CHAPTER XIII
When Maggie rode away forever from the house of the Duchess with BarneyPalmer and her father, after the denunciation of Larry by the three ofthem as a stool and a squealer, she was the thrilled container of aboutas many diversified emotions as often bubble and swirl in a young girlat one and the same time. There was anger and contempt toward Larry:Larry who had weakly thrown aside a career in which he was a master, andwho had added to that bad the worse of being a traitor. There was thelifting sense that at last she had graduated; that at last she was setfree from the drab and petty things of life; that at last she was ridingforth into the great brilliant world in which everything happened--forthinto the fascinating, bewildering Unknown.
Barney and Old Jimmie talked to each other as the taxicab bumped throughthe cobbled streets, their talk being for the most part maledictionsagainst Larry Brainard. But their words were meaningless sounds to thesilent Maggie, all of whose throbbing faculties were just then mergedinto an excited endeavor to perceive the glorious outlines of thedestiny toward which she rode. However, as the cab turned into LafayettePlace and rolled northward, her curiosity about the unknown becameconscious and articulate.
"Where am I going?" she asked.
"First of all to a nice, quiet hotel." It was Barney who answered;somehow Barney had naturally moved into the position of leader, and asnaturally her father had receded to second place. "We've got everythingfixed, Maggie. Rooms reserved, and a companion waiting there for you."
"A companion!" exclaimed Maggie. "What for?"
"To teach you the fine points of manners, and to help you buy clothes.She's a classy bird all right. I advertised and picked her out of adozen who applied."
"Barney!" breathed Maggie. She was silent a dazed moment, then asked:"Just--just what am I going to do?"
"Listen, Maggie: I'll spill you the whole idea. I'd have told youbefore, but it's developed rather sudden, and I've not had a realchance, and, besides, I knew you'd be all for it. Jimmie and I havecanned that stock-selling scheme for good--unless an easy chance for itdevelops later. Our big idea now is to put YOU across!" Barney believedthat there might still remain in Maggie some lurking admirationfor Larry, some influence of Larry over her, and to eradicate thesecompletely by the brilliance of what he offered was the chief purpose ofhis further quick-spoken words. "To put you across in the biggest kindof a way, Maggie! A beautiful, clever woman who knows how to use herbrains, and who has brainy handling, can bring in more money, and in asafer way, than any dozen men! And I tell you, Maggie, I'll make you astar!"
"Barney!... But you haven't told me just what I'm to do."
"The first thing will be just a try-out; it'll help finish youreducation. I've got it doped out, but I'll not tell you till later. Themain idea is not to use you in just one game, Maggie, but to finish youoff so you'll fit into dozens of games--be good year after year. A bigactress who can step right into any big part that comes her way. That'swhat pays! I tell you, Maggie, there's no other such good, steadyproposition on earth as the right kind of woman. And that's what you'regoing to be!"
Maggie had heard much this same talk often before. Then it had beenvague, and had dealt with an indefinite future. Now she was too dazzledby this picture of near events which the eager Barney was drawing to beable to make any comment.
"I'll be right behind you in everything, and so will Jimmie," Barneycontinued in his exciting manner--"but you'll be the party out in frontwho really puts the proposition over. And we'll keep to things where thepolice can't touch us. Get a man with coin and position tangled up rightin a deal with a woman, and he'll never let out a peep and he'll comeacross with oodles of money. Hundreds of ways of working that. A strongpoint about you, Maggie, is you have no police record. Neither have I,though the police suspect me--but, as I said, I'll keep off the stageas much as I can. I tell you, Maggie, we're going to put over some greatstuff! Great, I tell you!"
Maggie felt no repugnance to what had been said and implied by Barney.How could she, when since her memory began she had lived among peoplewho talked just these same things? To Maggie they seemed the naturalorder. At that moment she was more concerned by a fascinating necessitywhich Barney's flamboyant enterprise entailed.
"But to do anything like that, won't I need clothes?"
"You'll need 'em, and you'll have 'em! You're going to have one ofthe swellest outfits that ever happened. You'll make Paris ashamed ofitself!"
"No use blowing the whole roll on Maggie's clothes," put in Old Jimmie,speaking for the first time.
Barney turned on him caustically, almost savagely. "You're a hell of afather, you are--counting the pennies on his own daughter! I told youthis was no piker's game, and you agreed to it--so cut out the ideayou're in any nickel-in-the-slot business!"
Old Jimmie felt physical pain at the thought of parting from money onsuch a scale. His earlier plans concerning Maggie had never contemplatedany such extravagance. But he was silenced by the dominant force behindBarney's sarcasm.
"Miss Grierson--she's your companion--knows what's what about clothes,"continued Barney to Maggie. "Here's the dope as I've handed it to her.You're an orphan from the West, with some dough, who's come to New Yorkas my ward and Jimmie's and we want you to learn a few things. To herand to any new people we meet I'm your cousin and Jimmie is your uncle.You've got that all straight?"
"Yes," said Maggie.
"You're to use another name. I've picked out Margaret Cameron for you.We can call you Maggie and it won't be a slip-up--see? If any of thecoppers who know you should tumble on to you, just tell 'em you droppedyour own name so's to get clear of your old life. They can't do anythingto you. And tell 'em you inherited a little coin; that's why you'reliving so swell. They can't do anything about that either. ... Here'swhere we get out. Got a sitting-room, two bedrooms and a bath hired foryou here. But we'll soon move you into a classier hotel."
The taxi had stopped in front of one of the unpretentious, respectablehotels in the Thirties, just off Fifth Avenue, and Maggie followed thetwo men in. This hotel did, indeed, in its people, its furnishings, itsatmosphere, seem sober and commonplace after the Ritzmore; but at theRitzmore she had been merely a cigarette-girl, a paid onlooker at thegayety of others. Here she was a real guest--here her great life wasbeginning! Maggie's heart beat wildly.
Up in her sitting-room Barney introduced her to Miss Grierson, thendeparted with a significant look at Old Jimmie, saying he would returnpresently and leaving Old Jimmie behind. Old Jimmie withdrew into acorner, turned to the racing part of the Evening Telegram, which,with the corresponding section of the Morning Telegraph, was his solereading, and left Maggie to the society of Miss Grierson.
Maggie studied this strange new being, her hired "companion," withfurtive keenness; and after a few minutes, though she was shyly obedientin the manner of an untutored orphan from the West, she had no fear ofthe other. Miss Grierson was a large, flat-backed woman who was on thedescending slope of middle age. She was really a "gentlewoman," inthe self-pitying and self-praising sense in which those who advertisethemselves as such use that word. She was all the social forms, allthe proprieties. She was deferentially autocratic; her voice wasmonotonously dignified and cultured; and she was tired, which she had aright to be, for she had been in this business of being a gentlewomanlyhired aunt to raw young girls for over a quarter of a Century.
To the tired but practical eye of Miss Grierson, here was certainly ayoung woman who needed a lot of working over to make into a lady.And though weary and unthrillable as an old horse, Miss Grierson wasconscientious, and she was going to do her best.
Maggie made a swift survey of her new home. The rooms were just ordinaryhotel rooms, furnished with the dingy, wholesale pretentiousness ofhotels of the second rate. But they were the essence of luxury comparedto her one room at the Duchess's with its view of dreary back yards.These rooms thrilled her. They were her first material evidence that shewas now actually launched upon her great adventure.
Maggie had dinner in her sitting-room with Old Jimmie and MissGrierson--and of that dinner, mediocre and sloppy, and chilled by itstransit of twelve stories from the kitchen, Miss Grierson, by way of anintroductory lesson, made an august function, almost diagrammatic inits educational details. After the dinner, with Miss Grierson's slow andformal aid, which consisted mainly in passages impressively declaimedfrom her private book of decorum, Maggie spent two hours in unpackingher suitcase and trunk, and repacking her scanty wardrobe in drawers ofthe chiffonier and dressing-table; a task which Maggie, left to herself,could have completed in ten minutes.
Maggie was still at this task in her bedroom when she heard Barney enterher sitting-room. "He got away," she heard him say in a low voice to OldJimmie.
She slipped quickly out of her bedroom and closed the door behind her.An undefined something had suddenly begun to throb within her.
"Who got away, Barney?" she demanded in a hushed tone.
Her look made Barney think rapidly. He was good at quick thinking, wasBarney. He decided to tell the truth--or part of it.
"Larry Brainard."
"Got away from what?" she pursued.
"The police. They were after him on some charge. And some of his palswere after him, too. They were out to get him because he had squealed onRed Hannigan and Jack Rosenfeldt. Both parties were closing in on himat about the same time. But Larry got a tip somehow, and made hisget-away."
"When did it happen?"
"Must have happened a little time after we all left the Duchess's."
"But--but, Barney--how did you learn it so soon?"
"Just ran into Officer Gavegan over on Broadway and he told me," liedBarney. He preferred not to tell her that he had been upon the scenewith Little Mick and Lefty Ed; for the third figure which Larry haddescried through the misty shadows had indeed been Barney Palmer. AlsoBarney preferred not to tell what further subtle share he had had in thecauses for Larry's flight.
"Do you think he--he made a safe get-away?"
"Safe for a few hours. Gavegan told me they'd have him rounded up bynoon to-morrow." Barney was more conscious of Maggie's interest than wasMaggie herself, and again was desirous of destroying it or diverting it."Generally I'm for the other fellow against the police. But this timeI'm all for the coppers. I hope they land Larry--he's got it coming tohim. Remember that he's a stool and a squealer."
And swiftly Barney switched the subject. "Let's be moving along,Jimmie."
He drew Maggie out into the hall, to make more certain that MissGrierson would not overhear. "Well, Maggie," he exulted, "haven't I madegood so far in my bargain to put you over?"
"Yes."
"Of course we're going slow at first. That's how you've got tohandle big deals--careful. But you'll sure be a knock-out when thatshe-undertaker in there gets you rigged out in classy clothes. Thenthe curtain will go up on the real show--and it's going to be a bigshow--and you'll be the hit of the piece!"
With that incitement to Maggie's imagination Barney left her; and OldJimmie followed, furtively giving Maggie a brief, uncertain look.