All the same he was a little proud of himself. Not many men would have
perfected the rescue of this little girl so neatly from a house in which
her body and soul were in jeopardy. It had been an episode in his
sophisticated life which was all to his credit. He felt that,--with
pleasure liked the idea of being responsible for this poor little soul,
of having some one dependent entirely upon his generosity and who
presently would wait for his step with a fluttering heart and run to
meet him when he came in tired. He liked also the thought that this girl
would be a little secret of his own,--some one personal to himself, to
whom he could take his worries--and he had many--and get sympathy and
even advice.
The cab drew up. Graham released himself from the girl's arms and led
her into the small and rather fuggy foyer of the hotel, which was a
stone's throw from Broadway. A colored porter pounced upon the bag and
an alert clerk looked up from the mail that he was sorting.
"I want a room for my sister," said Graham, "with bath. Got one?"
"Fifth floor," said the clerk, after gazing fixedly for a moment at
something at the back of the screen. He then pushed the book towards
Graham.
Without a moment's hesitation, Graham wrote "Miss Nancy Robertson,
Buffalo," and took the key that was extended to him. "Come on, Nancy,"
he said, and led the way to the elevator, in which was waiting a tall,
florid woman carrying a small bulldog in her arms. She had obviously not
taken very great pains to remove the make-up from her face which had
been necessary to her small part. Graham recognized her as an actress
whom he had seen some nights before in an English play at the
Thirty-ninth Street Theatre, and he thought how queer life was and what
odd tricks it played. Not a foot away from each other stood two women,
the one just back from a place in which she had been aping a human being
in a piece utterly artificial and untrue, the other who had played a
part in a tragedy of grim and horrible reality, out of which she had
been carried before the inevitable climax.
The colored boy, with a hospitable grin on his face, led the way along a
narrow, shabby passage whose wall-paper was much the worse for wear, and
finally opened the door of a small bedroom, switching on the light.
"I'll undo the case," said Graham quickly.