Part 6

The girl had a lot to say of America. And every word was well disposed, without any touch of condescension.

“Stay, I guess, with the Vanderbilts and the Astors when you visit New York?” Mame threw a plummet to bring her down to cases.

“The MacFarlanes are my particular friends.” She spoke off-handedly. “And they always give one such a good time.”

“I’ll say, yes,” Mame remarked drily. She was not quite clear in her mind whether the madam could be allowed to get away with that. She would be saying next that in London her headquarters were Buckingham Palace.

The girl produced a cigarette case. It was a wonderful piece of chinoiserie in flowered purple silk. “Have a gasper?”

Mame had yet to acquire the habit of smoking gaspers. She declined with thanks. But the girl fitted an amber-scented one to the meerschaum holder so elegantly, that Mame decided to practise the art at the first opportunity. Paula Ling had said that it was even more chic in Europe than it was on Long Island. As usual Paula Ling was right.

While Mame, out of the corners of a pair of very seeing eyes, marked all that the smart piece did, she took a resolve to start in at once to develop her own personality. Here was terrific personality. It did not in any sense obtrude; it did not sort of hit you right in the middle of the eye, as Paula’s did, but it was there all the time. Moreover, it was earning dividends for its owner. This skirt was not in the true sense of the word a looker, but there was jazz in her talk, in her actions, in all her ways. She did not paint her face, use lip-stick or bead her eyes; in clothes, although Mame guessed they were as good as could be got for money, she was quiet; but her general effect was as salt as a breeze from the sea. Mame could but envy and admire and wonder how the trick was done.

“Staying long in England?”

“I’ll have to get off this side of the world pretty soon now.” Mame spoke a little wistfully.

Without seeming to look at Mame, the girl, from behind the rampart of the meerschaum holder, must somehow have read the true index to her feelings. That index was Mame’s eyes. Very good eyes they were; and, unknown to their owner, singularly expressive. Grey eyes, large, serious, open, full of trouble. For all the orbs behind the meerschaum holder were so impersonal, when as now they were three-quarters lidded, they had a power of seeing into things that might have astonished Mame considerably had she known the full extent of their faculty.

“Anything I can do for you?”

It was one British journalist to one American or _vice versa_: a bit of international courtesy. But to Mame it was more. There was a genuine ring of kindness, as pure a note of music as Mame had yet heard.

Her practical mind at once got busy. This might be a chance. Bluffer as this girl most likely was, there could yet be no harm in trying her out.

“Before I go back home,” said Mame, tentative as a kitten treading on ice; “I’d like an invite to some mansion of real class. I’d like to do a big wedding for my paper.”

“Do you mean this function next week at Clanborough House?” The girl was journalist enough to own a mind which could move with uncommon nimbleness.

“You’ve made it in one.” Quick in the uptake, this bird. Mame was moved to say so.

“My dear Watson, really quite simple.” The meerschaum holder received a Sherlock Holmes tilt. “George Rex and Consort are going to honour the occasion. You saw it in the _Times_ this morning.”

Mame breathed hard. This girl was no slouch. A four-flusher, yet she might have strings to pull. And it would be one over on Paula Ling if a little hick from Cowbarn, Iowa, got playing around among the royalties; not to mention the Fleet Street gentleman who had said the only way she would get to Clanborough House would be as a hired girl. The insult still rankled.

“A dull affair!” The new friend butted pleasantly into a rather tense pause. “But I ought to have a card somewhere that may get you in, if you care to come.”

Mame’s heart seemed to miss a beat when the girl began a search for an invitation to the terribly beparagraphed wedding the following week at Clanborough House.

“Should be one here.” Calmly she produced the beautiful cigarette case. Something leapt in Mame’s throat as the entire contents of the case were toppled out on to the tablecloth. There were half a dozen cigarettes and twice that number of cards of various shapes and sizes.

“Private view Black-and-white Exhibition, Burlington House.” Mame was seething with suspense, but the girl went calmly and leisurely through the cards. “Arts and Handicrafts Exhibition. Admit Bearer. British and Foreign Bible Society. Randal Cantuar in the Chair. Opening of Royal School of Cookery, New Wandsworth. Annual Meeting Dumb Friends’ League. Reception for Dr. Hyam Baines Pennefather, Baltimore Third Church, Hotel Cecil. No--yes--no. It almost looks as if we’ve drawn zero.”

Mame’s heart sank. It was no more than was to be expected of a tinhorn, but it would have been cracker-jack to have sailed into Clanborough House by the main entrance, along with the King and Queen and half the real doughnuts in the island.

She bit her lip with disappointment, yet at the back of her mind was the knowledge that these things did not happen. They were too good to be true. But the melancholy privilege still remained to one who aspired to close and accurate observation of the human comedy of seeing what the four-flusher would do next.

The girl coolly returned the contents to the lovely silk case. And then she said in that casual tone which Mame was now beginning to resent rather more than she admired: “Give me your address.”

Part of her bluff, of course. Still Mame saw no reason why her address should not be given. Truth to tell, she was just a little proud of it. Like many things in this queer city, it sounded better than it was. She promptly took from her bag a decidedly professional-looking reporter’s note-book, tore out a leaf, and then wrote carefully with an equally professional-looking fountain pen: Miss Amethyst Du Rance, Fotheringay House, Montacute Square, Bloomsbury.

“Thanks,” said the smart skirt. Then she gave a glance, cool and impassive, at what Mame had written; and, then, with a lurking smile, which Mame was quick to detect, she added this memento to the others which adorned her case.

“I’ll be glad of an invite for Clanborough House,” said Mame with irony.

“Right-o. You shall have one in the course of post.”

“I don’t think,” Mame confided mutely to the dregs of her teacup. And then she said with a demure mockery that was rooted in the heart’s bitterness, “I reckon you’ll be there.”

The answer was “Sure” in the way it is given in New York. Perhaps the high-flyer guessed that Mame was trying to call her bluff. Yet beyond a doubt she carried it off royally. “I suppose I’ll have to be.”

“To write a report for your syndicate.” Mame’s voice had something terribly like a sneer in it.

The girl laughed and shook her head. “This binge is a bit too much of a family affair.”

“Oh!” said Mame inadequately. It was not easy to call the bluff of this girl.

While Mame, who had now begun to feel vindictive, was seriously considering the best means of letting this short-sport know that she was not quite such a sucker as she seemed, a young man who had just risen from an adjacent table came stalking her stealthily from behind. He patted her on the shoulder.

“Hulloa, Bill!” The tone was very light and whimsical. “I didn’t see the cat bring you in.”

Mame listened keenly for Bill’s answer. But it amounted to nothing beyond a cheery laugh. All the same, she was mightily interested in Bill.

He was dressed to beat the band: braided morning coat, white spats, the last word in neckties. Evidently a regular fellow. He was one of those upstanding, handsome boys in which the West End of London seems to abound. Perhaps he was twenty-seven, or a little less, with a skin naturally fair burnt to a most attractive shade of copper by the suns of foreign climes. There was something so wholesome and clean, so manly and trim about Bill, that even a girl of sense might be expected to fall in love with him on sight. Mame was not in a position to think of love. But he looked such a white man, and so faultless in his grace that even as it was she could not repress a little sigh of envy. Some girls didn’t appreciate their luck in having boys of that sort feeding from the hand.

“Going?” Mame heard him say.

The queen of the four-flushers answered with an unmistakable “Yep” which might have come from the Bowery. She went on to discard her cigarette, to put away her meerschaum holder and then to examine the inside of her purse. “Dammitall!” she said. “No change and I must leave a shilling under the plate for the waiter. Have you one about you, Bill?”

Bill obliged. The girl laid the shilling under her plate and got up from the table. As she did so she turned abruptly to Mame and held out her hand in a most winning manner. “A-rivederci. I have your address. I won’t forget that card. So glad to have met you.”

While Mame returned doubtful thanks for a favour she did not expect to receive, the girl and her escort were already under way. With mingled feelings Mame watched them pass along the line of tables. She saw the girl blow a kiss to the old woman with the Roman nose, who in return offered a most truculent scowl. But this was effaced by the homage of the _maître d’hôtel_, who bestowed upon the girl an exaggerated bow. Moreover, as she made a smiling progress down the long room, many eyes seemed to follow her; or, as Mame was inclined to think, the eyes of the feminine section of the tea-drinking public were drawn by the escort Bill.

Indeed, as a pair they were distinctly “it” as they went along to the door. The girl stopped at several tables just to pass the time of day, while Bill stood by like a big and amiable Newfoundland dog.

Mame sighed again. Yes, some skirts had luck! Up till that moment she had not realised the possibilities in writing for the newspapers. She would get no card, of course, for Clanborough House. But she was already resigned to that. Birds of that sort were much too busy paddling their private canoes. And why not? You simply got nowhere if you didn’t.

When the girl finally went out through the doors at the end of the room Mame was sure that she had seen and heard the last of her. That was the way of the world as already she had come to understand it. The big cities were chock-full of interesting folks, but unless you were just-so it was not worth while to take you up.

To be worth while, that was the open sesame to New York and London. Paula Ling had grasped that truth. That was why she was a mass of paint and powder and patchouli; that was why she screwed herself like a manikin, into tight smart clothes. But this skirt left Paula standing. The Paulas of life, for all their brains and their will-power, could not live five minutes with this sort of girl, who had every new trick, and who, like Cinquevalli the famous conjurer, was so expert she could almost do them shut-eye.

So much was Mame occupied with these thoughts that it was not until she had paid her bill and was out once more upon the cold pavement of Pall Mall that she gave herself a mental shake. She was a fool. Had she kept her wits about her she would at least have asked the waiter the name of this queen among four-flushers.

XIII

Mame had quite made up her mind that she would not receive an invitation to the wedding reception at Clanborough House. Why should she? That the girl would prove as good as her word was not on the cards. Such a promise was no more than a slick Londoner’s way of showing how much she was in it, without really being quite so much in it as she showed.

After all, however, it is a funny world. And this was Mame’s reflection, when rather late the following afternoon, the little maid, whose name was Janet, handed her a large, square, important-looking envelope that had just come by post. At the sight of the coronet on the back and the general air of quality Mame’s heart gave a jump.

The unexpected had happened. Her Grace the Duchess of Clanborough requested the honour--requested the honour, mark you!--of the company of Miss Amethyst Du Rance at the marriage of the Marquis of Belfield with her niece Miss Van Alsten at St. Margaret’s, Westminster, at three o’clock on Thursday, April 6, and afterwards at Clanborough House, Mayfair.

It was very odd. But it was distinctly thrilling. There was no need to be so humble after all. The girl evidently was interested in Miss Du Rance and had gone out of her way to do her a service. And Miss Du Rance did not mind owning that she had been a little too ready to suspect her of not being on the level.

With a sensation of deep but quiet triumph Mame listened now to the tabbies faintly purring over their teacups. It called for self-control not to ask the arch-puss, who gave herself out a bishop’s niece, upon whom Mame had an especial down, whether she was going to the ceremony at St. Margaret’s or to the reception at Clanborough House, or whether she meant to do both?--although privately quite sure that the old stiff was going to do neither. Happily she remembered a text of the village preacher in the grim days when she had to endure him every Sunday: “Be not exalted lest ye be cast down.”

In spite of a glow in the centre of her being, the warning in those words could not have been more salutary. So fully had Clanborough House been dismissed from Mame’s thoughts that she had already made up her mind to quit London as soon as possible. In fact, she had just informed Mrs. Toogood that she would not require a room beyond Saturday; and she had decided to go immediately after breakfast to-morrow morning, Wednesday, to book a second-class berth in the _Vittoria_, which was to sail three days later for New York.

The invitation to Clanborough House looked like changing all that. It rather set Mame on the horns of a dilemma. A girl truly wise would stick to the plan she had made, the voice of prudence told her. Clanborough House would probably mean another fortnight in London; it would involve her in a new hat and other expense; and if she was not careful such a hole would be cut in her purse that alarmingly few dollars would remain in it by the time she found herself back on Broadway.

These reflections gave Mame a jolt. A lot of use an invite to Clanborough House, if the price of it brought you to your uppers. Aunt Lou’s legacy would be gone, along with the hundred and ten dollars she had been able to save. Her job would be lost. And in a place like New York it was no certainty that she would get another at short notice. She had heard it described by those who should know as the cruelest place on earth for persons who were up against it.

These were problems. Invitation in hand, Mame fiercely considered them. Should she? Or should she not? The famous highbrow William Shakespeare, according to the office calendar whose mottoes she had by heart, the famous highbrow William Shakespeare had made the statement that “there is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.”

It might be so. That was true, no doubt, for some. But again, for others it was quite likely not to be true. Circumstances alter cases. William Shakespeare was writing in the spacious days of Queen Elizabeth when there were not so darn many go-getters around. In his time there were not more people than jobs and all the seats in the public parks of the big cities were not overflowing with those who couldn’t raise the price of a meal.

A problem, sure. On the one hand, prudence, foresight, a looking-before-and-after; on the other, ambition, hope, adventure, all the worth-while things. Such a chance would never recur. And if she had brain enough to use it in the right way, there was no saying where it might lead.

Mame spent a very restless night. But somewhere in the small hours, when her mind was at its most lucid, she took the momentous decision to follow her star.

If she turned back now, with the gates of her kingdom opening wide, she never deserved to see them again. “Stick it, Mame.” That had always been her slogan, even in the cold hour of sun-up before the day’s work began or over a guttering candle after it was done, when secretly she gave her whole mind to the hard and dry study of stenography.

It was that power of giving her whole mind to things that in the end had won freedom. If she had taken a line of least resistance or been afraid to go all out for the things she wanted, she would still have been doing chores upon the farm. No, she must stand up to her luck. And if the worst came she could go home steerage.

Full of new resolve, Mame’s first act was to inform Mrs. Toogood that she proposed to stay on at least another week. Then, after an elaborate calculation of ways and means, she set out on a tour of Oxford Street. A new hat she must have. When in Rome, etc. No use looking a frump at Clanborough House. She would be mixing with class. And if she was careful how she dressed and she watched her step all the time, the folks might not be able to tell her from real.

A quiet mode was best suited to Miss Amethyst Du Rance. After much observation of herself and other people, that was her conclusion. Like most of her countrywomen she had a flair in the matter of clothes. New York and London had taught her their value. Already she was getting to know the worth of the mysterious attribute, style.

The girl she had met at the Carlton was a revelation of what style could do. It was a far better thing than mere looks. But Mame’s ambition was to have both. And if she could only fulfil it, there was no reason, so far as she could see, why she should not unlock the most exclusive doors in Britain.

At all events, it should not be for want of trying. If the invite to Clanborough House meant anything it was that she had found a bonanza. The girl must be a regular high-flyer, and for some mysterious reason, which Mame could not fathom, she was willing to be a fairy godmother. It was up to Mame to prove her own mettle. Here, at last, was a chance to pull the big stuff.

Many hours in Oxford Street were necessary before Mame’s prudence could decide just how much to be bled. She had to get home, if, in spite of Clanborough House, the stars in their courses played her false. After she had duly paid for the hat on which she had set her heart, and a captivating fox so near real that she fell for it at the last moment, she was quite alarmed by the narrow margin of safety.

At the end of the day she wrote an urgent letter to the editor of the Cowbarn _Independent_. She told him how disappointed she was not to have had a line all the time she had been in Europe. And she hinted that a few dollars in exchange for the fifteen columns she had already sent him would be welcome.

But what was the _Independent_ anyway? At best a fourth-rate sheet, a small-town rag. She would forget it. The time had surely come to fly at higher game.

She tore up the letter to Elmer Dobree. His treatment was so mean he was not worth a twopenny stamp. Let her get into touch with the big live papers of New York, Philadelphia, Chicago. Yes, the idea was good. She was full of good ideas, yet they didn’t seem to click.

What was wrong? Her stuff was O. K., she was sure. Full of jazz, unlike what other columnists were pulling. Yet editors didn’t fall. In New York she had not been able to get them so much as to look at what she wrote; it was the same in London. Influence was what she needed. Paula Ling was a one for influence. She believed in it all the time. But it had a mystic quality. Nobody knew just what it was or how you came by it.

Personality was the key. Modern journalising was like being in vaudeville or in the movies. You had to do stunts; you had to be a good mixer; able if necessary to jolly an editor into taking an interest in you; above all, you had to be up in the art of what in London they called dressing the shop window.

As slowly she tore up the letter to Elmer P. she sighed deeply. Even he had deserted her. Well, never say die, that was still her motto. She must hang on by the eyelids to the bitter end. But she felt so sore with one whose friendship she had built on that she snatched his photograph from her bedroom chimneypiece and consigned it to her trunk. The stronger for the deed, she then resumed that optimistic pen which had yet to earn a dime in Europe and began a carefully diplomatic letter to Paula Wyse Ling.

Out and out go-getter though Paula was, Mame valued her friendship. To be sure, it had only been manifested in small and considered ways. Paula was essentially a girl who didn’t give without taking; if she shared her bread with you, she would expect you to share your jam with her. But Mame didn’t blame her for that. Paula, too, had had a long way to go. She had started out at sixteen without a buck from what she alluded to as “a comic village in the State of Maine.” By sheer grit and the power of sticking it she had earned enough by her pen to spend two years in Europe. And now since her return home she was pulling five hundred a month, with every prospect of going bigger.

Diplomacy was needed to handle the Paula Lings of the world. Mame kept this truth before her as her pen drove steadily on. She painted a rosy picture of her life in London. If not exactly what these Cockneys themselves would call “a Brock’s Benefit,” in other words, a firework display, she was already beginning to fix the half-nelson on various editors of distinction who paid a fair price per col. Also she was getting around a good deal with the worth-while folks. Her friend the Duchess of Clanborough had just sent her a special invite to a wedding ceremony and to the reception afterwards, which the King and Queen had promised to attend. Some marquis or other was going to marry a Miss Van Alsten; but Paula was likely to know as much about it as she did, as the Miss Van Alsten in question belonged to New York.

Here it was that diplomacy entered with both feet. New York being just naturally interested in the marriage of one of its queens with a British blood-peer, Mame would be glad to do the show from the inside, with a full description of who was there, how they looked, what they wore, and so on; and if Paula could fix it her end with some editor or some syndicate of editors, she would be happy to divide the cheque. Time being money, she hoped Paula would save on it by promptly cabling terms.

As Mame cast an eye over this letter, it seemed an inspiration to write Paula Ling and offer her fifty-fifty of the dough. If Paula couldn’t place the first-hand account of next week’s marriage, it was not likely there was one alive who could. With a sly smile Mame addressed the envelope to Paula’s apartment on Sixty-seventh Street. Then she slipped out and placed it carefully in the little red pillar box at the British Museum end of Montacute Square.

XIV

Thursday was to be the day of days. But the evening of Wednesday after a week of east winds, having settled into reasonably spring-like weather, Mame decided to give her new hat and fox an airing. It would take off a little of the shine; besides, she was burning to know how she looked and felt in things that had taxed her purse to capacity.