Fail? Me? Not Nancy, Maggie. I just took me by the shoulders.

"Nancy Olden, you little thief!" I cried to me inside of me.
"How dare you! I'd rather you'd steal the silver on this woman's
dressing-table than cheat her out of what she expects and what's
coming to her."

Nance really didn't dare. So she began.

The first one was bad. I gave 'em Duse's Francesca. You've never
heard the wailing music in that woman's voice when she says:
"There is no escape, Smaragdi.
You have said it;
The shadow is a glass to me, and God
Lets me be lost."


I gave them Duse just to show them how swell I was myself; which
shows what a ninny I was. The thing the world loves is the
opposite of what it is. The pat-pat-pat of their gloves came in
to me when I got through. They were too polite to hiss. But it
wasn't necessary. I was hissing myself. Inside of me there was a
long, nasty hiss-ss-ss!

I couldn't bear it. I couldn't bear to be a failure with Latimer
listening, though out there in that queer half-light I couldn't
see him at all, but could only make out the couch where I knew he
must be lying.