Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-07-15

DC you remember Lady PatrOneSSeS day
at the Cruelty, Mag? Remember how the
place smelt of cleaning ammonia the
bare floors? Remember the black dresses
we all wore, and the white aprons with the
little bibs, and the oily sweetness of the
natron, and how our faces shone and tin
gled from the soap and the rubbing? Re-
member 1t all?
Well, who'd a thought then that Nance
Olden ever would make use of it-on the
level, too,
Drop the Cruelty, and tell you about the
stage? Why it's bare boards back there,
bare as the Cruelty, but oh, there's some
thing that you don't see, but you feel it
something magic that makes you want to
pinch yourself to tie sure you're awake.
| go round there just doped with it; my
face, if you could see it, must look like
Mollys kids when she is telling him fairy
stories.
l love it, Mag! I love it.
And what do 1 do? That's what I was
trying to tell you about the Cruelty for. It's
in a little act that was made for Lady
Gray, that there four Charity girls on
the stage. and I'm one of EN-.
Lady Gray? Why, Mag, how can you
ever hope to get on if you don't know
who's who? How can you expect me to as
sociate with you if you're so ignorant? Yes
"a real lady, real as the wife of lord
can be. Lord Harold Gray's sure enough
lord and she's his wife, but-but a chippy,
of the Gray emeralds and that great Gray
rose diamond she wears on the tiniest chain
around her scraggy neck. DO you Know
Mag Monahan. that TINS Lazy Harold Gray
was lust a chorus girl--and a sweet chorus
il must have beel if she sang there.-when
she nabbed Lord Harold?
You'd better keep your eye on Nancy
Olden or first thing you know she'll marry
he car of Russia0or Tom Dorgan. poor
fellow when he gets out! Well,
lust the same. Mag. if that white faced,
scraWny little creature can be lady,
girl with ten times her brains, and at least
half dozen times her good looks-oh,
we're not shy on the stage, Mag, about
throwing bouquets at ourselves:
can she act? Don't be silly, Mag: Can't
Won see that Obermuler's just hiring her
titIa and playing 1t in big letters on the
hills for all it's worth? She acts the Lady
Patroness. come to look at US Charity girls.
She comes on, though. looking Ike fairy
princess. Her dress is just blazing with
diamonds There's the lady's coronet in her
hair. Her thin little arms are banded with
gold and diamonds. and on her neck-O
Mag. Mag, that rose diamond Is the color
of rose leaves in fountains jet through
which the sun is shining. It's long-long as
my thumb-I swear it is, Mag-nearly. and
IL blaZes. ah, 1t blaZeS-
Well, it blazes dollars into Obermuller's
hoy al, right for the Gray jewels are ad-
yertised in the bill with this one at the
head of the list, the star of them all.
You see it's this way. Lord Harold Gray's
bankrupt. Hes poor as-as Nance oiden:
Jewels all right. to have as long as he
lives Nary a can he sell, though
for after his death they go to the next
Lord Gray. So he makes EN- make a living
for him. and they can't go on and ex-
hibit themselves, Lady Gray sports en-
and draws down 500 week.
Yep-two hundred.
But do you know 1t isn't the 5000 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 I'M
| derstand why my fingers just itched for it
the first night l saw her come on.
Pom my soul. alag. the sight of it blaz-
| ing on her neck dazzled me so that it shut
| out all the staring audience that first night,
and l even forgot to have stage fright.
| Whats doped you, Olden?" Obermuller
asked when the curtain went down. and We
| all hurried to the wings.
| was in the black dress with the white
bibbed apron, and l 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 q diamond like that. Mag!
"Doped? Why-what didn't do?" l ask
| ed him
That's just it." he said. looking at me
! curiously; but l could feel his disappoint-
ment In me- You didn't do anything
| rot a blasted thing more than you We're
| told to do. The worlds full of supers that
| can do that.
| For just minute l forgot the diamond.
"Then-it's mistake? You were wrong
| and-and l can't be an actress?'
| He threw back his head before he answer
| ed putting 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 re-
| membered.
| Well" he said. well wait and see. .