I pulled it open tenderly, cautiously, and turned to shut it
after me.

And--

And something held it open in spite of me.

No--no, Mag, it wasn't a man. It was a memory. It rose up there
and hit me right over the heart--the memory of Nancy Olden's
happiness the first time she'd come in this very door, feeling
that she actually had a right to use a stage: entrance, feeling
that she belonged, she--Nancy--to this wonderland of the stage!

You must never tell Tom, Mag, promise! He wouldn't see. He
couldn't understand. I couldn't make him know what I felt any
more than I'd dare tell him what I did.

I shut the door.

But not behind me. I shut it on the street and--Mag, I shut for
ever another door, too; the old door that opens out on Crooked
Street. With my hand on my heart, that was beating as though it
would burst, I flew back again through the black corridor,
through the wings and out to Obermuller's office. With both my
hands I ripped open the neck of my dress, and, pulling the chain
with that great diamond hanging to it, I broke it with a tug, and
threw the whole thing down on the desk in front of him.

"For God's sake!" I yelled. "Don't make it so easy for me to
steal!"