When Miss Sherwood's invitation reached Maggie, Barney and Old Jimmie were with her. The pair had growled a lot, though not directly at Maggie, at the seeming lack of progress Maggie had made during the past week. Barney was a firm enough believer in his rogue's creed of first getting your fish securely hooked; but, on the other hand, there was the danger, if the hooked fish be allowed to remain too long in the water, that it would disastrously shake itself free of the barb and swim away. That was what Barney was afraid had been happening with **** Sherwood. Therefore he was thinking of returning to his abandoned scheme of selling stock to ****. He might get ****'s money in that way, though of course not so much money, and of course not so safely.
And another item which for some time had not been pleasing Barney was that Larry Brainard had not yet been finally taken care of, either by the police or by that unofficial force to which he had given orders.
So he had good reason for permitting himself the relaxation of scowling when he was not on public exhibition.
But when Maggie, after reading the invitation, tossed it, together with a note from ****, across to Barney without comment, the color of his entire world changed for that favorite son of Broadway. The surly gloom of the end of a profitless enterprise became magically an aurora borealis of superior hopes:--no, something infinitely more substantial than any heaven-painting flare of iridescent colors.
"Maggie, it's the real thing! At last!" he cried.
"What is it?" asked Old Jimmie.
Barney gave him the letter. Jimmie read it through, then handed it back, slowly shaking his head.
"I don't see nothing to get excited about," said the ever-doubtful, ever-hesitant Jimmie. "It's only an invitation."
"Aw, hell!" ejaculated the exasperated Barney in disgust. "If some one handed you a government bond all you could see would be a cigar coupon! That invitation, together with this note from **** Sherwood saying he'll call and take Maggie out, means that the fish is all ready to be landed. Try to come back to life, Jimmie. If you knew anything at all about big-league society, you'd know that sending invitations to meet the family--that's the way these swells do things when they're all set to do business. We're all ready for the killing--the big clean-up!"
He turned to Maggie. "Great stuff, Maggie. I knew you could put it over. Of course you're going?"
"Of course," replied Maggie with a composure which was wholly of her manner.
A sudden doubt came out of this glory to becloud Barney's master mind.
"I don't know," he said slowly. "It's one proposition to make one of these men swells believe that a woman is the real thing. And it's another proposition to put it over on one of these women swells.
They've got eyes for every little detail, and they know the difference between the genuine article and an imitation. I've heard a lot about this Miss Sherwood; they say she's one of the cleverest of the swells.
Think you can walk into her house and put it over on her, Maggie?"
"Of course--why not?" answered Maggie, again with that composure which was prompted by her pride's desire to make Barney, and every one else, believe her equal to any situation.
Barney's animation returned. "All right. If you think you can swing it, you can swing it, and the job's the same as finished and we're made!"
Left to herself, and the imposing propriety and magnificent stupidity of Miss Grierson, Maggie made no attempt to keep up her appearance of confidence. All her thoughts were upon this opportunity which insisted upon looking to her like a menace. She tried to whip her self-confidence, of which she was so proud, into a condition of constant regnancy. But the plain fact was that Maggie, the misguided child of a stolen birthright, whose soaring spirit was striving so hard to live up to the traditions and conventions of cynicism, whose young ambition it was to outshine and surpass all possible competitors in this world in which she had been placed, who in her pride believed she knew so much of life--the plain fact was that Maggie was in a state bordering on funk.
This invitation from Miss Sherwood was an ordeal she had never counted on. She had watched the fine ladies at the millinery shop and while selling cigarettes at the Ritzmore, when she had been modeling her manners, and had believed herself just as fine a lady as they. But that had been in the abstract. Now she was face to face with a situation that was painfully concrete--a real test: she had to place herself into close contrast with, and under the close observation of, a real lady, and in that lady's own home. And in all her life she had not once been in a fine home! In fine hotels, yes--but fine hotels were the common refuge of butcher, baker, floor-walker, thief, swell, and each had approximately the same attention; and all she now felt she had really learned were a few such matters as the use of table silver and finger bowls.
It came to her that Barney, in his moment of doubt, had spoken more soundly than he had imagined when he had said that it was easier to fool a man about a woman than it was to fool a woman. How tragically true that was! While trying to learn to be a lady by working in smart shops, she had learned that the occasional man who had ventured in after woman's gear was hopelessly ignorant and bought whatever was skillfully thrust upon him, but that it was impossible to slip an inferior or unsuitable or out-dated article over on the woman who really knew.
And Miss Sherwood was the kind of woman who really knew! Who knew everything. Could she possibly, possibly pass herself off on Miss Sherwood as the genuine article? . . .
