Oh, Mag—Mag, how can I tell him? Do you think he knows that I am going to be good—good! that I can be as good for a good man who loves me, as I was bad for a bad man I loved!
XVII.
PHILADELPHIA, January 27.
Maggie, dear:
I'm writing to you just before dinner while I wait for Fred. He's down at the box-office looking up advance sales. I tell you, Maggie Monahan, we're strictly in it—we Obermullers. That Broadway hit of mine has preceded me here, and we've got the town, I suspect, in advance.
But I'm not writing to tell you this. I've got something more interesting to tell you, my dear old Cruelty chum.
I want you to pretend to yourself that you see me, Mag, as I came out of the big Chestnut Street store this afternoon, my arms full of bundles. I must have on that long coat to my heels, of dark, warm red, silk-lined, with the long, incurving back sweep and high chinchilla collar, that Fred ordered made for me the very day we were married. I must be wearing that jolly little, red-cloth toque caught up on the side with some of the fur.
Oh, yes, I knew I was more than a year behind the times when I got them, but a successful actress wears what she pleases, and the rest of the world wears what pleases her, too. Besides, fashions don't mean so much to you when your husband tells you how becoming—but this has nothing to do with the Bishop.
Yes, the Bishop, Mag!