In The Bishop's Carriage [25]
star of them all.
You see it's this way: Lord Harold Gray's bankrupt. He's poor as--as Nance Olden. Isn't that funny? But he's got the family jewels all right, to have as long as he lives. Nary a one can he sell, though, for after his death, they go to the next Lord Gray. So he makes 'em make a living for him, and as they can't go on and exhibit themselves, Lady Gray sports 'em--and draws down two hundred dollars a week.
Yep--two hundred.
But do you know it isn't the two hundred dollars a week that makes me envy her till I'm sick; it's that rose diamond. If you could only see it, Mag, you'd sympathize with me, and understand why my fingers just itched for it the first night I saw her come on.
'Pon my soul, Mag, the sight of it blazing on her neck dazzled me so that it shut out all the staring audience that first night, and I even forgot to have stage fright.
"What's doped you, Olden?" Obermuller asked when the curtain went down, and we all hurried to the wings.
I was in the black dress with the white-bibbed apron, and I looked up at him still dazed by the shine of that diamond and my longing for it. You'd almost kill with your own hands for a diamond like that, Mag!
"Doped? Why--what didn't I do?" I asked him.
"That's just it," he said, looking at me curiously; but I could feel his disappointment in me.
"You didn't do anything--not a blasted thing more than you were told to do. The world's full of supers that can do that."
For just a minute I forgot the diamond.
"Then--it's a mistake? You were wrong and--and I can't be an actress?"
He threw back his head before he answered, puffing a mouthful of smoke up at the ceiling, as he did the night he caught me. The gesture itself seemed to remind him of what had made him think in the first place he could make an actress of me. For he laughed down at me, and I saw he remembered.
"Well," he said, "we'll wait and see. . . I was mistaken, though, sure enough, about one thing that night." I looked up at him.
"You're a darn sight prettier than I thought you were. The gold brick you sold me isn't all--"
He put out his hand to touch my chin. I side-stepped, and he turned laughing to the stage.
But he called after me.
"Is a beauty success going to content you, Olden?"
"Well, we'll wait and see," I drawled back at him in his own throaty bass.
Oh, I was drunk, Mag, drunk with thinking about that diamond! I didn't care even to please Obermuller. I just wanted the feel of that diamond in my hand. I wanted it lying on my own neck--the lovely, cool, shining, rosy thing. It's like the sunrise, Mag, that beauty stone. It's just a tiny pool of water blushing. It's--
How to get it! How to get away with it! On what we'd get for that diamond, Tom and I--when his time is up--could live for all our lives and whoop it up besides. We could live in Paris, where great grafters live and grafting pays--where, if you've got wit and fifty thousand dollars, and happen to be a "darn sight prettier," you can just spin the world around your little finger!
But, do you know, even then I couldn't bear to think of selling the pretty thing? It hurt me to think of anybody having it but just Nance Olden.
But I hadn't got it yet.
Gray has a dressing-room to herself. And on her table--which is a big box, open end down--just where the three-sided big mirror can multiply the jewels and make you want 'em three times as bad, her big russia-leather, silver-mounted box lies open, while she's dressing and undressing. Other times it's locked tight, and his Lordship himself has it tight in his own right hand, or his Lordship's man, Topham, has it just as tight.
How to get that diamond! There was a hard nut for Nance Olden's sharp teeth to crack. I only wanted that--never say I'm greedy, Mag--Gray could keep all the rest of the things--the pigeon in rubies and pearls, the tiara all in diamonds, the chain of pearls, and the blazing rings, and the waist-trimming all of emeralds and diamond stars. But that diamond, that huge rose diamond,
You see it's this way: Lord Harold Gray's bankrupt. He's poor as--as Nance Olden. Isn't that funny? But he's got the family jewels all right, to have as long as he lives. Nary a one can he sell, though, for after his death, they go to the next Lord Gray. So he makes 'em make a living for him, and as they can't go on and exhibit themselves, Lady Gray sports 'em--and draws down two hundred dollars a week.
Yep--two hundred.
But do you know it isn't the two hundred dollars a week that makes me envy her till I'm sick; it's that rose diamond. If you could only see it, Mag, you'd sympathize with me, and understand why my fingers just itched for it the first night I saw her come on.
'Pon my soul, Mag, the sight of it blazing on her neck dazzled me so that it shut out all the staring audience that first night, and I even forgot to have stage fright.
"What's doped you, Olden?" Obermuller asked when the curtain went down, and we all hurried to the wings.
I was in the black dress with the white-bibbed apron, and I looked up at him still dazed by the shine of that diamond and my longing for it. You'd almost kill with your own hands for a diamond like that, Mag!
"Doped? Why--what didn't I do?" I asked him.
"That's just it," he said, looking at me curiously; but I could feel his disappointment in me.
"You didn't do anything--not a blasted thing more than you were told to do. The world's full of supers that can do that."
For just a minute I forgot the diamond.
"Then--it's a mistake? You were wrong and--and I can't be an actress?"
He threw back his head before he answered, puffing a mouthful of smoke up at the ceiling, as he did the night he caught me. The gesture itself seemed to remind him of what had made him think in the first place he could make an actress of me. For he laughed down at me, and I saw he remembered.
"Well," he said, "we'll wait and see. . . I was mistaken, though, sure enough, about one thing that night." I looked up at him.
"You're a darn sight prettier than I thought you were. The gold brick you sold me isn't all--"
He put out his hand to touch my chin. I side-stepped, and he turned laughing to the stage.
But he called after me.
"Is a beauty success going to content you, Olden?"
"Well, we'll wait and see," I drawled back at him in his own throaty bass.
Oh, I was drunk, Mag, drunk with thinking about that diamond! I didn't care even to please Obermuller. I just wanted the feel of that diamond in my hand. I wanted it lying on my own neck--the lovely, cool, shining, rosy thing. It's like the sunrise, Mag, that beauty stone. It's just a tiny pool of water blushing. It's--
How to get it! How to get away with it! On what we'd get for that diamond, Tom and I--when his time is up--could live for all our lives and whoop it up besides. We could live in Paris, where great grafters live and grafting pays--where, if you've got wit and fifty thousand dollars, and happen to be a "darn sight prettier," you can just spin the world around your little finger!
But, do you know, even then I couldn't bear to think of selling the pretty thing? It hurt me to think of anybody having it but just Nance Olden.
But I hadn't got it yet.
Gray has a dressing-room to herself. And on her table--which is a big box, open end down--just where the three-sided big mirror can multiply the jewels and make you want 'em three times as bad, her big russia-leather, silver-mounted box lies open, while she's dressing and undressing. Other times it's locked tight, and his Lordship himself has it tight in his own right hand, or his Lordship's man, Topham, has it just as tight.
How to get that diamond! There was a hard nut for Nance Olden's sharp teeth to crack. I only wanted that--never say I'm greedy, Mag--Gray could keep all the rest of the things--the pigeon in rubies and pearls, the tiara all in diamonds, the chain of pearls, and the blazing rings, and the waist-trimming all of emeralds and diamond stars. But that diamond, that huge rose diamond,