_ CHAPTER XI
Immediately the maid had disappeared, Laura sprang to her feet and picked up John's letter. It was only with the greatest difficulty that she had managed to curb her impatience. Eagerly she tore open the envelope.
The letter consisted, as usual, of several pages closely written. Things were pretty much the same, he said. It was a wonderful country, vast and unconquered, a land where man was constantly at war with the forces of Nature. Extraordinary finds were being made every day; one literally picked up gold nuggets by the handful. If he and his partner were only reasonably lucky, there was no reason why they should not become enormously rich. He hoped his little girl was happy and prosperous. He was sure she was true. Each night when he went to sleep in his tent, he placed two things under his pillow, things that had become necessary to his salvation--a Colt revolver and her sweet photograph. He quite understood that it was difficult to secure good engagements, especially since Brockton's backing was withdrawn, but he advised her to take heart and accept anything she could get--for the present. It would not be for long. When he came back, rich beyond the dreams of avarice, she would not have to worry about theatre managers any more.
She read the letter through hurriedly, re-read it, and then, pressing the missive to her lips, laid it down on the table.
"Accept anything!" she murmured. "Ah, he does not understand. How should he? If only there was something to accept!" Rising wearily, she sighed: "Hope, just nothing but hope."
Her mouth quivered, and her bosom, agitated by the emotion she was trying hard to suppress, rose and fell convulsively. He did not understand. How was it possible for her to wait? She had already waited until everything was gone--her rings, her watch and chain, even the clothes on her back. She was absolutely penniless; unless relief came soon she would be turned into the streets. Oh, why could he not have guessed the truth from her letters, and come back to her?
Going to the bed, she fell face down upon it, burying her face in her hands. A convulsive sobbing shook her entire being. It was too hard to bear. She had tried to be brave, but her heart was breaking. Ah, if John only knew! What did she care for riches? If only he would come to comfort her and give her courage.
For fifteen minutes she lay there, motionless, a pathetic figure of utter despondency. The minutes might have lengthened into hours, when suddenly a hurdy-gurdy in the street below started to play a popular air. Often the most trivial and commonplace incident will change the entire current of our thoughts. It was so in this instance. The cheap music had the effect of instantly galvanizing the young actress into life. It suddenly occurred to her that she was ravenously hungry. She rose from the bed, went to the wardrobe and took out a box of crackers. Then opening the window, at the same time humming the tune of the hurdy-gurdy, she got a bottle of milk that was standing on the sill outside and placed it on the table. Next she went to the washstand and rinsed out a tumbler. While thus engaged, there came a timid knock at the door. Startled, not knowing who it could be, unwilling that strangers should detect the traces of tears, she went quickly to the dresser and powdered her nose. The knocking was repeated.
"Come in!" she called out, without turning round.
The door opened and Jim Weston appeared. He halted on the threshold, holding the knob in his hand.
"May I come in?"
"Hello, Jim! Of course you may. I'm awfully glad you came. I was feeling horribly blue. Any luck?"
The advance agent came in, closing the door carefully behind him.
"Lots of it," he grinned.
"That's good," exclaimed Laura, who was still at the mirror arranging her hair. "Tell me."
"It's bad luck--as usual. I kind o' felt around up at Burgess's office. I thought I might get a job there, but he put me off until to-morrow. Somehow those fellows always do business to-morrow."
Laura closed the window, shutting out the sound of the street music, which now could be heard only faintly. Grimly, she said:
"Yes, and there's always to-day to look after." Going up to him, she said kindly: "I know just how you feel. Sit down, Jim."
He took a seat near the table, and accepted a dry cracker which she offered him. As he munched it, Laura went on:
"It's pretty tough for me, but it must be a whole lot worse for you, with a wife and kids."
The agent made a wry face.
"Oh, if a man's alone he can generally get along--turn his hand to anything. But a woman----"
"Worse, you think?"
He eyed her a moment without replying. Then he said:
"I was just thinking about you and what Burgess said."
"What was that?" asked the girl indifferently, as she sipped her milk.
The agent cleared his throat. With an air of some importance, he said:
"You know Burgess and I used to be in the circus business together. He took care of the grafters when I was boss canvas man. I never could see any good in shaking down the rubes for all the money they had and then taking part of it. He used to run the privilege car, you know."
Laura looked puzzled.
"Privilege car?" she echoed.
"Yes," he went on, "had charge of all the pick-pockets--dips we called 'em--sure-thing gamblers and the like. Made him rich. I kept sort o' on the level and I'm broke. Guess it don't pay to be honest----"
Laura gave him a quick look. In a significant tone of voice, she said:
"You don't really think that?"
The man shook his head dubiously.
"No, maybe not. Ever since I married the missis and the first kid come we figured the only good money was the kind folks worked for and earned. But when you can't get hold of that, it's tough."
The girl nodded, and, averting her head, looked out of the window.
"I know," she said simply.
The agent was in a loquacious mood this afternoon, and needed little encouragement to do all the talking. He went on:
"Burgess don't seem to be losing sleep over the tricks he turned. He's happy and prosperous, but I guess he ain't any better now than he ought to be."
"I guess he isn't," rejoined Laura quickly. "I know I've been trying to induce him to give me an engagement, but for some reason I get no satisfaction. There are half a dozen parts in his new attractions that I could do. He has never said absolutely 'no'; but, somehow, he's never said 'yes'."
"That's odd," said her visitor, scratching his head, as if puzzled. "He spoke about you to-day."
"In what way?" demanded the girl.
"I gave him my address, and he saw it was yours, too. He asked if I lived in the same place."
"Was that all?"
"He wanted to know how you was getting on. I let him know you needed work, but I didn't tip my hand you was flat broke. He said something about you being a damned fool."
Laura looked up in surprise.
"How?" she demanded.
Weston twirled his hat round nervously, and remained silent.
"How?" she demanded again.
Thus encouraged, he proceeded:
"Well, Johnny Ensworth--you know he used to do the fights on the
Evening Screamer; now he's press agent for Burgess; nice fellow and way on the inside--and he told me where you were in wrong."
"What have I done?" she asked, taking a seat in the armchair.
"Burgess don't put up the money for any of them musical comedies--he just trails. Of course, he's got a lot of influence, and he's always Johnny-on-the-Spot to turn any dirty trick that they want. There are four or five rich men in town who are there with the bank-roll, providing he engages women who ain't so very particular about the location of their residence, and who don't hear a curfew ring at eleven-thirty every night."
"And he thinks I am too particular?" interrupted Laura dryly.
"That's what was slipped me. Seems that one of the richest men who is in on Mr. Burgess's address book is that fellow Brockton. You're an old friend of his. He's got more money than he knows what to do with. He likes to play show business. And he thought that if you----"
Rising quickly, the girl went to the wardrobe, and, taking out her hat, picked up a pair of scissors, and proceeded to curl the feathers. The hat was already in so deplorable a condition that this belated home treatment was not likely to help it, but the diversion served its purpose, which was to distract the agent's attention away from her face.
"I didn't mean no offence," said Jim apologetically. "I thought it was just as well to tell you where he and Burgess stand. They're pals."
Laura jumped up, and, putting the hat and scissors down on the bed, went close up to her visitor. Confronting him, she said with angry emphasis:
"I don't want you to talk about him or any of them. I just want you to know that I'm trying to do everything in my power to go through this season without any more trouble. I've pawned everything I've got; I've cut every friend I knew. But where am I going to end? That's what I want to know--where am I going to end?" Sitting down on the bed, she went on: "Every place I look for a position something interferes. It's almost as if I were blacklisted. I know I could get jobs all right, if I wanted to pay the price, but I won't. I just want to tell you, I won't. No!"
Nervous and restless, she again rose, and, going to the fireplace, rested her elbow on the mantel. The advance agent coughed and nodded his head approvingly.
"That's the way to talk," he said. "I don't know you very well, but I've watched you close. I'm just a common, ordinary showman, who never had much money, and I'm going out o' date. I've spent most of my time with nigger minstrel shows and circuses, but I've been on the square. That's why I'm broke." Rather sadly he added: "Once I thought the missis would have to go back and do her acrobatic act, but she couldn't do that, she's grown so deuced fat." Rising and going up to Laura, he said: "Just you don't mind. It'll all come out right."
"It's an awful tough game, isn't it?" she said, averting her face.
She wiped away the tears that were silently coursing down her wan cheeks. Then, going to the table, she took up the glass, poured the unused milk back in the bottle, and replaced the biscuits in the wardrobe.
"Tough!" exclaimed the agent. "It's hell forty ways from the Jack. It's tough for me, but for a pretty woman with a lot o' rich fools jumping out o' their automobiles and hanging around stage doors, it must be something awful. I ain't blaming the women. They say 'self-preservation is the first law of nature,' and I guess that's right; but sometimes when the show is over and I see them fellows with their hair plastered back, smoking cigarettes in a holder long enough to reach from here to Harlem, and a bank-roll that would bust my pocket and turn my head, I feel as if I'd like to get a gun and go a-shooting around this old town."
"Jim!" protested Laura.
"Yes, I do," he insisted hotly; "you bet!"
"That wouldn't pay, would it?"
"No; they're not worth the job of sitting on that throne in Sing Sing, and I'm too poor to go to Matteawan. But all them fellows under nineteen and over fifty-nine ain't much use to themselves or any one else."
"Perhaps all of them are not so bad," said Laura meditatively.
"Yes, they are," he insisted angrily; "angels and all. Last season I had one of them shows where a rich fellow backed it on account of a girl. We lost money and he lost his girl; then we got stuck in Texas. I telegraphed: 'Must have a thousand, or can't move.' He just answered: 'Don't move.' We didn't."
"But that was business."
"Bad business," he nodded. "It took a year for some of them folks to get back to Broadway. Some of the girls never did, and I guess never will."
"Maybe they're better off, Jim."
"Couldn't be worse. They're still in Texas. Wish I knew how to do something else--being a plumber or a walking delegate--they always have jobs."
"I wish I could do something else, too, but I can't. We've got to make the best of it."
Weston rose and took his hat.
"I guess so. Well, I'll see you this evening. I hope you'll have good news by that time." He started to open the door, and then came back a step, and in a voice meant to be kindly, he said: "If you'd like to go to the theatre to-night, and take some other woman in the house, maybe I can get a couple of tickets for one of the shows. I know a lot of fellows who are working."
The girl smiled sadly; tears filled her eyes.
"No, thanks, Jim; I haven't anything to wear to the theatre, and I don't----"
He understood. His face broadened into a sympathetic smile, and, putting his arm affectionately round her waist, as a father might with his daughter, he said kindly:
"Now, you just cheer up! Something's sure to turn up. It always has for me, and I'm a lot older than you, both in years and in this business. There's always a break in hard luck some time----"
Laura dried her eyes, and tried to force a smile.
"I hope so," she said. "But things are looking pretty hopeless now, aren't they?"
"Never mind," he said, as he went toward the door. "I'll go and give Mrs. F. a line o' talk and try to square you for a couple of days more, anyway. But I guess she's laying pretty close to the cushion herself, poor woman."
"Annie says a lot of people owe her."
"Well, you can't pay what you haven't got. And even if money was growing on trees, it's winter now. I'm off. Maybe to-day is lucky day. So long!"
"Good-by," smiled Laura.
"Keep your nerve," he said, as he closed the door behind him. _