Chapter D: Appleton and Company (6)

A spectre was there all the time. But Elmer P. on a Lodge night could hardly have been more full of quip than Lady Violet. Not only was she witty in herself, she seemed a cause of wit in others. First Family was writ large upon her, yet she was everybody’s friend. She passed the time of day with the majority of her fellow members; she had a gay word or a bit of chaff for even the staidest of them; and in her frank and genial fashion she introduced “my friend Miss Du Rance of Chicago” to a discreetly chosen two or three.

As this delectable meal neared its end Mame was hard set to keep the Cinderella feeling at bay. That forward-looking mind of hers could not help contrasting the blithe evening so rapidly wearing thin, with the endless procession of drab to-morrows which surely lay in wait for her. She loathed the thought of the count-every-dollar existence to which she was doomed to return. If only she had a couple of thousand or so laid up in the bank! For a chance had come to enter the life that had such a powerful knack of making every other seem not worth while.

In the midst of these prickly Cinderella thoughts, she woke with a little start to the fact that her vis-à-vis was gazing at her over the flowers in the centre of the table. That was an odd sort of look Lady Violet sometimes had. Once or twice already Mame had surprised it stealing across her face; and she couldn’t help wondering what it meant.

“You’ll have a cup of coffee, won’t you?”

Mame was glad to have a cup of coffee, yet she was sure the look on the face of the fairy godmother had really nothing to do with that aromatic berry.

A waitress came with the coffee.

“Noir? Or sugar and milk?”

Miss Du Rance took plenty of sugar and plenty of milk. They had lingered over their meal. It had been very jolly; and although Mame had been oppressed throughout by a sense of destiny she had managed to keep up her end. Her free comments on men and women, on habits and customs, on powers and principalities had delighted the hostess. This quick-thinking child from the back of beyond was an Original. And so plucky! And really pretty if she wouldn’t trick herself out in that second-rate style!

The famous meerschaum holder was produced. Mame declined a _crème de menthe_ and the mildest of all imaginable gaspers. Nay, she was in the act of trying to drown her gloom in barley water; a pretty hopeless task, for that beverage, sound as it may be, is no antidote for the blues, when hey! presto! the fairy godmother came back into the picture. And poor Cinderella suddenly began to sit up and take notice.

“Did I tell you that Cousin Edith is going abroad for the summer?”

Miss Du Rance had not been enlightened.

“Well, she is. Some friends of hers have a villa at Lausanne and next week she is off to stay with them until September. I shall miss her dreadfully. She is such a good sort. And of course she plays propriety at Half Moon Street. Personally I don’t mind a row of beans, I defy the breath of scandal to touch sweet innocents like Davis and me; but my mother, you know, thinks it not quite nice. Anyhow, I am wondering if you feel inclined to tolerate Cousin Edith’s room at the flat for a month or two?”

Feel inclined to tolerate! Cinderella’s eyes began to glow, yet she kept a rigid silence. For she was plunged in some deep and rapid calculations.

“What do you say?”

“Glory, that’s what I’d say.” Mame could not dissemble her enthusiasm. As well, no doubt; since it was the native force of that enthusiasm which had such a tonic effect upon her rather _blasé_ friend.

“A firm offer if you care to take it.” The tone was amused and casual. “Cousin Edith’s mattress is a hard beast, and Davis and I are a pair of Bolshies before breakfast and a couple of bores after it, but we shall be full of gratitude if you’ll come and stand between us and the milkman, who, according to Davis, is a bit of a Don Juan.”

“Why of course I’ll come. I’ll simply love to. But--”

The meerschaum holder queried the weak word But.

“I’m kind of wondering about the dough.”

“The dough?” Lady Violet collected new idioms for their own sake, but somehow this Americanism had eluded her.

“What you call ‘the dibs’ over here.”

“My dear child, it won’t cost you a sou. In fact, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be money in your purse.”

Mame’s heart gave a leap. A fairy godmother with a vengeance!

“I don’t get you.” Cinderella spoke half forlornly, half with joy. “Your ways aren’t my ways. I’m not half the go-getter that you are. Personally I have to look both sides of a dollar to see if it’s wearing out in the middle.”

“That’ll be all right. If only you feel inclined to ease the white man’s burden, in this case the white woman’s, you’ll not need to trouble much about dollars.”

All this seemed too good to be true, but Cinderella gave the fairy godmother a very respectful hearing.

“The fact is, at present I’ve more work than I can do. Or perhaps one ought to say more than one cares to do. It’s the weekly letter to the provincial papers that’s so troublesome. I don’t mind the books and the plays and the harmless cackle about the inoffensive creatures with whom one occasionally dines out. Most of ’em seem rather to like it, if you go a bit careful with the trowel. But it’s having to write puffs for tradesmen, boosting their white sales and their spring pyjamas, that makes one want to tear the bedclothes.”

Mame listened with intensity, but she didn’t speak. Lady Violet went on: “For weeks I’ve been thinking of advertising in the _Times_ for a secretary. I don’t want to let the thing go; it pays like fun; and if I can find some good sportsman who is not afraid of the donkey-work she shall have a hundred pounds a year and her keep.”

Mame was a complex of emotions. But the one uppermost was joy. Miracles are no longer in fashion, but just now they seemed to be happening at the rate of three per ten days.

“What do you say?”

It was the kind of billet Mame had been praying for every night these seven months past. But it was not until she had performed the operation of pinching herself mentally to find out if she was truly awake, that she quietly answered: “Search me. If I’m not a champ on a Remington and don’t write as slick as you can shoot it, I’ll go back to Ioway by the next boat.”

“A go then. Cousin Edith leaves Tuesday. When can you move in? But no doubt you’ll like to think it over?”

Miss Du Rance, however, had done her thinking already. “Wednesday morning, at ten, I’ll be around at Half Moon Street with my trunk--if that’s agreeable.”

“The sooner the better.”

So there it was.

But what a funny world! Cinderella, secretly, was still in a maze. She couldn’t get rid of the feeling that this new turn of the shuttle was a bit uncanny.

XXV

The morning of Wednesday saw the punctual Mame moving into that smart apartment house 16b Half Moon Street W. In the process, alas, a hole was made in her few remaining dollars. But she was feeling pretty “good” and therefore a trifle reckless. The dream still held. Her luck continued right in. Most girls in her position would have given a year of their lives for such a chance; and she was quietly determined to make the most of it.

Some of the money, which, in spite of her run of luck, was giving her so much concern, was spent on lending a smarter appearance to her luggage and personal effects. It was not that she minded her hostess so much. She had proved herself a true democrat by cottoning to “little Miss Chicago” as she had humorously christened her. But the nigger in the wood-pile was Davis. Her supercilious eyes were far more inquisitorial than those of her mistress. A suit case, of the right Bond Street breed, and some smart new “undies” might do something to appease the wretch. At least Miss Du Rance hoped fervently that they would, for deep in her ambitious young heart were fear and dislike of Davis.

However, in spite of straitened means, the new era began promisingly. It was a relief to escape at last from the gloom and the hostility of Fotheringay House. Mame had never liked the place and the people and they had never liked her. She was so much “the wrong kind of American” that those who were rapidly losing anything in the way of social status they had ever possessed had to be on their guard. This odd Miss Du Rance belonged to the very large class of persons they simply could not afford to know.

With the new hostess, however, things were otherwise. Lady Violet could afford to know anybody and everybody. All she asked of whomsoever she knew was that they should be straight and if possible amusing. There was no question that Miss Du Rance from the outset had greatly amused her new friend. She had stimulated her too; such enthusiasm was infectious. Besides, she had ideas. Not all were practicable, but they were evidence of a modern and progressive outlook. In a word “little Miss Chicago” was a force, she meant something. Lady Violet, who, in the opinion of those among her many friends whose judgment was worth the most, “was as clever as they made ’em,” had seen from the first that they might be of use to each other.

A few days of the new régime confirmed this view. Miss Amethyst Du Rance, called Mame for short, was a find. She was quick to learn, in some things she was curiously humble-minded; she had a charming animal zest in life and she was a very genuine worker. Indeed, the little American really seemed to love work for its own sake.

From Lady Violet’s point of view, this love of work was important. Like most Britishers, she herself had a hearty dislike of work; at the same time no one enjoyed the fruits of it more. It was a necessary evil which meant a life of independence. It meant a flat of one’s own, money in one’s purse, travel, a modest entertaining of one’s friends.

The Trehernes were influential people, but of late years they had grown poor. Since the father’s death, ten years ago, their mother had let the London house. By living a country life she had been able to keep things going during her son’s minority. But now that Bill was of age, it was more than ever necessary for his mother to pare cheese. What with death duties and the cynicism of politicians who lived by robbing the people who were in a minority at the polls, they were hanging on by their eyelids to the proud position they had inherited. One of the string of girls had recently married, but it could not be said that the family circumstances were easy.

If Lady Violet was to have the kind of life she wanted she must work or marry. Of the two evils she chose the less. It was not that she disliked men. She was far too sensible to draw arbitrary distinctions between the sexes, but at heart she was celibate. And having brains enough to maintain herself in a fitting manner, for the present, at all events, she saw no reason for bartering the personal freedom which meant more to her than anything else in life.

From the outset Mame proved her worth. In her own expressive phrase she was a “go-getter”; and with a little kindly mothering she soon began to develop her talent. All the “donkey-work” could safely be left to Mame. She didn’t mind writing down a dozen columns a week to Lady Violet’s fluent dictation; she didn’t mind clucking it out on a typewriter. Then, too, she had real powers of her own. She could be trusted to deal first-hand with all sorts of minor functions, from a new film to a sale of lingerie, in an arresting and informative manner. She had much of the flair of the journalist born. Celimene’s weekly letter grew infinitely less burdensome, and in certain respects more worth while.

Lady Violet generously acknowledged all this. And even if the new arrangement meant a slice out of her income she soon began to profit in other and unexpected ways. Miss Du Rance had ideas. Before long she revealed a power of turning them to commodity.

Mame had been a week under the happy and fruitful ægis of this new friend, when a second letter arrived from New York. Moreover, it contained a cheque. And this was welcome as flowers in May, particularly as it was made out for double the amount of the first.

Elmer P. Dobree had also written very nicely. The stuff was full of promise; but there was performance in it too. The editor of the _Monitor_ was tickled to death by it and was asking for more. Of course “the blue pencil” was still in use but Elmer P. was full of sage advice. Even in the Cowbarn days, he had been, but he had the art of giving it in a tactful way. Good old Elmer, what a white man he was! Mame gave a little sigh of gratitude as she fingered the cheque and then re-read the letter of the _Monitor’s_ new assistant editor.

When Lady Violet came out of her bath, over which she liked to spend at least half an hour between ten a. m. and eleven, the letter was handed to her.

“I’ve got an idea,” Mame announced when the letter had been duly returned with her friend’s congratulations. “And I want you to come in on it. Now listen, hon.”

“Fire away,” said Lady Violet, elegantly fixing her kimono-clad slimness in a bergère chair.

“Suppose we shoot that weekly syndicate letter upon New York? And why shouldn’t they broadcast it all over the U. S.? Or why not a specialty with all the latest news and town gossip done in the Chickest style? You see what I mean? Or we might send two letters. ‘Celimene’ for New York and Boston and Chicago and Philadelphia and the highbrow cities; and ‘Mame’ for the small towns. Let us mail a couple of specimens right now to Elmer P. and put it up to him to work it his end. What do you say?”

Enkindled by Mame’s enthusiasm, which began to rise to bubbling point, Celimene could only yield.

“Easy money, I’ll tell the world.” Mame’s optimism was a tax upon the gravity of her friend.

“If we can put over the he-stuff we might persuade Elmer to have it cabled; and then I guess there’d be five hundred bucks a week for us cool.”

“Five hundred bucks a week, honey, you don’t say!” Celimene had a sense of humour. But she knew Mame well enough by now to appreciate that her flow of ideas must be taken seriously.

Over a pleasant luncheon at the Ladies Imperium, of which Mame had been already made an honourary, temporary member, they discussed the details of the plan.

“Now then, Celimene, come to it. We’ll start in this very afternoon. One letter for New York and one for Cowbarn, Iowa. Let us turn in that grand new opera we saw last night at Covent Garden and the private interview you had with that mossy-faced old dago who said he was the composer.”

Celimene approvingly helped Mame to some early asparagus. She owned she would never have thought of that.

“You would have, I expect,” said Mame generously. “But we must do the thing well. We shall be up against all the regular columnists of the New York papers. And we must go over bigger and better and brighter and breezier. So full of natural pep must we be that Elmer’s hair’ll curl like a crocodile’s tail.”

Go to it they did. That afternoon they worked like moles. They skimmed the cream of all that was happening in London, England. Mame loosed her descriptive powers, which were considerable. She guessed she knew just how to tickle the hick towns; while Lady Violet, who understood the taste of New York and Boston, artfully moderated the transports without taking out the pep.

Several items of spicy gossip were cunningly mingled with the regular news. “A little bird whispers that a certain Royal duke whose name must not be mentioned at the moment is paying court to the only daughter of a certain New Jersey banker. Wild horses will not force Celimene to divulge the name of the beaut in question, but her readers can be assured that when the hour of publication approaches they shall know a bit sooner than anyone else.”

“A risk, I fear.” Lady Violet was threatened with an attack of conscience. This tit-bit had gone round an exclusive dinner-table two nights before. It was some way ahead of the newspapers; it had been given more or less under the rose, and in Lady Violet’s opinion was a dangerous card to play. With all her Bohemianism she had inherited an old-fashioned respect for certain privacies and decorums. “Our Ambassador at Washington, if he happens to see it, may ask questions. He might want to know who Celimene is. Then there would be fuss this side the water and a too-enterprising journalist might find her name omitted from the next Court. And from our point of view, that would be a pity.”

Mame agreed. At all events with the latter part of the reasoning. The entrée was going to be one of the new firm’s assets. At the same time, the item in question was such a sure card to lead off with, that whatever happened she was sorely tempted to use it.

“That bit of eyewash is going to put the half-nelson on the _Monitor_.” When excited, Miss Du Rance had a tendency to mix her metaphors.

Her experienced friend shook the head of worldly wisdom. “There is Buck House to think of. It would be so easy to lose more than we gain.”

“We’ll gain big money. New York’ll give us a contract if we are first with the news. And I guess you’ve the influence to live down any bit of unpleasantness,” Mame shrewdly appended.

Lady Violet shook her head. So much did conscience trouble her, that even Mame, in whom strong passions had been loosed, felt bound to respect it. A real pity, all the same. Here was a scoop. The risk, therefore, was worth taking. But now that Lady Violet was standing on a matter of principle, Mame saw that nothing was likely to be gained by argument.

Among other little bits of spice was one which Mame herself felt inclined to query. Celimene laughingly suggested that the alliance of one of Britain’s marquises and a certain celebrated Three Ply Flannelette might be intelligently anticipated.

“Oh, but I’ll say not.”

“It is bound to happen, I assure you,” affirmed the sister of the marquis in question.

“’Tisn’t how I read the lines in his hand. And the leaves in his teacup. And the spots on his cards.”

Lady Violet smiled at this decisiveness. But Mame was unmoved. “Besides,” said she, “do you suppose New York and Bawston care a hoot which young skirt he’s going to marry?”

“I agree. And yet not altogether if I may say so. Miss C. has American connections.”

“American connections!” Mame suspected from the first that Miss Three Ply’s trained-to-the-minuteness had not a European origin. “Go-getting with Poppa’s millions, is she?”

“She is always spoken of as a fresh and charming English girl, but it wouldn’t surprise one if the rumour of her engagement to Bill interested certain people of importance on Fifth Avenue.”

“It’d surprise me. I’d be surprised considerable.” Mame was careful to keep these musings to herself. “If ever I hear the Voice that breathed o’er Eden lifting off the roof of Saint Margaret’s while that pair of galoots marches up the aisle you can call me Cissy.”

So much for Mame’s private thoughts. Wisely, however, they were careful not to get themselves uttered in those particular words.

XXVI

These were great days. It was not long before social engagements began to pour in upon Mame. She had surmised rightly that Lady Violet had influence. Indeed this new and most valuable friend seemed to have a finger in every pie. Her power of “wangling” things was extraordinary.

There could be no doubt about her popularity. And it was not confined to one class. The charlady at the flat, the young man who delivered the milk, the stalwart ex-soldier who worked the lift, right up to the formidable Davis and the princes of the earth were one and all devoted to her. For one thing she was the soul of good humour, with a word and a smile for everybody; and she had a divine faculty of loving a kind action for its own sake.

Lady Violet was a general favourite and she had many strings to pull. As far as Mame was concerned she pulled them freely. Little Miss Chicago began to be invited here, there, and everywhere. And surprisingly few questions were asked. At the outset, it is true, certain nicely brushed and plucked eyebrows--mostly those of Miss Du Rance’s own countrywomen, who seemed to abound in Mayfair--were apt to go up at finding her sitting opposite them at dinner and at luncheon. But the fact that she was a protégée of Lady Violet’s seemed to accredit her, to account for her, as it were.

Mrs. Creber Newsum, quite frankly, had never heard the name Du Rance all the time she had lived in America. Lady Summerscale, née Vanderdecken, who owned to Chicago connections, had never heard of it either. As for the dear Duchess, whose great grandmother had taken out the original patent for the New York Four Hundred, she was sure, my dear, well she was quite, quite sure--!

Still, Mame had luck to begin with. And she had excellent brains. Above all she had a very judicious and clever sponsor. Lady Violet understood just how far she could go with her own particular world. She knew its little weaknesses and how to play upon them.

In launching, as much perhaps for her private amusement as for any other reason, “my friend Miss Du Rance of Chicago,” into this expensive hothouse, she contrived to let it be known in her own two-edged phrase that this little American “was the richest thing that ever happened.”

Certain people, to whom money was the beginning and the end of all things, were only too eager to accept the phrase at its face value. They took it quite literally. Somehow it so fully explained Miss Du Rance.

“Chicago, my dear.” One lynx-eyed old dowager would whisper to another who had the ears of a fox. “Poppa was hogs. One hears the money he made in the War was fabulous.”

That accounted for Miss Du Rance. Five years had passed since the Armistice, but the Hogs, all frozen and pickled, that Britons of every rank and class had been compelled to digest and the prices they had had to pay for the privilege during the years of famine had crystallised already into one of the permanent traditions of the race.

Seeing is believing. The same applies to eating. “Hogs, my dear. Poppa was hogs.” It seemed to follow, as night follows day, that little Miss Chicago simply could not help being the richest thing that ever happened. And it was wonderful how the rumour spread. Sophisticated souls looked upon Miss Du Rance with awe.

Mame, at first, was not aware of this interesting fact. Even she, cute as she was, did not immediately strike to the root of Lady Violet’s subtlety. That little event was to come later. But even while Mame dwelt in a state of innocence, her uncanny sharpness gave her a perception of the rôle to play.

As far as Mayfair was concerned Miss Du Rance was the only one of her kind. She was something new. And the society in which she began to move had a love of novelty. Behind little Miss Chicago, however, was something more substantial than mere novelty. So cunningly did Lady Violet handle the rumour of her dollars that it seemed not only to vindicate Miss Du Rance, it also served to explain her. Great wealth was needed to carry off such naïveté. Did not the one connote the other? Unless in a literal sense she was the richest thing that ever happened she could never have penetrated so far into the arcana of London’s exclusiveness. And without a colossal fortune how could she afford to be the child of nature that she was?

It was whispered that Pop had begun the War a simple farmer of hogs and had ended by cornering them. The rapidity of his rise into one of the great magnates of the Middle West explained his early decease. It also explained his daughter. Dear Violet was receiving a pretty penny for towing her round, it was said. Everybody, of her own sex, envied and admired the courage of that lady. But the more sporting members were laying rather long odds that her protégée would not be presented at any one of the Season’s drawing rooms; while the most speculatively inclined were ready to lay rather shorter odds that _la belle Américaine_ would not even be seen at one of the minor Buck House garden parties.

Beyond a hint from Lady Violet, at the beginning of this odyssey in her young life, Mame had nothing to go on; but it was wonderful how soon she saw what was expected of her. There was, her sponsor had laughingly said, a far better chance of Miss Du Rance of Chicago receiving a ticket for the Royal Enclosure at Ascot from the Lord Chamberlain if she “stood,” as it were, upon Pop’s mythical wealth, than if she took the humbler rôle of weekly correspondent of the New York _Monitor_. Nay, to be frank, and Lady Violet generally was in her arch way, journalism cut no ice in the circles in which Mame was ambitious to move. Those circles were rippling with inside information; the value of the entrée, journalistically speaking, could hardly be exaggerated; but Mame should remember that the key was wrought of dollars rather than of sensitive grey matter.

A nod is as good as a wink sometimes. Mame promptly took the hint. She was beginning to set her heart on big things. These ambitions would mean a considerable increase of expenditure, because even the appearance of money cannot altogether be counterfeited. But every nickel spent now would be a means to a definite end. Yet there were anxious moments to begin with; and it was well that she had a solid rock upon which to lean.

Financially Mame’s burdens had been much lightened by the generosity of her friend. She had no house-room to pay for; Cousin Edith’s vacant bed was at her disposal gratis. Then, too, she was very well paid for her labours upon the weekly syndicate letter.

Quite at the outset of what by all the omens should have been a smooth and prosperous voyage there came a threat of shipwreck. It so happened that when the specimen letter to New York, which finally they decided to sign with the nom de plume Clio, had been carefully pondered and copied and sealed ready for dispatch, Mame suddenly went back on her too hasty decision to let Lady Violet have things all her own way. In deference to her scruples the most valuable of their assets had been scrapped; the rumour of a Royal duke’s engagement to one of America’s queens had been cut out.

At the last moment, however, such a piece of quixotism was a little too much for Mame’s news sense. She realised the enormous value of this item. They were playing for a high stake and yet they were deliberately throwing away the ace of trumps. Surely it was worth taking a risk. Principles are good things, no doubt, but in up-to-date press work they can be overdone.

Lady Violet, as it chanced, was in a hurry to dress for the play and an early dinner in the entourage of a newspaper magnate; and Mame, who had no engagement of her own that evening, undertook personally to register the parcel, so that there should be no mistake about its getting to New York.

Alone with the parcel, alas, the devil tempted her. Why, oh why, throw away such a chance as might never recur! She turned to the wastepaper basket, fished out the discarded item and re-read it wistfully. Beyond a doubt it was the very bit of sugar they most wanted. As she scanned her native skies there was not an editor in New York who would not fall for that piece of news. Hardening her heart, she sat down at the typewriter, made a fair copy of the crumpled script, and then, breaking the sealed packet, she inserted the forbidden “par” and sealed it again.

Even in the midst of the rash act, conscience threatened Mame with whips and scorpions to follow. But, after all, it was an equal partnership; she knew better than her friend what the effect would be in New York. Besides, why make a mountain out of a molehill? Even if there was a shine over this spicy par, they would no doubt be able to survive it. In any case there was likely to be very substantial compensation. For in Mame’s view that tit-bit would clinch the matter. It had a real chance of putting them in solid with the most worth-while newspapers in America. They would be able to get a fine contract for their weekly cable and then could snap their fingers at all the moguls between Washington and Windsor.

Once the fell deed was done, however, and the parcel dispatched from the post office in Dover Street, Mame’s conscience got busy. It came down upon her like a ton of bricks. She had done a thing that even complete success would not justify; she had gone back on her word; she had been disloyal; she had proved that she was simply not to be trusted. And if the game went wrong, and Lady Violet had shown conclusively that it was a highly dangerous one to play, most likely the too-clever Miss Du Rance would get it where the chicken got the axe.

Mame was not in the habit of repenting her actions. Long ago she had steeled her will against a pernicious harbouring of regrets; but she had some pretty bad moments to pass through. Retribution visited her pillow nightly.

Never in her life had she been lacking in courage, moral or physical. But now came signs of a yellow streak. She dare not tell Lady Violet what she had done. With all her genuine kindness, her gay insouciance, Mame was yet sure that she was not a kind of girl who could be trifled with. And look at the matter in what light one would, this trick was not quite on the level.

“Serve me right if I’m fired,” was Mame’s constant thought. “I ought to have put myself in solid before I tried these fancy strokes. And it isn’t Class, anyway.”

However, there it was. Even if a greedy little puss in her haste to get at the cream had upset the jug altogether, it was no use miaouing. All the same it took some of the warmth out of the sunshine of the Green Park; the band of the Pinks did not seem to play ragtime quite so rhythmically; the excitements of the new orientation were less stimulating than they should have been; the hope of an invitation to the Royal garden party less exhilarating; the world hardly so full of colour and romance as the circumstances warranted.

Had it not been for this large fly in the ointment, the new life would have been a thing of joy. The times were stirring. Luncheons, matinées, dinners, dances, parties crowded one another. Lady Violet, indeed, had influence. On each occasion, it is true, Mame had more or less to run the gauntlet, but she had the spirit of a fighter and she bore herself right gallantly.

Each week she got prettier; each week her confidence grew. Like all the rest of her countrywomen, of whatever grade they belonged, she had a very keen social sense. In a time surprisingly short, as viewed by the more conservative and less daring Briton, she began to get the hang of things. With just a little help, she soon learned what could be worn and what could not, what could be said and what could not, what could be done and what could not.

It was a pity that she had already done one of the things she ought not to have done. Otherwise everything in the garden would have been just lovely.

Even as it was the garden was real nice. She promised to become a favourite at some of the smart houses within a stone’s throw of her present abode. At the Orient Dance Club, in particular, she was _un succès fou_. Her style of moving was admired, her sayings were quoted; her personality, which seemed to develop and make more impact each time she appeared, began to wax in the public eye.

She was no longer the small-town rustic. Nor was she the struggling New York journalist who had to gaze wistfully at both sides of a dollar. The rôle of Miss Du Rance of Chicago suited her infinitely better. Even Miss Childwick, by nature a trifle supercilious, poor dear, had to defer to her in certain ways. Miss Du Rance was so much quicker in the uptake, so much more forceful, altogether so much cleverer. A slightly strained look began to appear in the eyes of Miss Three Ply Flannelette whenever her name was mentioned.

All the same, as Mame foresaw, the pace was a bit too hot to last. Something was due to happen. She was rather a fatalist by nature; and having gone out of her way to find trouble, she fully expected to fetch up pretty soon against a round nugget.

Why had she not let well alone! The truth was bound, sooner or later, to come out. Every time Davis, who had the look of a baby-eating ogress, came into the room with letters on a silver tray, Mame had a presentiment that some old Court fool of an ambassador had written to complain. And when that happened, as conscience said it sure must, Lady Violet being the kind of girl she was, there would be ructions.

To make things worse, although nearly four weeks had flown since “Clio’s” specimen copy had been urgently posted to New York, no word had yet been received on the subject. What did Elmer P. think of that _ballon d’essai_? as Lady Violet called it. What a fool Miss Slick Puss would look if, even with a bit of illicit spice stuck in the middle of her cake, Clio was turned down after all!

XXVII

“Damn!” said Lady Violet.

The tone of annoyance caused Mame to glance up from her typewriter, rather apprehensively, towards her friend. Conscience makes cowards of us all. Lady Violet was frowning over something in the morning paper. And the long-expected blow was overdue.

“The cat’s out of the bag. How disgusting.”

Mame did not feel like innocence, but according to one of the wise guys of the office calendar, speech is given one to conceal one’s thoughts.

What cat? Out of what bag? What was disgusting?

Monsieur Talleyrand, the name of the guy in question, would not have disowned his pupil. Than Mame’s lisping tones, nothing could have been simpler or more concealing.

“You remember that Royal engagement?”

“What Royal engagement?”

“The one we had so much difficulty in deciding whether it would be cricket to divulge to New York?”

Ye-es, Mame seemed rather vaguely to remember.

“Well, the _Times_ says it has the approval and the sanction of their Majesties.”

“Can’t think what the boy sees in her, I’m sure.” Mame spoke cautiously. “If that really was the girl we saw the other night. Not what I call a looker, anyway.”

“No accounting for taste,” said Lady Violet philosophically; and then less philosophically, “but what really annoys me--”

Mame fetched a deep breath. “Shouldn’t let anything annoy you, honey, if I were you. ’Tisn’t worth getting worried over anything, not this time on earth.”

“Well, I _am_ annoyed. And it’s simply no use pretending. This new firm of ours, Mame et Celimene, called Clio for short, has just missed the biggest scoop of its young life.”

“I don’t get you.” Mame’s frown was portentous. She was doing her best, all the same, in a quiet fashion, to adjust her agile mind to the rather unexpected turn the conversation was taking.

“Don’t you see, my child, if we hadn’t been so frightfully conscientious, we should have been a clear fortnight ahead of everybody. Think what a reputation we should have made in New York on the strength of it. If only we had kept that rumour in, and damned the consequences of there being nothing in it, now that it is officially confirmed we should be on velvet with every editor from New York City to Tombstone, Texas.”

“Whose fault was that, honey?” Mame’s voice was very soft and beguiling.

“Not yours, my dear.” Lady Violet was ruefully candid. “And never again will I be so high principled. When I am it will be time to quit international journalism.”

“Yes, that’s where you got off.”

When Mame had time to think over the situation at her leisure, one factor in it appeared to be sticking out a mile. The case was altered; at least in some degree. No trouble need be looked for now, at all events from high places; and as Lady Violet was wearing sackcloth already for her own excess of scruple, it was quite likely that, even when the full truth came out, Mame would have nothing to fear. Indeed, the whole business had now begun to look much healthier. If the packet to New York had not miscarried, certain developments of a very pleasing kind were bound to ensue. And if she played her cards adroitly with Lady Violet, her lapse might hope to be forgiven.

Still, at this stage, it just didn’t do to be too sure.

XXVIII

Mame’s hope of developments began to materialise about noon the next day. At that hour Davis appeared with the silver tray whereon was a cablegram addressed “Durrance.”

Cool on the surface, but with trembling fingers and beating heart, Mame tore open the envelope and read:

Make no contracts with anybody until you know what I can do. Writing
this mail.
DOBREE.

Mame smiled sweetly upon Davis. “No answer.” Then still very calm on the surface she pressed the cable into the hand of Lady Violet.

Her partner and friend put down the novel she was studying for review purposes, and read the communication from New York through twice.

“I hope your friend Elmer P. Dobree isn’t pulling our legs,” she said perplexedly.

“Shows how little you know that baby.” Mame tried her best to dissemble a rising excitement. “Elmer P. takes life that serious he might be Abraham Lincoln at the age of twenty-nine.”

“One wishes he would express himself less cryptically.”

“You’ll be wise in time, honey,” drawled Mame slowly. Wild horses were inclined to tear her, but she had a will.

And a will was wanted, sure, to wait six long and weary days for the promised letter of Elmer P.

* * * * *

The six days of waiting were not so long and weary as they might have been. To begin with, they were full of the joys of anticipation. The anticipation, moreover, took more forms than one. As if to show how little Miss Du Rance and her sponsor had to fear in the way of displeasure in high places, there came by post, within an hour of the cable from New York, a real gilt-edged command to the second Royal garden party to be held at Buckingham Palace on the fifth of July.

The “command” tried the democratic spirit of Miss Du Rance severely. Even in the most vaulting moments of her optimism she had not seen herself moving in Royal circles quite so soon as all that. She was nearly betrayed into a whoop of elation. Cuckoo, yes, but somehow it expressed her oddly democratic feeling. However, she was able to pull herself up just in time. What were kings and queens, anyway? Still she could not help giving her amused friend a tentative hug.

“Please don’t put the bear-cat act over on me,” expostulated Lady Violet, who had devoted a good deal of the last four weeks to a study of Mame’s idiom.

“It’s a long way to the fifth of July, any old how,” said Maine with stern self-control. “And I’ll bet our noo ambassaderess don’t invite me to the carol singing and the fireworks on the Fourth at the Embassy. Even if good Queen Mary ain’t scared of me, _she_’ll be, I guess.”

“It ought to be easy to wangle a card for an American citizeness. How much will you bet?”

“I don’t approve betting.” Mame had too much respect for her friend’s astonishing powers of “wangling.” “But if you can get me an invite for the Fourth among all the doughnuts and the high-fliers and the hundred-per-cents I’ll be that set up I’ll not know where to hide my simple face.”

Lady Violet promised modestly to see if anything could be done in the matter.

One way and another Mame contrived to get through those intervening days pretty well; yet it seemed that the eagerly awaited letter from New York would never arrive. Her imagination could not help playing around it. The cable had excited great hopes.

In such a world as the present, however, things seldom pan out as they should. Mame had visions of a contract that would astonish Fleet Street; but Elmer’s offer, when it came, was considerably less than she expected. But in Lady Violet’s opinion it was distinctly good.

However, Lady Violet did not know the precise circumstances in which the offer had been made. She was still in the dark as to the brilliant coup Mame had illicitly brought off. Therefore Mame had no hesitation in turning it down.

“No, honey, we are out for something bigger. I think I’ll cable Elmer our rock-bottom terms.”

“Pray what do you consider they ought to be?”

“We must have a two-year contract to cable six columns every Friday at six hundred dollars a week.”

Lady Violet was frankly astonished. “Surely, we can’t hope to get that?”

“Oh, we’ll get it, or I should worry.” Mame sounded wonderfully cheerful. “I’ll go right along now and send that cable.”

“But suppose we kill the nice goose that is going to lay the golden eggs?”

Mame was prepared to risk that. “We are worth every dime of the money. And they know it just as well as we do.”

Her friend did a sum in her head. “Do you realise that you are demanding thirty thousand dollars a year?”

“So much as all that,” laughed Mame. But she was not to be dissuaded. “Audacity, audacity, always audacity,” had been among the mottoes of the office calendar. Besides, had they not exclusive news to offer and had not New York just had dramatic evidence of its value?

That, of course, was the crux of the whole matter. And it was a point upon which Lady Violet was very much in the dark. In Mame’s judgment the time had not yet come to enlighten her. She would have to know presently, but this was not the moment for a certain rather awkward disclosure.

XXIX

Celimene prophesied disaster when the enterprising partner showed her the cable she proposed to send.

“Leave this to me, honey.” Mame sounded absurdly full of confidence. “I know New York better than you. If New York wants a thing it wants it. And if it thinks a thing worth while it don’t mind what it pays.”

“But are we so worth while as all that?”

Mame appeared to have not the least doubt on the point. She clapped on her hat, sallied forth and sent the cable.

In four and twenty hours, less forty-five minutes, came the answer. Four hundred dollars a week were offered with a contract for one year.

Mame was triumphant. “What did I tell you, honey? They sure want us bad.”

Lady Violet marvelled. “Let us make haste and accept it, before they change their minds,” was her advice.

But Mame did not agree. “Those boobs are going up. They know we are the goods, else they wouldn’t have been so free with their cables at the onset.”

“But--!” persisted Lady Violet.

Mame took paper and pen. She spent a tense five minutes on a piece of careful if rather syncopated prose.

Original terms rock bottom. Sorrow. DU RANCE.

Lady Violet was constrained to laugh rather wryly over the fruit of her labours. “Ours, I fancy, will be the sorrow.”

The undefeated little go-getter laughed, too, but for a different reason. Once more she rose and crammed on her hat. Again she sallied forth to the convenient post office round the corner in Dover Street, while her friend was left wondering how she dared!

* * * * *

A further twenty-four hours went by. Plus twenty-five minutes on this occasion, to be exact. And then appeared the stern Davis with cablegram number three.

A Napoleon-at-Austerlitz look came upon Mame. “Keep the messenger,” she instructed Davis before opening the envelope. Full of will as she was, there could be no denying that her hand trembled and that her face was pale. Suddenly she gave a whoop of triumph. “There, honey, what did I tell you?” She tossed the cablegram to Celimene. “Seems to me that old office calendar is right every time.”

Lady Violet read amazedly:

Terms accepted. Cable confirmation. DOBREE.

Napoleon-at-Austerlitz poised a majestic pencil and then dashed grandly:

Mail two years contract instanter. DU RANCE.

The pregnant words were duly submitted to Celimene.

“Now then, honey, what about it?”

Lady Violet acknowledged her defeat with a cheerful grace. These Americans were wonderful!

Mame produced a pound note and gave it to Davis along with the cable. “For the messenger,” she said. But just as the emissary was passing out of the door she changed her mind. “Come to think of it, I’ll send that cable myself.”

The paper was handed back; and the redoubtable Davis went to dismiss the messenger, while yet again Miss Du Rance proceeded to clap on her hat. She had called to mind that an Anonymous highbrow had laid it down in the office calendar that if you want a thing done well you must do it yourself.

The office calendar had a sure trick of being infallible. Hence the quick but firm steps of Mame along Half Moon Street, towards that so conveniently near-at-hand post office.

XXX

Mame had hardly committed half a dozen pregnant words to the efficient care of the ladylike girl at the post office, when suddenly she came to an important decision. Let her regularise the situation then and now. She would go straight home and clear up Lady Violet’s perplexities. Success had amply crowned her audacity, but there was still the uncomfortable feeling that she had played not quite fair. An explanation was overdue. Now was the time to make it.

The job was not easy to tackle. If it were done at all it must be done quickly. And so, immediately she got back from her errand, she plunged right in. Briefly and lightly as possible she made the confession.

“Do I understand you reopened the packet and put in what we had decided to leave out?” Lady Violet’s eyes grew wide and round. The change of tone was perceptible.

“I sure did. And there’s no call to be sorry.”

“Perhaps not, but there might have been.” Lady Violet’s slow voice deepened rather ominously while it made that comment.

“We took our chance and here we are.” Mame’s air of triumph was a shade uneasy; it sounded a trifle forced. “Now we’re in solid with New York. We’ve pulled the big stuff, you can tell the world.”

Lady Violet could not resist a laugh. But at the back of everything she was not laughing at all. She was rather sore. And she was rather angry. No use disguising it, there the feeling was. They had brought off a scoop of which they had every right to be proud. But somehow the whole thing was against her code. One could not help liking and admiring this girl, but the line would have to be drawn somewhere!

She looked at her ingenious partner with narrowing eyes. The note in her voice disconcerted Mame considerably, when she said, “I don’t quite think I can be in this.”

Mame had a pang, sharp and odd. She did not like the sound of that voice. Much less did she like the sound of the words. Lady Violet was absolutely indispensable to her now. Without her loyal help the contract could never be put through. And if she should cut loose and decide to turn her out of doors, as a girl with that look on her face conceivably might, the entire house of cards would collapse. Miss Du Rance was not yet established in anything. She would lose all she had gained. Society, at one word from Lady Violet, would fire her. Even her syndicate work would be lost. She would be back where she began.

Alarmed by that tone and that look Mame felt the cold touch of panic. She had made a hideous blunder. By a foolish miscalculation of human nature it seemed as if she had just spoiled everything. In the flush of success she had been over-confident. She ought to have remembered that high-grade folks differed in certain ways from the common run. Yes, she had been a little fool.

XXXI

They went to the club, round the corner, for luncheon. But as they walked towards it together, for the first time since they had come to know one another they found themselves at a loss for words. For Mame it was a new experience and a decidedly bitter one. Lady Violet was now coldly polite. The touch of ice was an omen. Her companion did not like this new aspect at all.

Everything had changed since Mame had tripped along to the post office, half an hour ago. The sky was different or what London is pleased to call the sky; the sound of traffic; the look of the passers-by; the shadows cast by the houses and by the trees across the road, all were different. A severe attack of cold feet had overtaken Miss Du Rance.

She felt like throwing herself under a bus. Her vein of fatalism mockingly assured her that such luck as she had had could not possibly last. There was bound to be a break. The dream was too good to be true. Yet it was maddening to feel that she had held every card in the game less than half an hour ago and that by an act of sheer folly she had simply cast them to the winds.

This was a bad moment. Back swung the pendulum. Her mood reacted from triumph to despair. After crabbing such luck as no girl of her sort ever had, she might find herself curled up on a County Council bench among the poor stiffs who slept nightly on the Thames Embankment. Instead of having the ball at her feet she had now a vision of ending up in the river.

In the course of a miserable luncheon these horrid thoughts tormented her. She couldn’t go back to poverty and inferior people. But all that she had, depended on the coldly polite girl opposite. And if, as now seemed almost certain, she was forced to cancel the contract she had just made with New York, Elmer Dobree would be furious. He, too, would never forgive her for being made to look a fool. Big interests stood behind him in this scheme, and if by her default he failed to put it through, his own position would be jeopardised. He might even lose his new job.

“Excuse me, honey.” Mame glanced at her friend across the private table. “I don’t want food just now. I think I’ll get out into the air.”

“Aren’t you well?” The detached tone was like a knife to Mame.

“No,” she gasped. “I’m feeling pretty low. I--I--” Not trusting herself to say more she got up abruptly and quitted the dining room.

XXXII