ch a bad graft and--and this is just
between us two, mind--that little beggar, Tausig, has begun his tricks
since you turned his offer down. They can make things hot for me, and
if they do, it won't be so bad for you to go in for this sort of
thing--unless you go over to the Trust--"

I shook my head.

"Well, this thing will be an ad for you, besides,--if the papers can be
got to notice it. They're coy with their notices, confound them, since
Tausig let them know that big Trust ads don't appear in the same papers
that boom anti-Trust shows!"

"How long are you going to stand it, Mr. O?"

"Just as long as I can't help myself; not a minute longer."

"There ought to be a way--some way--"

"Yes, there ought, but there isn't. They've got things down to a fine
point, and the fellow they don't fear has got to fear them.... I'll put
your number early to-night, so that you can get off by nine. Good
luck, Nance."

At nine, then, behold Nancy Olden in her white muslin dress,
long-sleeved and high-necked, and just to her shoe-tops, with a big
white muslin sash around her waist. Oh, she's no baby, is Nance, but
she looks like one in this rig with her short hair--or rather, like a
school-girl; which makes the stunts she does in mimicking the corkers
of the profession all the more surprising.

"We're just a little party," said Mrs. Paul Gates, coming into the
bedroom where I was taking of my wraps. "And I'm so glad you could
come, for my principal guest, Mr. Latimer, is an invalid, who used to
love the theaters, but hasn't been to one since his attack many years
ago. I count on your giving him, in a way, a condensed history in
action of what is going on on the stage."

I told her I would. But I didn't just know what I was saying. Think of
Latimer there, Maggie, and think of our last meeting! It made me
tremble. Not that I fancied for a moment he'd betray me. The man that
helps you twice don't hurt you the third time. No, it wasn't that; it
was only that I longed to do well--well before him, so that--

And then I found myself in an alcove off the parlors, separated from
them by heavy curtains. It was such a pretty little red bower. Right
behind me was the red of the Turkish drapery of a cozy corner, and just
as I took my place under the great chandelier, the servants pulled the
curtains apart and the lights went out in the parlors.

In that minute I got it, Mag--yes, stage fright. Got it bad. I suppose
it wa