In the Bishop's Carriage Part 17

"You'd be in with the push, would you, Olden, if you were managing?" he asked with a grin.

"I'd be at the top, wherever that was."

"Then why the deuce didn't you jump at Tausig's offer? Were you really crafty enough--"

"I am artiste, Monsieur Obermuller," I gutturaled like Mademoiselle Picotte, who dances on the wire. "I moost have about me those who arre--who arre congeniale--"

"You monkey!" he laughed. "Then, when Tausig comes to buy your contract--"

"We'll tell him to go to thunder."

He laughed. Say, Mag, that big fellow is like a boy when he's pleased.

I guess that's what makes it such fun to please him.

"And I, who admired your business sagacity in holding off, Nance!" he said.

"I thought you admired my take-off! of Mademoiselle Picotte."

"Well?"

"Well, why don't you make use of it? Take me round to the theaters and let me mimic all the swell actors and actresses. I've got more chance with you than with that Trust gang. They wouldn't give me room to do my own stunt; they'd make me fit into theirs. But you--"

"But me! You think you can wind me round your finger?"

"Not--yet."

He chuckled. I thought I had him going. I saw Nance Olden spending her evenings at the big Broadway theaters, when, just at that minute, Ginger, the call-boy, burst in with a note.

Say, Mag, I wouldn't like to get that man Obermuller hopping mad at me, and Nancy Olden's no coward, either. But the way he gritted his teeth at that note and the devil in his eyes when he lifted them from it, made me wonder how I'd ever dared be facetious with him.

I got up to go. He'd forgotten me, but he looked up then.

"That was a great suggestion of yours, Olden, to put Lord Gray on to act himself--great!" His voice shook, he was so angry.

"Well!" I snapped. I wasn't going to let him see that a big man raging could bluff Nance Olden.

What did he mean? Why--just this: there was Lord Harold Gray, the real Lord behind the scenes, bringing the Lady who was really only a chorus girl to the show in his automobile; helping her dress like a maid; holding her box of jewels as he tagged after her like a big Newfoundland; smoking his one cigarette solemnly and admiringly while she was on the stage; poking after her like a tame bear. He's a funny fellow, that Lord Harold. He's a Tom Dorgan, with the brains and the graft and--and the brute, too, Mag, washed out of him; a Tom Dorgan that's been kept dressed in swagger clothes all his life and living at top-notch--a big, clean, handsome, stupid, good-natured, overgrown boy.

Yes, I'm coming to it. When I'd seen him go tagging after her chippy Ladyship behind the scenes long enough, I told Obermuller one day that it was absurd to send the mock Lady out on the boards and keep the live Lord hidden behind. He jumped at the idea, and they rigged up a little act for the two--the Lord and the Lady. Gray was furious when she heard of it--their making use of her Lord in such a way--but Lord Harold just swallowed his big Adam's apple with a gulp or two, and said:

"'Pon honor, it's a blawsted scheme, you know; but I'm jolly sure I'd make a bleddy a.s.s of myself. I cawn't act, you know."

The ninny! You know he thinks Gray really can.

But Obermuller explained to him that he needn't act--just be himself out behind the wings, and lo! Lord Harold was "chawmed."

And Gray?

Why, she gave in at last; pretended to, anyway--sliding out of the Charity sketch, and rehearsing the thing with him, and all that.

And--and do you know what she did, Mag? (Nance Olden may be pretty mean, but she wouldn't do a trick like that.) She waited till ten minutes before time for the thing to be put on and then threw a fit.

"She's so ill, her delicate Ladyship! So ill she just can't go on this evening! Wonder how long she thinks such an excuse will keep Lord Harold off when I want him on!" growled Obermuller, throwing her note over to me. He'd have liked to throw it at me if it'd been heavy enough to hurt; he was so thumping mad.

You see, there it was on the program:

THE CLEVER SKETCH ENt.i.tLED

THEATRICAL ARISTOCRACY.

The Duke of Portmanteau .... Lord Harold Gray.

The d.u.c.h.ess ................ Lady Gray.

The celebrated Gray jewels, including the great Rose Diamond, will be worn by Lady Gray in this number.

No wonder Obermuller was raging. I looked at him. You don't like to tackle a fellow like that when he's dancing hot. And yet you ache to help him and--yes, yourself.

"Lord Harold's here yet, and the jewels?" I asked.

He gave a short nod. He was thinking. But so was I.

"Then all he wants is a Lady?"

"That's all," he said sarcastically.

"Well, what's the matter with me?"

He gasped.

"There's nothing the matter with your nerve, Olden."

"Thank you, so much." It was the way Gray says it when she tries to have an English accent. "Dress me up, Fred Obermuller, in Gray's new silk gown and the Gray jewels, and you'd never--"

"I'd never set eyes on you again."

"You'd never know, if you were in the audience, that it wasn't Gray herself. I can take her off to the life, and if the prompter'll stand by--"

He looked at me for a full minute.

"Try it, Olden," he said.

I did. I flew to Gray's dressing-room. She'd gone home deathly ill, of course. They gave me the best seamstress in the place. She let out the waist a bit and pulled over the lace to cover it. I got into that ma.s.s of silk and lace--oh, silk on silk, and Nance Olden inside! Beryl Blackburn did my hair, and Grace Weston put on my slippers. Topham, himself, hung me with those gorgeous shining diamonds and pearls and emeralds, till I felt like an idol loaded with booty. There were so many standing round me, rigging me up, that I didn't get a glimpse of the mirror till the second before Ginger called me. But in that second--in that second, Mag Monahan, I saw a fairy with blazing cheeks and shining eyes, with a diamond coronet in her brown hair, puffed high, and pearls on her bare neck and arms, and emeralds over the waist, and rubies and pearls on her fingers, and sprays of diamonds like frost on the lace of her skirt, and diamond buckles on her very slippers, and the rose diamond, like a sun, outshining all the rest; and--and, Mag, it was me!

How did it go? Well, wouldn't it make you think you were a Lady, sure enough, if you couldn't move without that lace train billowing after you; without being dazzled with diamond-shine; without a truly Lord tagging after you?

He kept his head, Lord Harold did--even if it is a mutton-head. That helped me at first. He was so cold, so stupid, so slow, so good-tempered--so just himself. And after the first plunge--