But after the medicine had been bought, and Fidy had grown quiet under its influence, Nance went across the hall to her own cold, barren room and flung herself across her narrow bed. The last chance of seeing the play had vanished. The only light of hope that had shone on her horizon for months had gone out.

When she got up, cold and miserable, and lighted the gas, she saw on the floor, where it had evidently been slipped under the door, a mysterious pink envelope. Tearing it open, she found, written in a large, loose scrawl:

"Dear Nance. We have just struck town. Reckon you thought I was a quitter, but I ain't. You be at the Gaiety to-morrow morning at nine A.M.

Maybe I can land you something. Don't say a word to anybody about it, and make yourself look as pretty as you can, and don't be late. Don't tell my folks I'm here. I got a room down-town.

"Bye bye, "B.S."

Nance's breath caught in her throat. The bubble was so radiant, so fragile, so unbelievable, that she was afraid to stir for fear of breaking it. She waited until she heard Mrs. Snawdor's heavy feet descending the stairs, and then she crept across the hall and sat on the side of Fidy's bed, waiting to give her the next dose of medicine. Her eyes were fixed on the bare lathes over the headboard where she had once knocked the plaster off tacking up a tomato-can label. But she did not see the hole or the wall. Calvary Alley and Cemetery Street had ceased to exist for her. She was already transported to a region of warmth and gaiety and song. All that was ugly and old and sordid lay behind her, and she told herself, with a little sob of joy, that at last the beautiful something for which she had waited so long was about to happen.

CHAPTER XVII

BEHIND THE TWINKLING LIGHTS

The gaiety, with its flamboyant entrance, round which the lights flared enticingly at night, had always seemed to Nance an earthly paradise into which the financially blessed alone were privileged to enter. At the "Star" there were acrobats and funny Jews with big noses and Irishmen who were always falling down; but the Gaiety was different. Twice Nance had pa.s.sed that fiery portal, and she knew that once inside, you drifted into states of beat.i.tude, which eternity itself was too short to enjoy. The world ceased to exist for you, until a curtain, as relentless as fate, descended, and you reached blindly for your hat and stumbled down from the gallery to the balcony, and from the balcony to the lobby, and thence out into the garish world, dazed, bewildered, unreconciled to reality, and not knowing which way to turn to go home.

But to-day as she pa.s.sed the main entrance and made her way through a side-pa.s.sage to the stage-door, she tingled with a keener thrill than she had ever felt before.

"Is Miss Smelts here?" she asked a man who was going in as she did.

"Smelts?" he repeated. "What does she do?"

"She dances."

He shook his head.

"n.o.body here by that name," he said, and hurried on.

Nance stood aside and waited, with a terrible sinking of the heart. She waited a half hour, then an hour, while people came and went. Just as she was about to give up in despair, she saw a tall, handsome girl hurry up the steps and come toward her. She had to look twice before she could make sure that the imposing figure was Birdie.

"h.e.l.lo, kid," was Birdie's casual greeting. "I forgot all about you. Just as cute looking as ever, eh! Where did you get that hat?"

"Ten-cent store," said Nance, triumphantly.

"Can you beat that?" said Birdie. "You always did have a style about you.

But your hair's fixed wrong. Come on down to the dressing-room while I change. I'll do it over before you see Reeser."

Nance followed her across a barn of a place where men in shirt-sleeves were dragging scenes this way and that.

"Mind the steps; they are awful!" warned Birdie, as they descended into a gas-lit region part.i.tioned off into long, low dressing-rooms.

"Here's where I hang out. Sit down and let me dude you up a bit. You always did wear your hair too plain. I'll fix it so's it will make little Peroxide Pierson green with envy."

Nance sat before the mirror and watched Birdie's white fingers roll and twist her shining hair into the elaborate style approved at the moment.

"Gee! it looks like a horse-collar!" she said, laughing at her reflection. "What you going to do to me next?"

"Well, I haven't got much to do on," said Birdie, "but you just wait till I get you over to my room! I could fit you out perfect if you were just a couple of sizes bigger."

She was putting on a pair of bloomers herself as she spoke, and slipping her feet into her dancing slippers, and Nance watched every movement with admiring eyes.

"Come on now," Birdie said hurriedly. "We got to catch Reeser before rehearsal. He's the main guy in this company. What Reeser says goes."

At the head of the steps they encountered a gaunt, raw-boned man, with an angular, expressive face, and an apple in his long neck that would have embarra.s.sed Adam himself.

"Well! Well!" he shouted at them, impatiently, "come on or else go back!

Don't stand there in the way."

"Mr. Reeser, please, just a minute," called Birdie, "It's a new girl wants to get in the chorus."

The stage-manager paused and looked her over with a critical eye.

"Can she sing?"

"No," said Nance, "but I can dance. Want to see me?"

"Well, I think I can live a few minutes without it," said Reeser dryly.

"Ever been on before?"

"No; but everybody's got to start some time." Then she added with a smile, "I wish you'd give me a chance."

"She's a awful cute little dancer," Birdie recommended. "She knows all the steps in the Red-Bird chorus. I taught her when I was here before.

If you'd say a word to Mr. Pulatki he might try her out at rehearsal this morning."

Nance held her breath while Reeser's quizzical eyes continued to study her.

"All right!" he said suddenly. "She's pretty young, but we'll see what she can do. Now clear the way. Lower that drop a little, boys. Hurry up with the second set."

The girls scurried away to the wings where they found a narrow s.p.a.ce in which Nance was put through the half-forgotten steps.

"It's all in the team work," Birdie explained. "You do exactly what I do, and don't let old Spagetti rattle you. He goes crazy at every rehearsal.

Keep time and grin. That's all there is to it"

"I can do it!" cried Nance radiantly. "It's easy as breathing!"

But it proved more difficult than she thought, when in a pair of property bloomers she found herself one of a party of girls advancing, retreating, and wheeling at the arbitrary command of an excitable little man in his shirt-sleeves, who hammered out the time on a rattling piano.

Pulatki was a nervous Italian with long black hair and a drooping black mustache, both of which suffered harsh treatment in moments of dramatic frenzy. His business in life was to make forty lively, mischievous girls move and sing as one. The sin of sins to him, in a chorus girl, was individuality.

"You! new girl!" he screamed the moment he spied Nance, "you are out of ze line. Hold your shoulders stiff, so! Ah, _Dio!_ Can you not move wiz ze rest?"

The girls started a stately number, diagonal from down-stage left toward upper center.

"Hold ze pose!" shouted the director. Then he scrambled up on the stage and seized Nance roughly by the arm. "You are too quick!" he shouted.

"You are too restless. We do not want that you do a solo! Can you not keep your person still?"