CHAPTER IV

“My deah—what has become of the orange motah?” Miss Mariette turned her round stare on Sallie.

“What—d-do you mean?”

“Well, the yellow peril doesn’t seem to be on duty any more.”

“Oh! He—he’s out of town.”

“M’m! Been ‘out’ some time, I take it.”

“F-four weeks.” Sallie found it impossible to talk these days without a quiver. And the wells that had been her eyes were wept dry.

“When does he return, my deah?”

“Oh s-soon now, I g-guess.”

“H’m!” Merciless blue eyes took in the small white face, listless shoulders and drooping mouth, while their owner hummed low and languorously, “When I Come Back to You.” After which she proceeded: “And the cobbles, my deah?”

“What?”

“Pearls! The dog collar?”

“Oh! I—I p-put it away.”

“Ah?”

“I—it—I thought I’d better not wear it round all the time.”

After a moment of slow scrutiny Miss Mariette cast her eyes heavenward. “You were a wise child not to let him get back the diamond, too,” she drawled.

“I d-don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh—d-don’t you? My deah, do I look as easy as that? It’s plain he’s gone his merry way tra-la.”

Like a whip Sallie snapped round at her. “He hasn’t!”

“Tra-la, tra-la-la!”

“Don’t you dare—”

“Then where’s the car, tra-la?”

“I told you—”

“The car he was giving you, I mean.”

Grace, who had entered in time for the last words, tittered with all the old enjoyment.

“Poor little car skidded on the way, Gracie deah,” announced Miss Mallard.

Sallie’s throat closed in a hard knot. Her head almost dropped on the table. But not quite. Pride kept it up. Pride and the determination never to let them know how right they were.

Yet Miss Mallard, having resumed her tactics of warfare allowed to slip no opportunity for attack. She teased and tormented and tra-la’d with purring delight, sharp little talons inflicting new wounds.

Sallie began to slink into the dressing-room as if to hide from insinuating smiles. And coming out of the stage door, she fairly ran round the corner to escape the torturing vision of that line at the curb.

The pearls she had recklessly let go. After what _he_ had said, she couldn’t bear to touch them. They curled in her hand like some wriggling reptile. Her first impulse had been to toss the necklace into an ashcan, but eventually she found herself back at the near-pearl shop. A suave salesman after much fingering and testing reminded her that they did not refund on merchandise but added that he might be able to resell at a loss if she cared to leave it. Sallie even hated the money—something more than half the amount she had paid—which his smooth hands finally counted into hers.

One thing, though, she did determine in the long nights. There must be a car! Never must they be certain that Jimmie had gone for good! The savings account had long since gone the way of all flesh. And cars, like Pegasus, soar winged in the clouds. June had come gliding into the arms of May while Sallie suffered and waited, lived on bread and milk, and hopelessly priced the cheaper makes.

Other lips, mustached, clean-shaven, young, and not so young, answered Sallie’s plea of “Won’t you smile at me?” Sallie did not hear them. Other eyes sought hers from motors at the curb. Sallie did not know they were there.

She was in her room balancing accounts at 11:30 p. m. When she did sleep, figures whirled through her dreams; figures and Jimmie’s face.

Then in the murky dawn of one June day came an inspiration. Yesterday she had seen a second-hand runabout painted a beautiful blue for only two hundred and fifty dollars, with a week’s trial before buying. Her diamond! She could get enough for that! A few months in which to tear up to the stage entrance and spring out; to display the shining blue body to startled eyes; to make them believe he had come back! Jimmie—who never would! She gazed out through the streaky window pane and for a time the car was forgotten.

When the chorus had assembled for the Wednesday matinée, a ring dropped tinkling to the dressing-room floor. Sallie picked it up, proclaimed that the stone had come loose and wore it no more.

Later, behind a window barred like a prison, Sallie MacMahon’s lips clung together and she looked away as her most precious possession passed into other hands—probably for all time.

At last the night arrived when the girls sighted at the curb a little car blue as the heavens. One of them stepped lightly from the stage entrance, fetched a key from her bag, bent down, then sprang in and took the wheel as though running a motor were a daily pastime.

Miss Mallard stopped in the center of the pavement.

“I’ll tell the world!” she breathed, forgetting Fifth Avenue. “She wasn’t lying, Grace,—she wasn’t!”

Sallie MacMahon smiled upon them, put her foot on the self-starter, heard the cheerful chug chug of the engine responding and, with terror chasing down her spine, spun round the corner.

As she disappeared, Grace’s reply wafted on the breeze:

“But he’s a piker, anyhow. It’s as big as a minute!”

Up Broadway, eyes starting with fear, heart pounding, went Sallie. And every instant’s progress petrified her. Buildings descended. Motor trucks loomed up. Trolleys tore, gigantic, within an inch of the blue mite that held her. It was completely, totally swamped. Alone in it for the first time, she clung wildly to the wheel while all Broadway danced.

Never had she traveled a distance to equal those ten blocks. Never before had the thought of the sagging brownstone house been a welcome one. A century later she reached her own street, turned in. Then something snapped. The blue runabout stood stock still. Sallie tried to recall the varied instructions of the garage man who had taught her to drive it. Without his guiding hand they were Greek.

She fled in the direction of a passing policeman, caught his arm. “Please, would you mind? Something’s happened. It—it’s stuck.”

He grinned as he took in the blue mite. “Better go and phone your garage, Miss. I’ll take care of it till you get back.”

Sallie dropped his arm.

“Why, I—I haven’t any—”

“What?”

“Garage.”

“What do you do with it at night? Take it to bed with you?”

“N-nothing. It—it’s new. I—I never thought—”

“Then find some place to put it—quick. They’ll send you a man—”

Sallie stood stock still as the car, then turned on her heel and dashed in the direction of the brownstone house. On the top step she dropped.

Not a cent in the world! Diamond gone!! Car that was no good!! And no place to put it!!!

Early in her career as a motorist she had discovered that cars have a way of gathering expense like dust by the wayside. There had been extra tires and repairs even while you were learning to run it. It fairly ate up gas. You needed twice as much as she had reckoned.

And now—this!

Helplessly she gazed at the point far down the block where the policeman stood guard. From time to time his glance roved impatiently—and when at last he swung on his way, leaving the blue mite unprotected, Sallie knew there was nothing left but to sit there and watch it all through the night.

Then it was that the wells which had run dry filled once more, overflowed. Huddled in a corner of the stoop, she fastened her wilted gaze on a spot of blue parked close to Broadway and wondered what she was going to do with it when morning arrived.

She came to drowsily as a clock struck one and something heavy descended on her shoulder. It pulled her upright, shook the sleep from her eyes and a cry from her lips. The policeman!

“What are you doing out here?”

She strained forward.

“Jimmie!!!”

“What are you doing, I say?”

“Jimmie—is it—is it—you?”

“Answer me!”

“I—oh, I can’t believe it! You—_you!!_” Then panic seized her. “Jimmie—don’t—don’t go again! Wait—let me tell you! I’ve been praying you’d give me the chance to tell you. I—it was true,—I _did_ buy all those things myself. I did—I did! I was afraid you’d be ashamed of me.”

He stood glaring silently down at her and when his voice did come, it was thick and tense.

“Didn’t you know it was just those old clothes of yours that convinced me the story you gave me was straight?”

“But the girls always made fun of them—and I wanted to look right for you. And you thought—oh, Jimmie, what you thought has nearly killed me!”

“What could a man who knew his Broadway think when you appeared all of a sudden in a million dollars worth of finery?”

“But it wasn’t true! I took all my money out of the bank to look nice just for you. Jimmie—if you go again—the way you did—I—I’ll die!”

He gave no direct answer. Instead he gripped her shoulders until they ached.

“What are you doing out here this time of night? Answer me that!”

The car! Her eyes raced down the block. There it stood, untouched.

“I—I hocked my diamond, Jimmie, and bought a car. I made the girls think you were going to give me one and I didn’t want them to know that you—you—” She turned away. “So I hocked the ring—and—and got—that!”

He followed her eyes to where a spot of blue reposed near the corner.

“And now it won’t go and I haven’t any money to put it anywhere. They’ve been keeping it where I bought it and I never thought about garaging. So—so when it broke down I just had to sit here and watch it all night.”

The rushing words halted. She looked up at the face bent over hers. If Mr. James Fowler Patterson had a sense of humor—and he had—the comedy of the present situation failed to bring it to light. He stood and gazed down into the small tired face lifted with such desperate appeal.

“I—”

“Jimmie, won’t you believe me this time—please?”

He bent closer. “If I tell you I could take a gun this minute and blow out what little brains I’ve got, will _you_ believe _me_? Will you?” He did not give her time to answer. “I deserve it—shooting’s too good. Why, even if you dressed up like a Christmas window, only a saphead who’s wasted all his life chasing up and down Broadway could have made such a mistake. What’s love, anyhow? And sweetheart—I do love you. These weeks without you have proved how much.”

She closed her eyes as the words came.

“Why,” he plunged on, “my dad had given me up as a bad job—said he was through! And six weeks ago I went to him and told him I’d found the girl who could make a man of me—asked him to take me on at the Patterson Iron Works, I didn’t care in what capacity. He thought I was joking—but I put on overalls and rolled up my sleeves. Because I wanted to be good enough for you. That was just about the time you showed up in all that gorgeousness. And I let the idea get hold of me— Don’t cry, honey,—I can’t stand it!”

There was an instant of potent silence, then:

“How did you happen to come past here to-night—Jimmie?” came smothered.

“I’ve been coming past here every night.”

“Then why—why did you stay away from the theater?”

“I didn’t—for long. Wanted to—but couldn’t! I’ve watched you come out from around the corner—” He broke off. “Sweetness—you’ve been looking awfully sick.”

“I’ve been awfully lonesome.”

He lifted her chin.

“Baby—”

“Yes, Jimmie—dear—”

“Will you forgive me?”

“Jimmie—”

“Yes, Baby—dear—”

“Will you wait here till I get into my old rig, then take me for a ride in my new car?”

CURTAIN!

_MELODRAMA_

It consists not in shouts, the leveled gun, the drawn sword, the flashlight in the dark. The quiet moment of decision that means happiness or wreck; the hesitant hand moving toward a doorknob that may open upon joy or the misery of revelation; two people waiting in stillness for the pendulum of uncertainty to swing—that is melodrama as it is played every day within the four walls that enclose your next-door neighbor.

CURTAIN!