CHAPTER XXIII

When Miss Sherwood's invitation reached Maggie, Barney and Old Jimmie

were with her. The pair had growled a lot, though not directly at

Maggie, at the seeming lack of progress Maggie had made during the past

week. Barney was a firm enough believer in his rogue's creed of first

getting your fish securely hooked; but, on the other hand, there was the

danger, if the hooked fish be allowed to remain too long in the water,

that it would disastrously shake itself free of the barb and swim away.

That was what Barney was afraid had been happening with Dick Sherwood.

Therefore he was thinking of returning to his abandoned scheme of

selling stock to Dick. He might get Dick's money in that way, though of

course not so much money, and of course not so safely.

And another item which for some time had not been pleasing Barney was

that Larry Brainard had not yet been finally taken care of, either by

the police or by that unofficial force to which he had given orders.

So he had good reason for permitting himself the relaxation of scowling

when he was not on public exhibition.

But when Maggie, after reading the invitation, tossed it, together with

a note from Dick, across to Barney without comment, the color of his

entire world changed for that favorite son of Broadway. The surly

gloom of the end of a profitless enterprise became magically an aurora

borealis of superior hopes:--no, something infinitely more substantial

than any heaven-painting flare of iridescent colors.

“Maggie, it's the real thing! At last!” he cried.

“What is it?” asked Old Jimmie.

Barney gave him the letter. Jimmie read it through, then handed it back,

slowly shaking his head.

“I don't see nothing to get excited about,” said the ever-doubtful,

ever-hesitant Jimmie. “It's only an invitation.”

“Aw, hell!” ejaculated the exasperated Barney in disgust. “If some one

handed you a government bond all you could see would be a cigar coupon!

That invitation, together with this note from Dick Sherwood saying he'll

call and take Maggie out, means that the fish is all ready to be landed.

Try to come back to life, Jimmie. If you knew anything at all about

big-league society, you'd know that sending invitations to meet the

family--that's the way these swells do things when they're all set to do

business. We're all ready for the killing--the big clean-up!”

He turned to Maggie. “Great stuff, Maggie. I knew you could put it over.

Of course you're going?”

“Of course,” replied Maggie with a composure which was wholly of her

manner.

A sudden doubt came out of this glory to becloud Barney's master mind.

“I don't know,” he said slowly. “It's one proposition to make one

of these men swells believe that a woman is the real thing. And it's

another proposition to put it over on one of these women swells. They've

got eyes for every little detail, and they know the difference between

the genuine article and an imitation. I've heard a lot about this Miss

Sherwood; they say she's one of the cleverest of the swells. Think you

can walk into her house and put it over on her, Maggie?”

“Of course--why not?” answered Maggie, again with that composure which

was prompted by her pride's desire to make Barney, and every one else,

believe her equal to any situation.

Barney's animation returned. “All right. If you think you can swing it,

you can swing it, and the job's the same as finished and we're made!”

Left to herself, and the imposing propriety and magnificent stupidity

of Miss Grierson, Maggie made no attempt to keep up her appearance of

confidence. All her thoughts were upon this opportunity which

insisted upon looking to her like a menace. She tried to whip her

self-confidence, of which she was so proud, into a condition of constant

pregnancy. But the plain fact was that Maggie, the misguided child of a

stolen birthright, whose soaring spirit was striving so hard to live up

to the traditions and conventions of cynicism, whose young ambition it

was to outshine and surpass all possible competitors in this world in

which she had been placed, who in her pride believed she knew so much of

life--the plain fact was that Maggie was in a state bordering on funk.

This invitation from Miss Sherwood was an ordeal she had never counted

on. She had watched the fine ladies at the millinery shop and while

selling cigarettes at the Ritzmore, when she had been modeling her

manners, and had believed herself just as fine a lady as they. But that

had been in the abstract. Now she was face to face with a situation that

was painfully concrete--a real test: she had to place herself into close

contrast with, and under the close observation of, a real lady, and in

that lady's own home. And in all her life she had not once been in a

fine home! In fine hotels, yes--but fine hotels were the common

refuge of butcher, baker, floor-walker, thief, swell, and each had

approximately the same attention; and all she now felt she had really

learned were a few such matters as the use of table silver and finger

bowls.

It came to her that Barney, in his moment of doubt, had spoken more

soundly than he had imagined when he had said that it was easier to fool

a man about a woman than it was to fool a woman. How tragically true

that was! While trying to learn to be a lady by working in smart shops,

she had learned that the occasional man who had ventured in after

woman's gear was hopelessly ignorant and bought whatever was skillfully

thrust upon him, but that it was impossible to slip an inferior or

unsuitable or out-dated article over on the woman who really knew.

And Miss Sherwood was the kind of woman who really knew! Who knew

everything. Could she possibly, possibly pass herself off on Miss

Sherwood as the genuine article?...

Could Larry have foreseen the very real misery--for any doubt of her

own qualities, any fear of her ability to carry herself well in any

situation, are among the most acute of a proud woman's miseries--which

for some twenty-four hours was brought upon Maggie by the well-meant

intrigue of which he was pulling the hidden strings, he might, because

of his love for Maggie, have discarded his design even while he was

creating it, and have sought a measure pregnant with less distress. But

perhaps it was just as well that Larry did not know. Perhaps, even, it

was just as well that he did not know what his grandmother knew.

Maggie's pride would not let her evade the risk; and her instinct

for self-preservation dictated that she should reduce the risk to its

minimum. So she wrote her acceptance--Miss Grierson attended to the

phrasing of her note--but expressed her regret that she would be able to

come only for the tea-hour. Drinking tea must be much the same, reasoned

Maggie, whether it be drunk in a smart hotel or in a smart country home.

Maggie's native shrewdness suggested her simplest summer gown as likely

to have committed the fewest errors, and the invaluable stupidity of

Miss Grierson aided her toward correctness if not originality. When

Dick came he was delighted with her appearance. On the way out he

was ebulliently excited in his talk. Maggie averaged a fair degree of

sensibility in her responses, though only her ears heard him. She was

far more excited than he, and every moment her excitement mounted, for

every moment she was speeding nearer the greatest ordeal of her life.

When at length they curved through the lawns of satin smoothness and

Dick slowed down the car before the long white house, splendid in its

simplicity, Maggie's excitement had added unto it a palpitant, chilling

awe. And unto this was added consternation when, as they mounted the

steps, Miss Sherwood smilingly crossed the piazza and welcomed her

without waiting for an introduction. Maggie mumbled some reply; she

later could not remember what it was. Indeed she never had met such a

woman: so finished, so gracious, so unaffected, with a sparkle of humor

in her brown eyes; and the rich plainness of her white linen frock

made Maggie conscious that her own supposed simplicity was cheap and

ostentatious. If Miss Sherwood had received her with hostility, doubt,

or even chilled civility, the situation would have been easier; the

aroused Maggie would then have made use of her own great endowment of

hauteur and self-esteem. But to be received with this frank cordiality,

on a basis of a equality with this finished woman--that left Maggie for

the moment without arms. She had, in her high moments, believed herself

an adventuress whose poise and plans nothing could unbalance. Now she

found herself suddenly just a young girl of eighteen who didn't know

what to do.

Had Maggie but known it that sudden unconscious confusion, which seemed

to betray her, was really more effective for her purpose than would

have been the best of conscious acting. It established her at once as an

unstagey ingenue--simple, unspoiled, unacquainted with the formulas and

formalities of the world.

Miss Sherwood, in her easy possession of the situation, banished Dick

with “Run away for a while, Dick, and give us two women a chance to get

acquainted.” She had caught Maggie's embarrassment, and led her to

a corner of the veranda which looked down upon the gardens and the

glistering Sound. She spoke of the impersonal beauties spread before

their vision, until she judged that Maggie's first flutter had abated;

then she led the way to wicker chairs beside a table where obviously tea

was to be spread.

Miss Sherwood accepted Maggie for exactly what she seemed to be; and

presently she was saying in a low voice, with her smiling, unoffending

directness:

“Excuse the liberty of an older woman, Miss Cameron--but I don't wonder

that Dick likes you. You see, he's told me.”

If Maggie had been at loss for her cue before, she had it now. It was

unpretentiousness.

“But, Miss Sherwood--I'm so crude,” she faltered, acting her best. “Out

West I never had any chances to learn. Not any chances like your Eastern

girls.”

“That's no difference, my dear. You are a nice, simple girl--that's what

counts!”

“Thank you,” said Maggie.

“So few of our rich girls of the East know what it is to be simple,”

continued Miss Sherwood. “Too many are all affectation, and pose, and

forwardness. At twenty they know all there is to be known, they are

blasees--cynical--ready for divorce before they are ready for marriage.

By contrast you are so wholesome, so refreshing.”

“Thank you,” Maggie again murmured.

And as the two women sat there, sprung from the extremes of life, but

for the moment on the level of equals, and as the older talked on, there

grew up in Maggie two violently contradictory emotions. One was triumph.

She had won out here, just as she had said she would win out; and won

out with what Barney had declared to be the most difficult person to get

the better of, a finished woman of the world. Indeed, that was triumph!

The other emotion she did not understand so well. And just then

she could not analyze it. It was an unexpected dismay--a vague but

permeating sickness--a dazed sense that she was being carried by

unfamiliar forces toward she knew not what.

She held fast to her sense of triumph. That was the more apprehendable

and positive; triumph was what she had set forth to win. This sense of

triumph was at its highest, and she was resting in its elating security,

when a car stopped before the house and a large man got out and started

up the steps. From the first moment there was something familiar to

Maggie in his carriage, but not till Miss Sherwood, who had risen and

crossed toward him, greeted him as “Mr. Hunt,” did Maggie recognize the

well-dressed visitor as the shabby, boisterous painter whom she had last

seen down at the Duchess's.

Panic seized upon her. Miss Sherwood was leading him toward where she

sat and his first clear sight of her would mean the end. There was

no possible escape; she could only await her fate. And when she was

denounced as a fraud, and her glittering victory was gone, she could

only take herself away with as much of the defiance of admitted defeat

as she could assume--and that wouldn't be much.

She gazed up at Hunt, whitely, awaiting extermination. Miss Sherwood's

voice came to her from an infinite distance, introducing them. Hunt

bowed, with a formally polite smile, and said formally, “I'm very glad

to meet you, Miss Cameron.”

Not till he and Miss Sherwood were seated and chatting did Maggie

realize the fullness of the astounding fact that he had not recognized

her. This was far more upsetting to her than would have been recognition

and exposure; she had been all braced for that, but not for what had

actually happened. She was certain he must have known her; nothing had

really changed about her except her dress, and only a few weeks had

passed since he had been seeing her daily down at the Duchess's,

and since she had been his model, and he had studied every line and

expression of her face with those sharp painter's eyes of his.

And so as the two chatted, she putting in a stumbling phrase when they

turned to her, Maggie Carlisle, Maggie Cameron, Maggie Ellison, that

gallant and all-confident adventuress who till the present had never

admitted herself seriously disturbed by a problem, sat limply in her

chair, a very young girl, indeed, and wondered how this thing could

possibly be.