uarrel, and had not returned. It seems that she
had innocently told him how she had 'vamped' Benny Steinfeld, the big
revue producer, you know, into giving her a 'spot' in his summer show,
and that her 'Mat' had flown into a rage, accusing her of having been
untrue to him. She never mentioned his desertion to me again, but----"

"Yes?" Dundee prompted.

"Well," Serena Hart went on, uncomfortably, "I'm afraid I rather forgot
poor Nita after 'Teasing Tilly' closed, for my next work was in stock in
Des Moines. After a year of stock I got my chance in a legitimate show
on Broadway, and one day I met her on the street. Not having much to
talk with her about, I asked her if she and her husband were reconciled.
She said no, that she had never seen him again. Then, in a burst of
confidence, she told me that she had hired a private detective out of
her meager earnings to investigate him in his home town, or rather the
city he had told her he came from. The detective had reported that no
such person as Mat or Matthew Selim had ever lived there, so far as he
could find out. I asked her if she was going to get a divorce and she
said she was not--that being already married was a protection against
getting married in haste again. After that, I rather lost sight of Nita,
and practically forgot her, our paths being so very divergent."

"And you never saw her again?" Dundee asked, very much disappointed.

"Oh, yes, two or three times--at openings, or on the street, but we
never held any significant conversation," Serena Hart answered, reaching
for her plain, rather dowdy little hat. "Wait! I was about to forget! I
had quite a shock in connection with Nita. One afternoon--let's see,
that was when I opened in 'Hullabaloo,' in which I made my first real
success, you know--I bought _The New York Evening Star_, which devotes
considerable space to theatrical doings, to see what sort of review the
show had got, and on the first page I saw a picture of Nita, beneath a
headline which said, 'Famous Model Commits Suicide'----"

"What!" Dundee exclaimed, astounded.

"Oh, it wasn't Nita Leigh," Serena Hart reassured him. "There was a
correction the next day. You see, an artists' model named Anita
Lee--spelled L-e-e, instead of Le-i-g-h--had committed suicide, and, as
the _Star_ explained it the next day, the similarity of both the first
name and the last had caused the error in getting a photograph from the
'morgue' to accompany the story. Ther