第23章

"Are we?"I asked simply."Don't you think it's more the expression than anything else,and the voice?Nora's really much fairer than I am.Good-by."He watched me as I went out.I felt his eyes on the back of my jacket,and I was tempted to turn at the door and make a face at him.But I knew something better and safer than that.I waited till the train was just pulling out,and then,standing below his window,I motioned to him to raise it.

He did.

"I thought you were going to get out here,"I called."Are you sure you don't belong in Sing Sing,Mr.Moriway?"I can see his face yet,Mag,and every time I think of it,it makes me nearly die of laughing.He had actually been fooled another time.It was worth the trip up there,to make a guy of him once more.

And whether it was or not,Mag,it was all I got,after all.

For--would you believe Tom Dorgan would turn out such a sorehead?

He's kicked up such a row ever since he got there,that it's the dark cell for him,and solitary confinement.Think of it--for Tom!

I begged,I bluffed,I cried,I coaxed,but many's the Nance Olden that has played her game against the rules of Sing Sing,and lost.They wouldn't even let me leave the things for him,or give him a message from me.And back to the station I had to carry the basket,and all the schemes I had to make old Tom Dorgan grin.

All the way back I had him in my mind.He's a tiger--Tom--when he's roused.I could see him,shut up there by himself,with not a soul to talk to,with not a human eye to look into,with not a thing on earth to do--Tom,who's action itself!He never was much of a thinker,and I never saw him read even a newspaper.What would he do to kill the time?Can't you see him there,at bay,back on his haunches,cursing and cursed,alone in the everlasting black silence?

I saw nothing else.Wherever I turned my eyes,that terrible picture was before me.And always it was just on the verge of becoming something else--something worse.He could throttle the world with his bare hands,if it had but one neck,in the mood he must be in now.

It was when I couldn't bear it a moment longer that I set my mind to find something else to think of.

I found it,Mag.Do you know what it was?It was just three words--of Obermuller's:"Earn it now."After all,Miss Monahan,this graft of honesty they all preach so much about hasn't anything mysterious in it.All it is,is putting your wits to work according to the rules of the game and not against them.I was driven to it--the thought of big Tom crouching for a spring in the dark cell up yonder sent me whirling out into the thinking place,like the picture of the soul in the big book at Latimer's I read out of.And first thing you know,'pon honor,Mag,it was as much fun planning how to "earn it now"as any lifting I ever schemed.It's getting the best of people that always charmed me--and here was a way to fool 'em according to law.

So busy I was making it all up,that the train pulled into the station before I knew it.I gave a last thought to that poor old hyena of a Tom,and then put him out of my mind.I had other fish to fry.Straight down to Mother Douty I went with my basket.

"A fool girl,mother,on her way up to Sing Sing,lost her basket,and Nance Olden found it;it ought to be worth a good deal."She grinned.You couldn't make old Douty believe that the Lord himself wouldn't steal if He got a chance.And she knows the chances that come butting up against Nancy Olden.

Why did I lie to her?Not for practice,I assure you.She'd have beaten me down to the last cent if she thought it was mine,but she always thinks there'll be a find for her in something that's stolen.So I let her think I'd stolen it in the railway station,and we came to terms.