ll corners, and then out into a sunlit morning.

At the end of the tall-walled block, lined on both sides with
brownstone, straight-front phalanxes of rooming-houses, a segment of
Broadway, flashing with automobiles, darting pedestrians, white-facaded
buildings, and sun-reflecting windows, flowed like a mountain stream in
spring.

"Gee--Ysobel, look at that jam, will you!"

"Well, whatta you know! There goes Vance Dudley! If you want to know
what kind of work I do, ask Vance. Me and him did a duet solo in a
two-a-day musical sketch that would have landed us on Broadway sure if
the lead hadn't put in his lady friend when she came in off the road,
flat. I'll show you my notices sometime. That act was good enough for a
Hy Myers house if it had been worked right."

"I bet you're grand, Ysobel--your cute little feet and all."

"Ask any of 'em around the offices about me. I could soft-shoe Clarice
off the 'Winter Revue' this minute if--if I wasn't what they call in the
profesh a--a tin saint. I kinda got my ideas about things--"

"About what, Ysobel?"

"None of them ingenoo lines again, girl. Leave it to you merry widows to
take care of yourselves every time. There's nothin' I can learn a merry
widow. A merry widow can make Methuselah, herself, feel like a squab
when it comes to bein' wise."

"Honest--"

"That baby stare ain't the kind of a cue to throw me, girl. I can steer
you up as far as the offices, but I'm done after you once get past the
office boy."

"I--I don't--"

"After she gets past the ground-glass door every girl in the business
has got to decide for herself. I decided myself, and look where I got
to! Nine years in the business and never creaked a Broadway board yet. I
ain't got the looks to get there on my own stuff--and what happens? I
wake up dead some day doin' short circuit in a Kansas tank-town. I'll be
doin' thirty-a-week, West-of-the-Mississippi stuff to the bitter end
because--because I decided _my_ way and selected the rocky lane."

"The rocky lane?"

"Sure! The first job I ever went out for I could 'a' had. Five sides to
the part--two songs and a specialty solo, but, instead, I hit him flop
across the cheek with my glove and walked out, leavin' him staggerin'
and my engagement layin' on the floor. I--I ain't preachin' to you,
honey--I'm just tellin'! Every girl in this business has got to decide
for herself--I ain't sayin' one thing or the other."

"Ysobel--hit who across the cheek--