I got into the train,Mag,the happiest girl in all the country.
I'd a big basket of things for Tom.I was got up in my Sunday best,for I wanted to make a hit with some fellow with a key up there,who'd make things soft and easy for my Tommy.
I had so much to tell him.I knew just how I'd take off every member of the company to amuse him.I had memorized every joke I'd heard since I'd got behind the curtain--not very hard for me;things always had a way of sticking in my mind.I knew the newest songs in town,and the choruses of all the old ones.I could show him the latest tricks with cards--I'd got those at first hand from Professor Haughwout.You know how great Tom is on tricks.
I could explain the disappearing woman mystery,and the mirror cabinet.I knew the clog dance that Dewitt and Daniels do.I had pictures of the trained seals,the great elephant act,Mademoiselle Picotte doing her great tight-rope dance,and the Brothers Borodini in their pyramid tumbling.
Yes,it was a whole vaudeville show,with refreshments between the acts,that I was taking up to Tom Dorgan.I don't care much for a lot of that truck--funny,isn't it,how you get to turn up your nose at the things you'd have given a finger for once upon a time?But Tom--oh,I'd got everything pat for him--my big,handsome Tom Dorgan in stripes--with his curls all shaved off--ugh!
I'd got just so far in my thoughts,sitting there in the train,when I gave a shiver.I thought for a minute it was at the idea of my Tom with one of those bare,round convict-heads on him,that look like fat skeleton faces.But it wasn't.It was--Guess,Mag.
Moriway.
Both of us thought the same thing of each other for the first second that our eyes met.I could see that.He thought I was caught at last.And I thought he'd been sharp once too often.
And,Mag,it would be hard to say which of us would have been happier if it had been the truth.Oh,to meet Moriway,bound sure enough for Sing Sing!
He got up and came over to me,smiling wickedly.Se took the seat behind me,and leaning forward,said softly:
"Is Miss Omar engaged to read to some invalid up at Sing Sing?
And for how long a term--I should say,engagement?"I'd got through shivering by then.I was ready for him.I turned and looked at him in that very polite,distant sort o'way Gray uses in her act when the Charity superintendent speaks to her.
It's the only decent thing she does;chances are that that's how Lord Gray's mother looks at her.
"You know my sister,Mr.--Mr.--"I asked humbly.
He looked at me,perplexed for just a second.
"Sister be hanged!"he said at last."I know you,Nat,and I'm glad to my finger-tips that you've got it in the neck,in spite of all your smartness.""You're altogether wrong,sir,"I said very stately,but hurt a bit,you know."I've often been taken for my sister,but gentlemen usually apologize when I explain to them.It's hard enough to have a sister who--"I looked up at him tearfully,with my chin a-wabble with sorrow.
He grinned.
"Liars should have good memories,"he sneered."Miss Omar said she was an orphan,you remember,and had not a relative in the world.""Did she say that?Did Nora say that?"I exclaimed piteously.
"Oh,what a little liar she is!I suppose she thought it made her more interesting to be so alone,more appealing to kind-hearted gentlemen like yourself.I hope she wasn't ungrateful to you,too,as she was to that kind Mr.Latimer,before he found her out.And she had such a good position there,too!"I wanted to look at him,oh,I wanted to!But it was my role to sit there with downcast eyes,just--the picture of holy grief.
I was the good one--the good,shocked sister,and though I wasn't a bit afraid of anything he could do to me,or any game he could put up,I yearned to make him believe me--just because he was so suspicious,so wickedly smart,so sure he was on.
But his very silence sort of told me he almost believed,or that he was laying a trap.
"Will you tell me,"he said,"how you--your sister got Latimer to lie for her?""Mr.Latimer--lie!Oh,you don't know him.He expected a lady to read to him that very evening.He had never seen her,and when Nora walked into the garden--""After getting a skirt somewhere."
"Yes--the housekeeper's,it happened to be her evening out--why,he just naturally supposed Nora was Miss Omar.""Ah!then her name isn't Omar.What might it be?""I'd rather not tell--if you don't mind."
"But when Latimer found out she had the diamonds--he did find out?""She confessed to him.Nora's not really so bad a girl as--""Very interesting!But it doesn't happen to be Latimer's version.And you say Latimer wouldn't lie."I got pale--but the paleness was on the inside of me.Think I was going to flinch before a chump like Moriway,even if I had walked straight into his trap?
"It isn't?"I exclaimed.
"No.Latimer's note to Mrs.Kingdon said the diamonds were found in the bell-boy's jacket the thief had left behind him.""Well!It only shows what a bad habit lying is.Nora must have fibbed to me,for the pure pleasure of fibbing.I'll never dare to trust her again.Do you believe then that she didn't have anything to do with the hotel robbery?I do hope so.It's one less sin on her wicked head.It's hard,having such a girl in the family!"Oh,wasn't I grieved!
He looked me straight in the eye.I looked at him.I was unutterably sad about that tough sister of mine,and I vow Ilooked holy then,though I never did before and may never again.
"Well,I only saw her in the twilight,"he said slowly,watching my face all the time."You two sisters are certainly miraculously alike."The train was slowing down,and I got up with my basket.I stood right before him,my full face turned toward him.