"Western circuit--Western circuit!"

The Putney Building reared nineteen white-tile, marble-facaded stories straight up from the most expensive heart-acreage of Broadway and stemmed the Thespian tide that rushed in from every side and surged against its booking-offices.

A bronze elevator the size of a Harlem bedroom and crowded to its capacity shot them upward with the breath-taking flight of a frightened bird.

Ysobel crowded into a corner and nudged a youthful-looking old man in a blue-and-white striped collar and too much bay-rum.

"h.e.l.lo, Eddie!"

"h.e.l.lo yourself, Ysobel."

"How are yuh?"

"Ain't braggin'."

"What you doin', Eddie?"

"Rehearsin' with a act."

"Musical?"

"No."

"Specialty?"

"No--er--high-cla.s.s burlesque--two a day."

"Oh!"

"You workin', Ysobel?"

"Got three things danglin'--ain't signed yet. Just came in last week."

"S'long."

"S'long. Come on, Della. Watch out there, Eddie--a fellow burnt a hole in my friend lookin' at her like that once."

A t.i.tter ran around the elevator, and the old young man writhed in his blue-striped collar.

"'Sh-h-h, Ysobel; everybody heard you." A rosily opalescent hue swam high into Della's face as she stepped out of the elevator, and dyed her neck.

"I should worry! I was never out with him in a show in my life that he didn't ogle a hole in every queen he seen. Out in Spokane onct he--"

"Western circuit--Western circuit--"

They hurried down a curving, white-tile corridor, rows of doors with eye-like gla.s.s panes were lined up on each side, and the tick-tack of typewriters penetrating. Della's breath came heavier and faster, and a layer of vivid pink showed through the artificial red.

"You wait out here a minute, Della. I wanna step in here, at the Bijou, and see if Louis Rafalsky is doin' anything this morning. Then we'll shoot up to the Empire--"

"Sure--I--I'll wait, Ysobel."

She leaned against the wall and placed her hand over the region of her lace yoke and heart, as if she would regulate their heaving.

A flash of cerise plume, a jangle of chatelaine jewelry, and Ysobel disappeared behind one of the doors, her many-angled silhouette flashing against the far side of the ground gla.s.s.

Della breathed in deep and gulped in her dry, hot throat; her fingers, the damp cold born of nervousness, curled in toward her warm palms. She daubed at her lips with a handkerchief.

Simultaneously a door opposite her opened, and a short, bullet-headed figure in a light checked suit, and a diamond horseshoe scarf-pin that caught the points of light stepped out into the pale nimbus cast by the white signal-light of an up-going elevator.

With a gasp that caught in her throat Della darted in her too narrow skirt across the corridor, reached out, and grasped the light-gray coat-sleeve.

"Look," she cried, thrusting herself between him and the trellis-work of the elevator-shaft and throwing back her head so that her bare neck, soft as the breast feathers of a dove, rose and fell with a dove's agitated breathing, "Look--I'm here!"

The short figure turned on his heel and looked up at her, his shoulder-line a full three inches below hers, and his small, predaceous eyes squinting far back into his head.

"Gad--what?"

"I--I'm here--sir--don't you remember--me--I'm here."

He regarded her with the detailed appraisal of the expert, and his glance registered points in her favor.

"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 bra.s.sy 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--"