Winner Take All

She tried to hold aloof. She used to wonder why she had not packed her bag that night and got out. She used to shiver when she remembered Felicity's dance. One couldn't touch pitch and not be denied. There were, it seemed, an overwhelming number of such proverbs, and most of them forbidding.

But she stayed on. More than that, she found herself after a time stammering a question concerning each new cavalier as he appeared. And each time Felicity's answer was unbelievably unconcerned and laconic.

"Nothing doing," she'd say. "He's hard boiled."

Familiarity breeds complacency oftener than contempt. But it was neither the one nor the other which forced Cecille to ask, over and over again. Once Felicity surprised in her eyes the light that invariably accompanied the question.

"You're a queer kid," she added that time, after the usual answer. "I sure don't get you."

Later she thought she had solved it.

"Don't you worry, Cele," she reassured her. "When the fall comes you'll hear the crash. I'll slip you the returns a little ahead of time so that you can get out from under."

"It—it wasn't that," protested Cecille quickly.

She wondered why she didn't pack up and get out.

But she was still there another night when Felicity finally came home again with every lithe line of her body pulsing triumph. She was even sitting up, which was unusual. An unusual occurrence accounted for it.

In the beginning Felicity had tried to share with the other girl those prospects who, for one reason or another, were of no importance.

"Come on along," she often urged. "These guys mean nothing in my young life except a dinner. And you needn't worry. Believe me, you'll be shown the same respect as if you were out with your maiden aunt. They know I'm refined and won't stand for anything else. And it'll do you good."

Cecille did go, once. So far as her escort was concerned she found that Felicity had spoken the truth. He was innocuous. He was, indeed, quite entirely unaware of her presence most of the evening. That did not displease her. She found him little stupider than a swain of the same age might have been in her own home town, even though his name did appear in heavy block type in the Social Register. But she went only once. She made a mistake. She had that day helped to costume a sister of one of the men. She happened now to mention that sister's prettiness.

The man looked her in the eye, coldly, for a prolonged moment.

"Let's leave my sister out of it," he said at length deliberately.

And Cecille's cheeks were still pale from his tone when they arrived back at the apartment.

"That was a bad crack you made," Felicity told her then.

"I—I didn't know."

"They don't like to discuss their own womenfolks with girls like us."

"Oh!"

The exclamation was little more than a whisper.

"But no harm done," airily. "He has to depend on the old man for his bank-roll. I just thought I'd tip you off."

She didn't go again. She stopped wanting to go anywhere, even to the movies, for quite a while. And then, just at eleven one night, while Felicity was before the mirror preparing to go to work and wondering where Cecille could be, the latter came quietly in. Felicity hardly marked her entrance until she dropped suddenly into a chair and began to laugh. It was the laugh which made Felicity turn so sharply. She had had experience with that shrill note in women's voices and knew what it could mean. Such breakdowns were ugly to handle.

She flung sharply round.

"What's tickling you?" she barked harshly. "Shoot! Let's have it. Cut that, now!"

It stayed the slighter girl's hysteria.

"I've been—I've been to a dance," she gurgled.

Felicity gave her no foolish respite.

"Well, I don't get it," she rapped on. "Maybe I'm English. Where's the joke?"

"A—a dance over at the Central Palace, given for Worthy Working Girls—"

"That's funnier! But go ahead. Snap into it! Don't let it drag—don't let it drag—"

It seemed a potent cure.

"I went because I saw in the paper that Mrs. Schuyler Driggs was going to be among the patronesses to receive."

The hysterical giggle was gone from Cecille's voice. She shut tight her teeth and raised her chin. Felicity felt that it was safe now to remain silent. And she was right, partly right. She only failed to realize that Cecille was all too calm.

"I'm sorry, Felicity," the latter apologized meekly. "But I couldn't help it. I thought I'd laugh and cry and scream, right on the street, before I could get here. But I held on. Shall I finish?"

"Mrs. Schuyler Driggs has just made her entrance—"

"Yes. She was in the shop this morning." The recital seemed simple and orderly now. "I helped to fit her. I usually do. She's never very cordial, but this morning she was—oh, she was a beast! She nagged and nagged and nagged, until I got nervous. I couldn't help it. I got worse and worse, until I stuck a pin into her. Not just a scratch." The gurgle threatened. "But deep—deep!"

"If you go off again," promised Felicity, "I'll dump that pitcher of water over you."

"I won't. I stuck the pin into her, and she—she grunted. And then—I never saw anyone grow so furious. She turned purple. I'm not sure that she didn't strike at me.

"'You did that on purpose,' she grated at me. Grated, that's the only word that describes it. 'You fool! You damned clumsy little fool!'"

Felicity waited until it was evident that she would have to speak.

"Well?" she asked then in a voice grown hard. "What did you say? What was the snappy come-back?"

"I couldn't think of anything to say, not just then—"

"Folks like you usually can't," said Felicity drily. "They think of a knock-out a half an hour too late. But not me. Language comes easy to me in a spot like that, language that I can't use regular without getting pinched, and I'm generous with it."

"I was a little more than a half hour late in having my say," Cecille admitted. "But I had it. I saw the announcement of the dance in the afternoon paper and her name, and I decided to go. I don't know why; that is, I didn't—not until she recognized me. Then I knew! She was shaking hands with me and telling me to have a good time. She was just passing me on to the next in line, when she blinked at me, like that—she's fat—and stopped me.

"'Haven't I seen you somewhere before, my dear?' she asked. 'You seem somehow very familiar.'

"Then I knew why I'd come. And I let her have it!

"'You have,' I was just as throaty as she was. 'And I should be,'—meaning familiar. 'At ten-thirty o'clock this morning when I stuck a pin into you, fitting that gown you have on, you cursed me. If I remember accurately you called me a damned clumsy little fool.'"

"—seven—eight—nine—ten!" chanted Felicity joyously. "And out! What did she do?"

And then, quite without any warning at all, came the break. It was like the shattering of brittle glass.