"Gad!" he repeated.
"Don't--you remember--me--sir--don't--"
"Not bad for a big girl--are you--eh?"
"Don't you remember?"
"Sure--you're the little girl I met out West--didn't I?--two seasons ago with--"
"No--no--no! Don't you remember me now?"
She tore her hat backward from its carefully adjusted tilt, so that it revealed the brassy gold of her hair, and took a step toward him.
"_Now_ don't you remember?"
"Sure--sure--you're the little girl from--sure I'd remember a big little girl like you anywhere."
"You remember now? On the twenty-eight-hour accommodation out of St. Louis. We--I got on at Terre Haute and sat across from you while he--they made up the berth, and you said--"
"Could I forget a big little queen like you! You've grown to a real big girl, ain't you? Come back in my office, sister. That's how much I think of you--with a whole company waitin' for me over at the Gotham Theater--come in!"
"I--just got here--Mr.--Mr.--"
"Myers, if anybody should ask you. That's who you're dealin' with--Hy Myers, if you should happen to forget."
"Ain't it funny, Mr. Myers, my runnin' into you right off. I never thought I'd find you in this town. My little sister I was tellin' you about will be here soon and--"
"This way!"
"I'm ready to take that job you was tellin' me about till--"
"In here, sister, where we can talk business alone."
She followed him back through the glazed door, through an outer office arranged like a school-room with aisle-forming desks, and white-shirt-waisted girls and men clerks with green eye-shades bent double over typewriters and books as big as the marble tablets on which are writ the debit and credit of all men for all time.
Boys scurried and darted; telephone bells jangled; and finally the quiet of an inner office, shut off from the noises like a padded cell, almost entirely carpeted in a leopard's skin and hung with colored lithographs of many season's comedy queens, whose dynasties were sprung from caprice and whose papier-mache thrones had long since slumped to pulp.
"Now sit here, sister--here in this chair next to my desk, where I can look at you. Gad, ain't you grown to be a big girl, though!"
"I'm ready for that job now, Mr.--Mr. Myers."
"Well--well--well!"
Mr. Myers swung on his swivel-chair, squinted his eyes further back into his head, and nodded further appraisal and approval.
"Big little girl--can I call you that, Queenie? How have you been?"
"I've had a hard time of it, Mr.--"
"Hold out your hand and lemme tell your fortune, sister."
"Quit!"
"Dear child--you mustn't act like that--here--hold out your--"
"Quit!"
"Come now--"
"We want jobs, me and my little sister--when she gets here. I told you about her, you remember. I--I've had experience on Western--"
"Naughty--naughty eyes--devilish eyes! Don't you look at me like that--don't! You big little devil, you!"
"What is it, sir?"
"Good! Sit there with the sun on you--you've got hair like--"
"I've had experience with first-row--"
"Gad!" He swerved suddenly forward in his chair so that his small feet touched the floor. "Gad, stand up there--stand over there in that sunshine by the window!"
"What--"
"Stand up--there, agin that screen there--"
Dark as a nun in her wimple, but golden as a sun-flower, she rose as Trilby rose to the eye of Svengali--
"Gad!" he repeated, bringing his small tight fist down on a littered ash-tray, "by Gad!"
Wine was suddenly in her blood.
"You ought to see me and my little sister when we pose together; we--"
"Take off your hat, girl."
She stood suddenly quiet, as if the wine in her blood had seethed and quieted.
"Aw--no--whatta you think I am--I--"
"Take off your hat, big little girl, and if you're good to me I'll tell you something. If I hadn't taken a fancy to you I wouldn't tell you, neither."
She lifted the heavy brim with both hands and stood in the bar of sunlight.
"Gad!" he cried--"Gad!" and jerked open a drawer and threw the big bulk of a typewritten manuscript on the desk before him. "Read that; read that, sister!" His heavy spatulate finger underlined the caption.
"'The--Red--Widow,' 'The Red Widow,' by Al Wilson."
He rose and jerked her by her two wrists so that she flounced toward him, her hair awry and the breath jumping out of her bosom.
"That's _you_, sister--the Red Widow!"
"The Red--Widow?"
"You're goin' out in a road chorus next week and get broke in. At the end of a season I'm goin' to feature you in the biggest show that ever I had up my sleeve."
She regarded him with glazed eyes of one dazed, and backed away from him.
"Me!"
"You--the Red Widow, sister! You know what a Hy Myers production means, don't you? You know what an Al Wilson show is, don't you? Add them two. I'll make you make that show or bust. Stand off there and lemme look at you again--there--so!"
"Quit!"
She sprang back from his touch and raised her hand with the glove dangling in the attitude of a horseman cracking his whip. "You--you quit!" Like Dryope changed into a tree, with the woodiness creeping up her limbs and the glove in her passive hand, she stood with her arm flung upward. "You quit!"
"Dear child, you mustn't--"
"I--I'm goin'--lemme go!"
"Aw, come now, sister; don't get frisky--I didn't mean to make you sore. Gee! Ain't you a touchy little devil?"
"I'm goin'."
"If that's your number, all righty--but you're just kiddin'--you ain't goin' to be too independent in one of the worst seasons in the business."
She moved toward the door with her hand outstretched to the knob.
"You better think twice, sister--but don't lemme keep you--there's other Red Widows as good and better'n you beatin' like an army at my door this minute. But don't lemme keep you."
"Will--will you lemme alone?"
"Sure I will, if it'll make you feel any better--you cold little queen, you. Nervous as a unbroke colt, ain't you? Sit down there and watch."
He touched a buzzer, and a uniformed boy sprang through the door to his elbow.
"Write Al Wilson to meet me here to-morrow at ten."
"Yes, sir." The uniform flashed out.
She moved around him cautiously, not taking her eyes from his face.
"Have I--have I got a job?"
"Sure you have. I'll send you out to Frisco in a chorus that'll limber you up, all right, but I won't let you stay long. I won't let a little queen like you run away for long."
"Frisco--me--gee!"
"Gad! maybe I won't neither. How would you like to play right close to home over in Brooklyn? I've got a chorus over there that'll take the stiffness out of you. I don't want to let a great, big, beautiful doll like you too far away."
"Frisco--I like Frisco."
"But hold up your right hand. Don't you tell nobody I'm pushing you for next season's feature--that's our little secret--between you and me and Al."
"I was gettin' thirty dollars."
"Don't you worry about that, Doll-Doll. You come back here to-morrow at ten. I wanna show Al how the Red Widow we've been lookin' for dropped right into my hands. He can't squeal to me no more about _types_."
"I--I'm going now, Mr. Myers--to-morrow, then, at ten--"
"Where you goin', Doll?"
"Home. I guess I've lost my friend now."
"Wait; I'm going your way."
"You don't even know which way I'm goin'."
"Sure I do. I'll drop you there in my car."
"Oh--I--I want--to walk--I do."
"None of that, sister. I'm treatin' you white, and you gotta do the same by me. I won't bite you, you little scare-cat! I'm goin' to make things happen to you that'll make you wake up every day pinchin' yourself."
"My little sister, Mr. Myers, has got me beat on looks."
"But you gotta treat me white, sister. We can talk business in the car, but you gotta have confidence in me. I won't bite--you big little girl, you."
"I don't want--to go--that way, Mr. Myers--I gotta go some place first."
"Comin', sister?"
"I--I--"
"Comin'?"
"Yes."
* * * * *
On its hundredth night "The Red Widow," playing capacity houses at the Gotham Theater, presented each lady in the audience a "handsome souvenir" of Red Widow perfume attractively nestled in a red-satin box with a color picture of Della Delaney on the label.
To the pretty whifflings and "ah's!" of every feminine nose present, to the over-a-million-copies-sold waltz-theme that was puckering the mouth of every newsboy in New York, to the rustly settling back into chairs, furs, and standing-room-only attitudes against Corinthian pillars, the hundredth-night, second-act curtain rose on an audience with an additional sense unexpectedly gratified and the souvenir-loving soul of every woman present sniffing its appreciation.
Comedy is a classic prodigal who has wandered far. Comus has discarded his mantle and donned a red nose, a split-up-the-back waistcoat, and a pair of clap-sticks.
Harlequin and Cap-and-Bells have doffed the sock and many colors for the sixty-dollar-a-week role of million-dollar pickle-magnate pursuing a forty-dollar juvenile, who, in turn, is pursuing the two-hundred-dollar-a-week Red Widow from Act One--summer hotel at Manhattan Beach to Act Two--tropical isle off the Bay of Bungel.
For the hundredth time the opening act of "The Red Widow"--a ghoul at the grave of a hundred musical comedies--sang to its background of white-flannel chorus-men, drop-curtain of too-blue ocean and jungle of cotton-back palms.