Her trial was merely a bit of comedy in which she played the star part, and when the last scene had dropped she was bowing her thanks to the judge, the jury, the lawyers and the spectators, and smiling all the while like a girl with a new doll on Christmas morning. The red was in her cheeks and there was a look of roguery in her black eyes, and she sailed out of the courtroom amid a perfect shower of congratulations.
And it was all for one strain of blood.
Father an Irish stevedore, mother a Slav peasant whom centuries of oppression had made apathetic, grandmother also a Slav, and grandfather a German noble. She had gone back one generation to get that criminal taint, and she may have gone back further than that to get the good strain that made the whole world smile with her when she smiled and turn enemies into friends.
FROM THE WOODS TO BROADWAY
Jane her name was—plain Jane—but she wasn’t plain by any means. She was far from that. She could smoke a cigarette, drink a bottle of wine, and wear a Paquin gown with grace, and in these three things a woman has a chance to show what she is and what she can do. For my part I would consider them a test, just the same as performing certain mathematical calculations, and showing a proficiency in geography are tests in civil service examinations. There is nothing that gives a woman so much poise and self-confidence as smoking a cigarette daintily. It gives her a chance to think, you see, and appear unconcerned, and it is an ambush behind which she may hide in time of trouble.
This particular Jane had all the vices and charms that a young woman who is known to the crowd by her first name ought to have, or might be supposed to have. Men who were introduced to her found themselves calling her Jane inside of the hour, and that was because of her genius, for there are a lot of women in this world whose baptismal name no man would ever dare to use, even though they had been acquainted for years.
There is just as much difference in women as there is in drinks. It isn’t necessary to go into details on that subject, for every good hard drinker knows the different sensations of the different brands the morning after.
