successful actress wears what she pleases, and the rest of the world wears what pleases her, too. Besides, fas.h.i.+ons don't mean so much to you when your husband tells you how becoming--but this has nothing to do with the Bishop.

Yes, the Bishop, Mag!

I had just said, "Nance Olden--" To myself I still speak to me as Nancy Olden; it's good for me, Mag; keeps me humble and for ever grateful that I'm so happy. "Nance, you'll never be able to carry all these things and lift your buful train, too. And there's never a hansom round when it's snowing and--"

And then I caught sight of the carriage. Yes, Maggie, the same fat, low, comfortable, elegant, sober carriage, wide and well-kept, with rubber-tired wheels. And the two heavy horses, fat and elegant and sober, too, and wide and well-kept. I knew whose it was the minute my eyes lighted on it, and I couldn't--I just couldn't resist it.

The man on the box-still wide and well-kept--was wide-awake this time.

I nodded to him as I slipped in and closed the door after me.

"I'll wait for the Bishop," I said, with a red-coated a.s.surance that left him no alternative but to accept the situation respectfully.

Oh, dear, dear! It was soft and warm inside as it had been that long, long-ago day. The seat was wide and roomy. The cus.h.i.+ons had been done over--I resented that--but though a different material, they were a still darker plum. And instead of Quo Vadis, the Bishop had been reading Resurrection.

I took it up and glanced over it as I sat there; but, you know, Mag, the heavy-weight plays never appealed to me. I don't go in for the tragic--perhaps I saw too much of the real thing when I was little.

At any rate, it seemed dull to me, and I put it aside and sat there absent-mindedly dreaming of a little girl-thief that I knew once when--when the handle of the door turned and the Bishop got in, and we were off.

Oh, the little Bishop--the contrast between him and the fat, pompous rig caught me! He seemed littler and leaner than ever, his little white beard scantier, his soft eye kindlier and his soft heart {?}