Everybodys Lonesome | Page 9

responsibility.
Mary Alice found that she liked to hear these people talk. They had a kind of eagerness about many things that made them all seem to have much more to say than could possibly be said then and there. Mary Alice felt just as she thought the lady must have felt who, after the man standing beside Mary Alice had made one or two remarks, in a brief turn the conversation took towards the Children's Theatre, cried: "Oh! I want to talk to you about that." And they moved away somewhere and sat down together. Then, somehow, from that the general talk glanced off on to some actors and actresses who had come out of the foreign quarter where the Children's Theatre was, and were astonishing up-town folk with the fire and fervour of their art. Some one who seemed to know a good deal about the speaking voice, commented on the curious change of tone, from resonant throat sounds to nasal head sounds, which generally marked the Slav's transition from his native tongue to English; and gave several examples in such excellent imitation that every one was amused, even Mary Alice, who knew nothing about the persons imitated.
Then, some one who had been recently to California and seen Madame Modjeska and been privileged to hear some chapters of the memoirs she was writing, told an incident or two from them about the experiences of that great Polish artiste in learning English. A man asked this lady if she knew what Modjeska was going to do with her Memoirs when they were ready for publication; and they two moved away to talk more about that. And so it went. Mary Alice didn't often know what the talk was about; but she was so interested in it that she found herself wishing they would talk more about each thing and wouldn't break up and drift off the way they did. They had such a wide, wide world--these people--and they seemed to see everything that went on around them, to feel everything that can go on within. And they made no effort about anything. They talked about the Red Cross campaign against tuberculosis, or big game hunting in Africa, or the unerring accuracy of steel-workers on the skeletons of skyscrapers, throwing red-hot rivets across yawning spaces and striking the bucket, held to receive them, every time. And their talk was as simple, as eager, as unaffected, as hers had been as she talked with Godmother about her blue silk dress. All those things were a part of their world, as the blue dress was a part of hers.
She was so interested that she forgot to be afraid. And by and by when Godmother had drifted off with some one and Mary Alice found herself alone with one man, she was feeling so "folksy" that she looked up at him and laughed.
"Seems as if every one had found a 'burning theme'--all but us!" she said.
The young man--he was young, and very good-looking, in an unusual sort of way--flushed. "I don't know any of them," he said; "I'm a stranger."
"So am I," said Mary Alice, "and I don't know any one either. But I'd like to know some of these people better; wouldn't you?"
"I don't know," returned the young man. "I haven't seen much of people, and I don't feel at home with them."
"Oh!" cried Mary Alice, quite excitedly, "you need a fairy godmother to tell you a Secret."
The young man looked unpleasantly mystified. "What secret?" he asked.
She started to explain. He seemed amused, at first, in a supercilious kind of way. But Mary Alice was so interested in her "burning theme" that she did not notice how he looked. Gradually his superciliousness faded.
"Let us find a place where you can tell me the Secret," he said, looking about the drawing-room. Every place seemed taken.
"There's a settle in the hall," suggested Mary Alice. And they went out and sat on that. "But I can't tell you the Secret," she said. "Not yet, anyway."
"Please!" he begged. "I may never see you again."
She looked distressed. "Oh, do you think so?" she said. "But anyhow I can't tell you. I can only tell you up to where the Secret comes in, and then--if I never see you again, you can think about it; and any time you write to me for the Secret, I'll send it to you to help you when you need it most."
"I need it now," he urged.
"No, you don't," she answered. "I thought I needed it right away, but I wouldn't have understood it or believed it if I'd heard it then." And she told him how it was whispered to her, after she had been kind to the man of many millions.
"And does it work?" he asked, laughing at her story of