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PEARL GATES, the dancer, had achieved the ambition of her lifetime: she had “stopped the show.” The audience was in an uproar, it was shouting, “Bravo!” “Encore!” From the packed gallery came shrill cries of, “Atta Pearl!” The curtain was rising and falling, the orchestra was playing loudly to drown out the din, even the house lights had been turned on. But the tumult persisted. The toughest audience in the greatest vaudeville theater in the coldest city in the world was “standing on its head.” It had been a wonderful dance, but, oddly enough, the artist experienced no fatigue, no shortness of breath from her terrific exertions; on the contrary, she was beautifully exalted, she seemed to soar upon effortless pinions. Talk about your thrills!

And here came Mr. Adee, head of the Allied Booking Offices and the czar of American vaudeville! He rushed out from the wings and— Why, he was embracing her, taking a bow with her!

“You are marvelous!” he was saying. “Nothing like it ever seen. . . . New contract. . . . Forty weeks. . . . Two thousand a week and—”

It was hard to understand Mr. Adee’s words on account of the clamor. Miss Gates stirred impatiently, then flopped over on her side and buried her head deeper in her pillows.

“Yes? You were saying ‘two thousand a week?’” she repeated, encouragingly.

But it was no use. Mr. Adee, the stage of the Palace, the tumult of its patrons, disappeared, died out, were gone. Pearl Gates woke up.

“Damn!” she cried, this time speaking aloud.

After a moment she opened her eyes, yawned, stretched, then rubbed her lids until she could make out the dial of her dresser clock. It was ten-thirty.

Unwelcome sounds, those no doubt which had aroused her and had cost her forty weeks on the big time, were issuing from the next room. Mrs. Mullaney, the landlady, was saying:

“It’s not large, dearie, but it’s clean, like I told you. They’re all clean and I only take nice people. Ten dollars a week is the best I can do. They’re getting twelve next door.”

Why do all landladies shout like first mates? And why do lodgers shop for rooms at sunup? Evidently Mrs. Mullaney succeeded without much trouble in renting this one, for soon she took herself heavily downstairs and silence followed, broken only by the faint sounds of movement beyond the partition.

Some jump, from the Palace to the third floor of this rooming house! Two thousand a week! Sweet spirits of niter! Miss Gates tried to go back to sleep, hoping that she might dream even of fifteen hundred a week, but she could not, so at last she rose and languidly prepared for the daily battle. Getting up involved even a slower process than going to bed; hair is such a nuisance and these egg facial treatments are so tedious. So nauseating, too, if your stomach is weak.

Having lighted the gas under her coffee pot, Pearl cracked an egg and ran the white into a saucer. The yolk and the shell she dumped into the pot; the contents of the saucer she applied to her cheeks. She busied herself at other things while her sticky face-covering hardened.

Pearl decided she simply must have that permanent wave before long, for her “bob” had grown out to the awkward stage. Humph! She would have had it before this only for that last touch. Those girls at the cabaret seemed to think she was made of money, but—never again! Not never! Generosity wasn’t an indication of a tender heart, but of a soft head. If they got another tear out of her it would be with an onion and hereafter her salary would be safely socked, “down where the silk begins.” Yes, and with a rubber band around it and a safety pin to keep it from skidding! Henceforth, she would wear a tin chemise and they could call her “Old Ironsides” if they wanted to.

Look at that nifty next door—the one who had moved out a week before. Broke and too shabby to visit the agents’ offices, so she had borrowed Pearl’s pet sport suit. It must have been a lucky suit, for she got a job and left town the very next morning, without so much as a “thank you.” Somehow or other, she had got that suit mixed in with her handkerchiefs and her wash-rags. Laugh that one off!

It wasn’t as if it was the first time something like that had happened, either; why, it was as much as ever Pearl could do to keep a decent stitch to her back. No, charity didn’t pay—not with money so expensive. She began to hum an aimless air, creating a lyric as she went along. Meanwhile, the albuminous varnish upon her face set, began to pull.

Miss Gates ceased singing, after a while, and listened, for it seemed to her that she detected a sound, alas all too familiar. There could be no mistake; through the thin wall separating her chamber from the one adjoining came a muffled sobbing. Good night! Another gusher had come in. The eavesdropper shrugged; she would have sneered, but by this time the muscles of her face were immobilized within the steadily shrinking veneer. Loudly and defiantly she resumed her mumbling song—something about “Nickel-plated Nell from New Rochelle.”

The sobbing continued. It was very low, very unobtrusive.

“Oh Lord!” Pearl finally cried, in exasperation. Rising, she drew her faded kimono closer about herself, wrenched her door open, and knocked on the one from behind which came those smothered sounds of distress. Through lips that barely moved she exclaimed:

“Ship ahoy! What’s wrong in there?”

There was a moment of silence before a quavering voice answered, “N—nothing.”

“C’mon! I can hear you from my room. You sick or got a nail in your foot or something?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb anybody—”

Without waiting longer, Pearl turned the knob, opened the door, and stepped inside. A girl of about her own age was sitting on the edge of the bed; a suitcase and bag were open beside her, their contents were partly unpacked; on the cheap bureau stood a large-sized photograph in an expensive leather case—the photograph of a woman. The girl rose and hastily dabbed at her tears; again she apologized. “I’m so sorry I made myself heard!”

“Humph! I was just signing for a season on the Keith Circuit when that howling Mullaney woman woke me. I hadn’t recovered from that when your heart broke and threatened to spoil a perfectly good beauty mask.”

The newcomer, having dried her eyes, was now staring at Pearl with a very natural expression of astonishment. There was ample excuse, for Pearl’s countenance had the rubbery appearance of a hot-water bag, her hair was wet and her head bristled with marcel combs which gave her a bellicose appearance. The general effect was made even more startling by reason of a wrapper as disreputable as a prize-fighter’s bathrobe. It was, or it had been, a garment of brilliant colors, but, like the linen of Isabella which the imperial owner had vowed never to change until Ostend fell, it had gathered the dingy hues of discouragement.’

“Sure you’re not sick? Nothing I can do?”

“Oh no! Really!” The speaker smiled wanly. “I’m just lonesome. And homesick. A little bit frightened, too, I guess.” Pearl had noted by this time that her new neighbor wore a costly traveling dress; that her bags which lay open upon the bed were of real seal leather; and that her hat, her shoes, her whole get-up was smart and represented a really extravagant outlay. With genuine relief, she said:

“Well, I see you’re not broke, so three cheers for that. I’m hard boiled and nobody can cry me out of a cent. But I know what it is to be lonesome and scared and it doesn’t cost anything to cure it. Vamp into my room and have breakfast with me. My name is Pearl Gates. Not Pearly Gates! Gee! That gag makes me sick!”

These words, like those that had gone before, were enunciated indistinctly through lips that were stiff—Pearl had used her last egg. But the listener seemed to understand, for again she smiled.

“Mine is Edith Gilbert. I had breakfast at the station, but— I’d love to go in and just talk. You’re awfully sweet to take pity on me.”

“Well, out with the bad news.” It was perhaps fifteen minutes later. Pearl had rescued the coffee pot as it boiled over, had washed and dried her face, and now her morning meal was spread out on the top of her trunk. “Or wait! Lemme tell the sad story of your life. You’re a small-town girl and this is your first time in New York. All the heroines, these days, are small-town girls. They come to the great city and set it afire. Love affair! Fatal heart strain! Boy friend is a big, simple, manly chap; one of nature’s freckled noblemen. And he works in a filling station. All country boys do. Or maybe not. Perhaps his father owns the Honey Center National Bank and Boy is wild. One of these night-hawks who never get in before ten o’clock. Anyhow, there’s a boy friend and heroine’s parents love him like the scarlet fever. So heart-broken Hester leaves home and comes to New York to live her own life in a bigger, broader way and to wait for Boy. Boy starts in to make a man of himself and begins by jacking up the price of gas.”

The last shadow of melancholy had fled from Edith Gilbert’s face by this time; she laughed frankly. “Of course you’re all wrong, but you’re perfectly dear to joke with me. There’s no ‘boy friend,’ and I haven’t any idea I’ll set New York afire.”

Pearl shrugged. “Even Roosevelt made mistakes. But it’s your first visit to the wicked city and the big buildings frighten you. They make one feel so small and so friendless—”

“No. I’ve been here before and there’s nothing strange about it—except this rooming house.” Edith allowed her eyes to rove over the cheap furnishings and the disorderly contents of Pearl’s chamber. “I’ve always stopped at quiet, expensive hotels on the upper East Side. . . . Tell me, you’re an actress, aren’t you?”

“Oh, mercy, yes!” Miss Gates smirked artificially. She had a homely, irregular face, but it was expressive and interesting and Edith fancied she must be quite attractive when in her normal condition. “Yes indeed. I’m just building my own theater— dressing-rooms are so stuffy, and Mrs. Fiske and Ethel Barrymore and the others are so jealous of me!” She suddenly dropped her pretense and said, seriously enough: “No, dearie, I wish I were. I’m just a dancer; I spread the hoof-and-mouth disease in one of Broadway’s gilded gypping joints. Cabaret is the English word. I help the orchestra to drown out the soup course, from seven to nine and eleven to one. Ever been to a cabaret?”

“N—no!”

“Well, they’re better than no liquor at all. Now then, what about you? Why the salty tears?”

“Do you really want to know? It seems so selfish to talk about one’s troubles. Well, then, I was crying over my—mother. I lost her not very long ago. That was her picture on my dresser. She was beautiful, don’t you think so?” Miss Gates nodded; she said something sympathetic. There was a moment of silence. “She had a fine voice and she had studied for concert work, but she gave it up when she married. She taught me to sing and it was her dream for me to have a career. My father disapproved— he disapproved of everything we did or wanted to do—and after mother’s—after it happened, something occurred that induced me to leave home. Father and I quarreled; he washed his hands of me. I came to New York to look up my mother’s old teacher, a woman who had befriended her years ago. Madame Modena was her name and she lived near here, but when I went to her address I found that she had gone back to Italy two or three months ago. I was referred to this address—”

“I see. No wonder you cried. This dump would give a hobo the blues. But why stick here? Those Fifth Avenue hotels you spoke about haven’t been raided.”

“I haven’t any money.”

Pearl choked; her cup shook. Here it came; another touch! Wasn’t she the prize Patsy of the world? Why couldn’t she learn to mind her own business?

“Father didn’t offer to provide for me,” the other was saying, “and of course I wouldn’t have accepted help from him even if he had offered.”

“Oh, of course! Naturally!”

“When I got into my room here and realized what a change— what it meant with Madame Modena gone— You see, I intended to study with her. It was a natural let-down. I’ve been through a good deal lately.”

“Are you perfectly flat?” Pearl casually inquired.

“Oh no! I happened to have something in my purse when I quarreled with father. Two or three hundred dollars.”

“Two or three—what?” Pearl’s mouth fell open. “Any clothes?”

“Yes. Rather nice clothes, too. My trunks are coming up this morning.”

“Trunks is pleurisy for trunk, isn’t it? Or maybe it’s a slang phrase with you. Have you got more than one trunk?”

Edith smiled, dimpled. “Three!”

“Two hundred smackers and a trousseau of three trunks! And you shedding briny tears! What ails you? Take a trip to the Orient and cheer up. I would. Yes, and you’re pretty, too.”

“Thank you.”

“I don’t know as I ever saw anybody much prettier than you are. Some people don’t know their luck. . . . You say you’ve got a voice? How much of a voice?”

“Why—it’s pretty good.”

“Hm—m! They’re all good in the town hall; they go great at strawberry festivals and on hay rides, but this old town is full of ‘good’ voices; home-grown, milk-fed voices. I was a good dancer, too, in South Bend, but I haven’t caused a panic here. Ziegfeld hasn’t lost a wink of sleep over me.”

“I really sing very well. I’ve been told I have a possible—grand-opera voice. That’s why I wanted Madame Modena’s help. Now I must find another teacher.”

There was new interest, new respect in Pearl’s gaze. “That’s different, of course. If your friends haven’t kidded you, why, you’ve nothing to worry about. But you’ll have to go to work. They say it’s harder to break into grand opera than the Sub-Treasury, and lessons cost money.”

“Exactly. And I don’t know quite how to start.”

Pearl lighted a cigarette and inhaled deeply before she spoke next. “I’ve seen so many amateur wonders flop when they meet second-rate pros that I’m naturally skeptical. But who knows? Maybe you are an honest-to-God warbler. If so, and if you get up against it bad enough, I can always get you a try-out at our hash foundry.”

“The—cabaret?”

“That’s the colloquial term for it. Why not? A good many musical comedy people have come to it on their way down; you might tackle it on the way up. If you develop into a Tetrazzini you can probably live it down.”

“It’s a long way from what I had in mind. Where I come from cabarets aren’t considered altogether—well, respectable.”

Pearl nodded. “And strangely enough, they’re not very respectable. Pretty rotten crowd. But you’ll meet a rotten crowd wherever you go or whatever you do: especially a girl with your looks. Pretty stenographers in Wall Street meet the same thing. Shop girls, chorus girls and even society girls, from all I hear. Men are about alike.”

“What a scandal it would mean in Hopewell!” Edith was smiling faintly.

“Hopewell? Is that the hick town you’re about to make famous?”

“The place is all right. I’m thinking about my father.”

“Mind you, I’m not saying you can get by at Downing’s. His program is pretty snappy and I’ve never heard you yodel.”

“I don’t think I’d have any trouble, really. And I’m not conceited, either.”

“Well, it’s something to think about.”

“Henry Gilbert’s daughter in a Broadway cabaret! That would make him squirm.” Edith pondered briefly. She looked up finally and her eyes were glowing. “I think I’ll try it.”

“Oho! Spite work, eh?”

“N—no. Retribution. He—killed the dearest, sweetest, gentlest woman in the world. I told him so, and—”

“And just for that he asked you to leave home?” Pearl raised her brows incredulously. “Why, the dirty dog!”