Part 2

"Well, why not?" Fay guffawed. "Why, you poor little simp, Mabel Larkin'll be there, won't she?" Clancy's expression indicated bewilderment. "Gosh! Didn't you meet her? She sat at Weber's left all evening. She's Zenda's wife."

Clancy demurred no longer. She was helped into her coat, that seemed to have grown shrinkingly forlorn, and descended to the foyer with Fay. There Weber met them, and expressed delight that Clancy was to continue with the party.

"You'll bring me luck, Florine," he declared.

He ushered them into his own limousine, and sat in the rear seat between the two girls. But he addressed no words to Clancy. In an undertone, he conversed with Fay. Clancy grew slightly nervous. But the nervousness vanished as they descended from the car before a garish apartment-house. A question to Fay brought the information that they were on Park Avenue.

They alighted from the elevator at the seventh floor. The Zendas and five other people--two of whom were girls--had arrived before them, and were already grouped about a table in a huge living-room. Zenda was in his shirt-sleeves, sorting out chips from a mahogany case. Cigar smoke made the air blue. A colored man, in livery--a most ornate livery, whose main color was lemon, lending a sickly shade to his ebony skin--was decanting liquor.

No one paid any attention to Clancy. The same casualness that had served to put her at her ease at the Château de la Reine had the same effect now. She strolled round the room. She knew nothing of art, had never seen an original masterpiece. But once, in the Zenith Public Library, she had spent a rainy afternoon poring over a huge volume that contained copies of the world's most famous paintings. One of them was on the Zenda living-room wall. Fay, lighting a cigarette, heard her exclamation of surprise. She joined her.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

Clancy pointed at the picture.

"A Landseer," she said, breathlessly. "Of course, though, it's a copy."

"Copy nothin'," said Fay indignantly. "Zenda bought it for the publicity. Paid sixty-seven thousand for it."

Clancy gasped. Fay smiled indulgently.

"Sure. He makes about six hundred thousand a year. And his wife makes three thousand a week whenever she needs a little pocket-money."

"Not really?"

"Oh, it's true, all right. Why, Penniman, there, the little gray-haired man--he was an electrician in a Broadway theater five years ago. Griffin used him for some lighting effects in one of his films. Now he does nothin' _but_ plan lighting effects for his features, and he gets two thousand a week. Grannis, that man shufflin' the cards"--and she pointed to a tall, sallow-faced man--"was press-agent for another theater four years ago. He's half-owner of the Zenda films to-day. Makes a quarter of a million or so every year. Of course, Zenda gets most of it. Lallo, the man drinkin' the Scotch, was a bankrupt eighteen months ago. He got some Wall Street money behind him, and now he owns a big bit of the stock of the Lallo Exchange, a big releasing organization. Worth a couple of million, easy. Oh, yes; that Landseer is the real thing. 'Sh. Come over and watch 'em play, kid."

Weber reached out his fat hand as Clancy came near. He patted her arm.

"Stay near me, and bring me luck, Florine."

The game had begun. It was different from any game that Clancy had ever seen. She watched eagerly. Zenda dealt five cards, one to each player, face down. Then he dealt five more, face up.

"You're high," he said to Weber. Clancy noted that Weber's exposed card was a king.

"I'll bet one berry," said Weber. He tossed a white chip toward the center of the table.

"How much is that?" whispered Clancy.

Weber laughed.

"A berry, Florine, is a buck, a seed--a dollar."

"Oh!" said Clancy. Vaguely she felt admonished.

Grannis sat next to Weber. He gingerly lifted the edge of the first card dealt to him and peeked at it. Then he eyed the eight of diamonds that lay face up before him.

"We are here," he announced jovially, "for one purpose--to get the kale in the middle of the table. I see your miserable berry, Ike, and on top of it you will notice that I place four red chips, red being the color of my heart."

Penniman immediately turned over his exposed card.

"I wouldn't like to win the first pot," he said. "It's unlucky."

"How the lads do hate to admit the tingle of yellow!" Weber jeered.

Lallo studied the jack before him.

"Just to prove," he said, "that I am neither superstitious nor yellow, I'll see your two hundred, Grannis."

"I feel the way you do, Lallo," said Zenda. He put five chips, four red and one white, in the middle of the table.

Weber squeezed Florine's hand.

"Breathe luck in my ear, kid," he whispered. Then, louder, he said: "Fooled you with that little berry bet, eh? Well, suckers, we're here for one purpose." He patted the king that lay face up before him with his fat hand. "Did your royal highness think I didn't show the proper respect to your high rank? Well, I was just teasing the boys along. Make it an even five hundred," he said briskly. He pushed four red and three blue chips toward the little pile.

Clancy did some quick figuring. The blue chips must be worth one hundred dollars apiece. It was incredible, ghastly, but--fascinating. Grannis stared at Weber.

"I think you mean it, Ike," he said gently. "But--so do I--I'm with you."

Lallo turned over his exposed card. With mock reproach, he said:

"Why, I thought you fellows were playing. Now that I see you're in _earnest_----" He winked merrily at Clancy.

Zenda chuckled.

"Didn't know we were playing for keeps, eh, Lal? Well, nobody deceived me. I'm with you, Ike."

He put in his chips and dealt again. When, finally, five cards had been given each remaining player, Grannis had two eights, an ace and a king showing. Weber dropped out on the last card but Zenda called Grannis' bet of seven hundred and fifty dollars. Grannis turned over his "buried" card. He had another king, and his two pair beat Zenda's pair of aces. And Grannis drew in the chips.

Clancy had kept count of the money. Forty-five hundred dollars in red and blue chips, and four dollars in whites. It--it was criminal!

The game now became more silent. Sitting in a big armchair, dreamily wondering what the morrow and her card to Morris Beiner would bring forth, Clancy was suddenly conscious of a harsh voice. She turned and saw pretty Mabel Larkin, Zenda's wife, staring at Weber. Her eyes were glaring.

"I tell you, Zenda," she was saying, "he cheats. I've been telling you so for weeks. Now I can prove it."

Clancy stared at Weber. His fat face seemed suddenly to have grown thin.

"Your wife had _better_ prove it, Zenda," he snarled.

"She'll prove it if she says she will!" cried Zenda. "We've been laying for you, Weber. Mabel, what did he do?"

His wife answered, never taking her eyes from Weber.

"He 'made' the cards for Penniman's next deal. He put two aces so that he'd get them. Deal them, Mr. Penniman, and deal the first card face up. Weber will get the ace of diamonds on the first round and the ace of clubs on the second."

Penniman picked up the deck of cards. For a moment, he hesitated. Then Weber's fat hand shot across the table and tore the cards from Penniman's grasp. There was a momentary silence. Then Zenda's voice, sharp, icy, cut the air.

"Weber, that's confession. You're a crook! You've made over a hundred thousand in this game in the last six months. By God, you'll settle----"

Weber's fat fist crashed into Zenda's face, and the dreamy-eyed director fell to the floor. Clancy leaped to her feet. She saw Grannis swing a chair above her head, and then, incontinently, as Zenda's wife screamed, Clancy fled from the room. She found her coat and put it on. With trembling fingers she opened the door into the corridor and reached the elevator. She rang the bell.

It seemed hours before the lift arrived. She had no physical fear; it was the fear of scandal. If the folks back home in Zenith should read her name in the papers as one of the participants, or spectators, even, in a filthy brawl like this, she could never hold her head up again. For three hours she had been of Broadway; now, suddenly, she was of Zenith.

"Taxi, miss?" asked the polite door-man down-stairs.

She shook her head. At any moment they might miss her up-stairs. She had no idea what might or might not happen.

A block down the street, she discovered that not wearing a hat rendered her conspicuous. A small closed car passed her. Clancy did not yet know that two-passenger cars are never taxis. She hailed the driver. He drew in to the curb.

"Please take me to the Napoli," she begged. "Near Times Square."

The driver stared at her. Then he touched his hat.

"Certainly," he said courteously.

Then Clancy drew back.

"Oh, I thought you were a taxi-man!"

"Well, I can at least take you home," smiled the driver.

She looked at him. They were near an arc-light, and he looked honest, clean. He was big, too.

"Will you?" she asked.

She entered the car. Not a word did either of them speak until he stopped before the Napoli. Then, hesitantly, diffidently, he said,

"I suppose you'd think me pretty fresh if--if I asked your name."

She eyed him.

"No," she said slowly. "But I wouldn't tell it to you."

He accepted the rebuke smilingly.

"All right. But I'll see you again, sometime. And so you'll know who it is--my name's Randall, David Randall. Good-night." She flushed at his smiling confidence. She forgot to thank him as she ran up the stairs into the Napoli.

Safe in her room, the door locked, she sat down on the window-seat and began to search out her plan of action. Little by little, she began to see that she had no plan of action to find. Accidentally she had been present when a scandalous charge was made. She knew nothing of it, was acquainted with none of the participants. Still, she was glad that she had run away. Heaven alone knew what had happened. Suddenly she began to weep. The conquering of Broadway, that had seemed so simple an achievement a few hours ago, now, oddly, seemed a remote, an impossible happening.

Some one knocked on her door. Startled, afraid, she made no answer. The door shook as some one tried the knob. Then Fay's voice sounded through the thin partition.

"Hey, Florine! You home?"

Clancy opened the door reluctantly. Fay burst into the room. Her blond hair had become string-seeming. Her make-up was streaked with perspiration.

"Kid, you're a wise one," she said. "You blew. Gosh, what a jam!"

She sank down in a chair and mopped her large face.

"What happened?" demanded Clancy.

"'_Happened?_' Hell broke loose."

"The police?" asked Clancy, shivering.

"Lord, no! But they beat Weber up, and he smashed Zenda's nose. I told Ike that he was a sucker to keep tryin' it forever. I knew they'd get him. Now----" She stopped abruptly. "Forget anything you hear me beef about, Florine," she advised harshly. "Say, none of them got your name, did they? Your address?"

"Why?"

"Because Zenda swears he's goin' to have Ike arrested. Fine chance, though. Ike and I are leavin' town----"

"You?"

The blond girl laughed harshly.

"Sure. We been married for six months. That's why I said you weren't in no danger comin' along with me. I'm a married woman, though nobody knows it. But for that Larkin dame, we'd been gettin' away with it for years to come. Cat! She's clever. Well, kid, I tried to get you off to a good start, but my luck went blooey at the wrong moment. Night-night, Florine! Ike and I are goin' to grab the midnight to Boston. Well, you didn't bring Ike much luck, but that don't matter. New York is through with us for a while. But we should worry. Be good, kid!"

She left the room without another word. Through the thin wall, Clancy could hear her dragging a trunk around, opening bureau drawers. This most amazing town--where scandal broke suddenly, like a tornado, uprooting lives, careers! And how cynically Fay Marston took it!

Suddenly she began to see her own position. She'd been introduced as a friend of Weber's. _She_ couldn't discover a six-months-old husband and leave town casually. _She_ must stay here, meet the Zendas, perhaps work for them---- On this, her first night in New York, Clancy cried herself to sleep.

And, like most of the tears that are shed in this sometimes futile-seeming world, Clancy's were unnecessary. Only one of her vast inexperience would have fled from Zenda's apartment. A sophisticated person would have known that a simple explanation of her brief acquaintance with Fay would have cleared her. But youth lacks perspective. The tragedy of the moment looms fearsomely large. For all its rashness, youth is ostrichlike. It thinks that refusal to see danger eliminates danger. It thinks that departure has the same meaning as end. It does not know that nothing is ever finished, that each apparently isolated event is part of another apparently isolated event, and that no human action can separate the twain. But it is youth's privilege to think itself godlike. Clancy had fled. Reaction had brought tears, appreciation of her position.

III

Clancy woke with a shiver. Consciousness was not, with her, an achievement arrived at after yawning effort. She woke, always, clear-eyed and clear-brained. It was with no effort that she remembered every incident of yesterday, of last night. She trembled as, with her shabby bathrobe round her, she pattered, in her slippered feet, the few steps down the hall to the bathroom.

The cold water did little to allay her nervous trembling. Zenda, last night, had referred to having lost a hundred thousand dollars. That was too much money to be lost cheerfully. Cheerfully? She'd seen the beginning of a brawl, and from what Fay Marston had said to her, it had progressed brutally. And the mere departure of Ike Weber with his unsuspected wife would not tend to hush the matter up.

Back in her room, dressing, Clancy wondered why Weber's marriage had been kept quiet. Fay had said, last evening, that "Weber's little friend" could not go to the party. Clancy had been asked to fill in. Why had Fay Marston not merely kept her marriage secret but searched for girls to entertain her own husband? For Fay, even though she was apparently quite callously and frankly dishonest, was not immoral, Clancy judged, in the ordinary sense with which that adjective is applied to women.

The whole thing was strange, incomprehensible. Clancy was too new to Broadway to know many things. She did not guess that a girl only casually acquainted, apparently, with Ike Weber could help in a card game as his own publicly accepted wife could not. Miss Fay Marston could glimpse a card and nothing would be thought of it. Mrs. Ike Weber could not get away with the same thing. But Clancy had all of these matters yet to learn.

Down in the dining-room, presided over by Madame Napoli and her buxom daughter, two shabby waiters stood idle. They looked surprised at Clancy's entrance. _Madame_ ushered Clancy to a table.

"It's easy seen you ain't been in the business long, Miss Ladue," chuckled _madame_. "Gettin' down to breakfast is beginners' stuff, all right. At that, it would help a lot of 'em if they did it. You stick to it, Miss Ladue. The griddle-cakes is fine this morning."

Clancy had a rural appetite. The suggestion of buckwheat cakes appealed to her. She ordered them, and had them flanked with little sausages, and she prepared for their reception with some sliced oranges, and she also drank a cup of coffee.

Her nervousness had vanished by the time she finished. What had she to be concerned about? After all, she might as well look at last night's happenings in a common-sense way. She could prove that she arrived in New York only yesterday, that her acquaintance with Fay Marston--or Weber--had begun only last night. How could she be blamed? Still--and she twitched her shoulders--it was nasty and unpleasant, and she hoped that she wouldn't be dragged into it.

The waiter brought her check to her. Clancy drew a fifty-dollar bill from her pocketbook. The waiter scurried off with it, and _madame_, in a moment, came to the table with Clancy's change.

"Carryin' much money?" she asked.

"Quite a lot--for me," said Clancy.

"Better bank it," suggested _madame_.

Clancy looked blank. She hadn't thought of that. She'd never had a bank-account in her life. But seven hundred dollars or so was a lot of money. She took the name and address of a bank in the neighborhood, and thanked _madame_ for her offer of herself as a reference.

It was barely nine o'clock when she entered Times Square. The crowd differed greatly from the throng that she had observed last night. Times Square was a work-place now. Fascinated, Clancy watched the workers diving into subway entrances, emerging from them, only to plunge, like busy ants, into the office-buildings, hotels, and shops that bordered the square. The shops fascinated her, too. She was too new to the city, too unlearned in fashion's whimsicalities to know that the hats and gowns and men's clothing shown in these windows were the last thing in the bizarre.

It was quite exciting being ushered into a private office in the Thespian National Bank. But when it came to writing down the name: "Florine Ladue," she hesitated for a moment. It seemed immoral, wrong. But the hesitation was momentary. Firmly she wrote the _nom de théâtre_. It was the name that she intended to make famous, to see emblazoned in electric lights. It was the name of a person who had nothing in common with one Clancy Deane, of Zenith, Maine.

She deposited six hundred and fifty dollars, received a bank-book and a leather-bound folding check-book, and strolled out upon Broadway with a feeling of importance that had not been hers when she had had cash in her pocketbook. The fact that she possessed the right to order the great Thespian Bank to pay her bills seemed to confer upon her a financial standing. She wished that she could pay a bill right now.

She entered a drug store a block from the bank and looked in the telephone-book. Mademoiselle DeLisle had neglected to write upon the card of introduction Morris Beiner's address. For a moment, Clancy felt a sick sensation in the pit of her stomach. A doubt that, up to now, had never entered her head assailed her. Suppose that Mr. Beiner had gone into some other business in some other city! Suppose he'd died!

She sighed with relief when she found his name. There it was: "Beiner, Morris, Theatrical Agt., Heberworth B'ld'g. Bryant, 99087."

The condescending young gentleman at the soda-fountain affably told her that the Heberworth Building was just round the corner, on Forty-fifth Street. To it, Clancy made her way.

The elevator took her to the fifth floor, where, the street bulletin had informed her, Morris Beiner's office was located. There was his name, on the door of room 506. For a moment, Clancy stood still, staring at the name. It was a name, Fanchon DeLisle had assured her, with a certainty that had dispelled all doubt, owned by a man who would unlock for Clancy the doors to fame and fortune.

Yet Clancy trembled. It had been all very well, tied to a typewriting machine in Zenith, to visualize fame and fortune in far-off New York. It took no great imagination. But to be in New York, about to take the first step--that was different.

She half turned back toward the elevator. Then across her mind flashed a picture, a composite picture, of aunt Hetty, of Mr. Frank Miller, of a score of other Zenith people who had known her since infancy. And the composite face was grinning, and its brazen voice was saying, "I told you so."

She shook her head. She'd never go back to Zenith. That was the one outstanding sure thing in a world of uncertainties. She tossed her head now. What a silly little thing she was! Why, hadn't even Fay Marston last night told her that her skin alone would make her a film success? And didn't she herself _know_ that she had talent to back up her good looks? This was a fine time to be nervous! She crossed the hall and knocked upon the door.

A harsh voice bade her enter. She opened the door and stepped inside. It was a small office to which she had come. It contained a roll-top desk, of an old-fashioned type, two chairs, a shabby leather couch, half hidden beneath somewhat dusty theatrical magazines, and two filing-cases, one at either end of the couch. The couch itself was placed against the further wall, before a rather wide window that opened upon a fire-escape.

A man was seated in a swivel chair before the roll-top desk. He was tilted back, and his feet were resting comfortably upon an open drawer. He was almost entirely bald, and his scalp was red and shiny. His nose was stubby and his lips, thick, gross-looking, were clamped over a moist cigar. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and Clancy noticed that the noisily striped shirt he wore, although there was an ornate monogram upon the left sleeve, was of a flimsy and cheap grade of silk.

"Welcome to our city, chicken!" was his greeting. "Sit down and take a load off your feet."

His huge chest, padded with fat, shook with merriment at his own witticism.

"Is this Mr. Beiner?" asked Clancy. From her face and voice she kept disgust.

"Not to you, dearie," said the man. "I'm 'Morris' to my friends, and that's what you and I are goin' to be, eh?"

She colored, hating herself for that too easy flow of blood to cheek and throat.

"Why--why--that's very kind of you," she stammered.

Beiner waved his cigar grandiloquently.

"Bein' kind to pretty fillies is the best thing I do. What can I do for you?"

"Mademoiselle"--Clancy painfully articulated each syllable of the French word according to the best pronunciation taught in the Zenith High School--"Fanchon DeLisle gave me a card to you."

Beiner nodded.

"Oh, yes. How is Fanchon? How'd you happen to meet her?"

"In my home town in Maine," answered Clancy. "She was ill with the 'flu,' and we got right well acquainted. She told me that you'd get me into the movies."

Beiner eyed her appraisingly.

"Well, I've done stranger things than that," he chuckled. "What's your name, dearie?"

Clancy had read quite a bit of New York, of Broadway. Also, she had had an experience in the free-and-easy familiarity of Broadway's folk last night. Although she colored again at the "dearie," she did not resent it in speech.

"Florine Ladue," she replied.

Beiner laughed.

"What's that? Spanish for Maggie Smith? It's all right, kid. Don't get mad. I'm a great joker, I am. Florine Ladue you say it is, and Florine Ladue it'll be. Well, Florine, what makes you want to go into the movies?"

Clancy looked bewildered.

"Why--why does any one want to do anything?"

"God knows!" said Beiner. "Especially if the 'any one' is a young, pretty girl. But still, people do want to do something, and I'm one guy that helps some of 'em do it. Ever been in the movies at all?" Clancy shook her head. "Done any acting?"

"I played in 'The Rivals' at the high-school graduation," she confessed.

"Well, we'll keep that a dark secret," said Beiner. "You're an amachoor, eh? And Fanchon DeLisle gave you a card to me."

"Here it is," said Clancy. She produced the card from her pocketbook and handed it to the agent. Her fingers shook.

Beiner took the card, glanced at it carelessly, and dropped it upon his desk.

"From the country, eh? Ingénue, eh?" He pronounced it "anjenoo." He tapped his stubby, broken-nailed fingers upon the edge of his desk. "Well, I shouldn't wonder if I could place you," he said. "I know a couple companies that are hot after a real anjenoo. That's nice skin you have. Turn round."

Clancy stifled an impulse to laugh hysterically. Tears were very close. To be appraised by this gross man---- Nevertheless, she turned slowly round, feeling the man's coarse eyes roving up and down the lines of her figure.