but Clayton raised his hand and she
hesitated, as he blocked the way.

"Well?" she demanded defiantly.

"You can choose between him and me," declared Clayton, hotly. "But
you've got to choose. If you go with him, breaking your contract, I wash
my hands of the whole business. Now, choose."

Martha met his gaze squarely, half angrily, half contemptuously. Then
she turned to the waiting maid.

"Lizzie," she said, clearly and distinctly, "ask Mr. Gordon--" Yet, even
as she spoke her voice faltered, she looked at Clayton, and added,
dropping her eyes, in an almost inaudible undertone: "--_to excuse me_."

Clayton took her arm eagerly, and she looked up again into his face.

"You brute," she said, but she laughed when she said it.

CHAPTER X

THE UNDERGROUND WIRES

The sign on the door of Suite 1239 in the Knickerbocker Theater Building
bore the legend, in plain black letters:

VICTOR WELDON

Theatrical Manager

Suite 1239 was really two small rooms, an outer and an inner office. The
outer office, overlooking busy Broadway, which seethed and simmered its
hurrying crowds far below, was divided into two parts by a railing. On
one side two long benches served as havens of rest for weary stage-folk
in search of engagements. Ever and anon one, two, or even three
players, perhaps chorus girls, perhaps actors, perhaps character women,
would enter timidly, look around the office as though expecting the
imperial Jove to hurl thunderbolts at them for their presumption in thus
invading the sacred precincts, and then tremblingly ask the red-haired
stenographer on the other side of the rail:

"Is Mr. Weldon engaging any one?"

And the red-haired stenographer, invariably without looking up from her
machine, would reply:

"Nothing doing to-day."

Sometimes this routine would vary a trifle, in case Mr. Weldon, for
reasons of his own, wished to have his office appear like a busy mart.
Then the stenographer would say:

"Mr. Weldon is very busy now, but if you want to wait, perhaps you can
see him."

This left-handed invitation, containing only the slightest ray of hope
that perhaps the great manager would engage some one for something, was
invariably pounced upon eagerly, for actors undergoing that sad daily
routine known as "making the rounds," knew to their sorrow that
invitations even to sit down and wait were few and far between. The
"Call to-morrow" slogan was the more usual excuse in getting rid o