CHAPTER II.

A JEALOUS WOMAN.

The audience had dispersed and the auditorium of the great Broadway Theatre was enveloped in darkness, but Carlotta, the prima donna of the company, was still pacing back and forth in her disordered dressing-room.

She was a handsome woman, of the ripe, sensual type. Her eyes were wide and far apart, like a panther’s; her nose aquiline, and her lips red and voluptuous. As she walked excitedly back and forth she threw her gaudy garments aside, leaving only a trailing skirt of rich white silk and a bodice of lace falling low on her shoulders.

“What do you mean by it, anyway? Am I to be eclipsed entirely? Is Carlotta to be put in the background and sneered at by the people, while that little country girl is standing in the calcium?”

She turned as she spoke and faced a heavily-built man, who sat on a trunk in one corner, gazing calmly at her frenzy.

“Answer me, Clayte Graham!” she almost screamed. “What do you mean by showing so much preference to that country snip?”

The man shrugged his shoulders before he answered. He was growing weary of his prima donna’s anger.

“I believe I am the manager of this company, Miss Thompson,” he said, calmly, “and so long as I hold that position I shall try to fill it, and one part of my duty is to select my singers.”

“And why have you selected her, I should like to know?” cried the woman. “She is as green as grass and her voice has never had an hour of training.”

“City people like grass,” was his tantalizing answer, “and as for training—her voice don’t need it.”

“Oh, of course you’ll stick up for her! I expected it!” was the furious answer. “But I’ll not put up with it! Do you hear me, Clayte Graham?”

Again the man shrugged his shoulders and smiled at her calmly.

“What will you do about it, Miss Temper?” he asked, very coolly. “You certainly will not be so foolish as to break your contract?”

“Oh, I know what you mean,” cried the woman, more wildly. “I can’t sign another for two years without your permission. No manager would dare engage me. Oh, yes, I understand you.”

“Well, you’ll understand me better before I am done with you,” said the manager, emphatically, “for I’ll make Marion Marlowe a famous singer yet—so famous that people will forget that they ever listened to a croaker like Carlotta.”

“That’s it!” shrieked the woman, who had now grown livid. “That’s right, Clayte Graham. Heap your sneers and slurs upon me! I have made money for you for years in more ways than one—but now that my voice is failing you throw me over.”

“You have brought it on yourself, Carlotta, with your fiendish jealousy,” said the man, more gently.

In an instant the woman was on her knees before him, the tears streaming over her painted face and her voice quivering with emotion.

“Oh, Clayte, Clayte, don’t you know it is because I love you! Don’t you know that there is nobody else in this world for me but you, and yet you reproach and abuse me for being jealous!”

“Pshaw!” said the man, indifferently, as he moved away from her. “You are in love with yourself far more than with me, Carlotta. You’d scratch the eyes out of my head this minute if you dared to.”

The woman sprang to her feet and confronted him like a tigress.

“And you refuse to listen to my entreaties?” she asked, breathlessly. “Am I to understand that in future you will do nothing to please me?”

“I shall do nothing that interferes with my success in business,” said the man, very sternly. “I would be a fool indeed to let myself be influenced by a woman.”

The singer’s breath was coming in gasps now, and she clenched her hands together until they were bloodless and rigid.

“Why do you like this girl so much, Clayte?” she asked, tensely. “Is she so much handsomer than I, or does she sing so much better?”

“The public think she is handsomer,” said the man, evasively, “and you have read what the critics say about her voice.”

“But you, Clayte, what do you think?” was the woman’s eager answer; “what is there about her that makes you prefer her?”

Clayton Graham turned and looked the woman squarely in the eye.

“Her greatest charm is her modesty,” he said, slowly and clearly, “and she is attractive to me because she is a virtuous woman.”

If he had struck her with a lash the words could not have cut more deeply. The woman shrank away from him, her breath coming shorter and faster.

“That is like you, Clayte—to ruin a woman and then insult her!” she hissed between her teeth. “But beware, Clayton Graham. You had better not go too far! Carlotta has blood in her veins, real blood, that will avenge an insult. You may yet live to feel the power of a wronged and scorned woman.”

For answer the manager promptly turned his back upon her. The next moment she was alone amid the mocking emblems of mirth. The last vestige of self-control vanished as she fell upon the floor in a perfect frenzy of passion.

“Wait! Wait!” she muttered over and over, between her set teeth. “Just wait until Carlotta has gained her self-control, then look out, Clayte Graham and Marion Marlowe, for, innocent though you are, I shall not spare you! I shall have my revenge! Aye, and it shall be a grand one! Leave a scorned woman alone for plotting vengeance! I shall play my cards most cleverly, but each play shall tell. They shall find me no weakling in the game of love and jealousy!”

She staggered to her feet and began dressing rapidly. It was time that she was out of the dark, empty building. Suddenly a light tap sounded on the dressing-room door.

The woman opened it and confronted a beautiful young girl. It was “Signorita Ila de Parloa,” according to the programme, but in private life, no other than Marion Marlowe.