Gloria felt as if she were sleep-walking as she followed the red-cap
who carried her bag through the great noisy railroad terminal.
Outside, she drew a deep breath of air ... New York air! She shook
herself. She was really here!
"Free at last!" she sighed. "I'm glad I came! I'll never go back!
Never!"
Her heart beat high and wildly as she hailed a taxicab.
A woman on the train had told her about a clean little hotel in West
Eleventh street.
Gloria made up her mind that she would go there first to freshen up.
She was dirty and tired, after her journey.
... And then--and then, she would hunt up Stanley Wayburn!
She sat back in a corner of the taxicab and watched New York whirl by
outside the windows. In the pale sunshine, the tall buildings seemed
rich and wonderful. The very trucks and busses seemed marvelous to
Gloria that day.... She was going to see Stanley Wayburn!
Perhaps she would go on the stage and become a great star!
... And this big, careless town, this New York, would be hers to
struggle with, to conquer! Perhaps she would write her name in
electric lights against the night sky of Broadway yet!
At the little hotel she registered as "Miss Gloria Gordon" ... a
better stage name than "Gloria Gregory," she decided.
She went upstairs to the tidy, dehumanized hotel room, and unpacked
her bag.
She bathed. She brushed her red-gold hair until it shone like
polished copper. She "did" her nails, and rubbed perfume into the
palms of her hands, and on the nape of her neck. She rouged her
cheeks.
"'When tulips bloom in Union Square...'" sang Gloria, happy for the
first time in weeks.
She was happy!
And wasn't she pretty, though! She put her head on one side and
laughed at herself in the looking glass.... Oh, she could land a job
in a beauty-show all right!
If Stan couldn't help find her a job, she'd go to Kit Cameron!
Kit was a chorus girl in the "Gayeties" ... the most beautiful chorus
in the world! And Kit could introduce her to the great Ginfeld,
himself.
Gloria was sure that if Ginfeld saw her, he would give her a place in
the "Gayeties" ... She was sure she was beautiful. Dick had always
told her she was the prettiest woman in the world.
Dick! The thought of him made Gloria's heart ache for just a minute.
She put the thought of him aside.... She closed her heart against
him.
She threw back her head, and studied herself with eyes that were like
dark stars under their white lids. She smiled into the mirror. She
knew that she was better-looking than Kit Cameron had ever dared to
be!
Gloria's spirits began to sink as she stood on the sidewalk and
looked up at the dingy, narrow building that was Stanley Wayburn's
boarding house.
"I wonder if he'll be glad to see me," she thought.
She was filled with panic as she went up the worn stone steps, and
rang the doorbell.
"Is this where Mr. Wayburn lives ... Mr. Stanley Wayburn?" she asked
the tall, black-haired woman who opened the door.
"Yes, 'tis," the woman answered. "Who's wanting him?"
"I'm--I'm his sister," Gloria faltered.
"Well, he ain't home," the woman said. "He'd oughta be here in a few
minutes. Wanta go up and wait for him?"
"Yes, thank you," said Gloria. She followed the boarding-house
keeper up the red-carpeted stairs to the second floor.
Stan's rooms were at the back of the house, overlooking a dirty
backyard. Upstairs some one was practicing on a doleful saxophone.
But the rooms themselves were cheerful enough.
There were magazines scattered about. A tin box of cigarettes and a
cocktail shaker stood on the table. Stan's bright silk house-coat
was thrown over the back of a chair.
Everywhere there were pictures of women ... the photographs that
Gloria first had seen in Stan's dressing room in the theater back
home.
She looked at them, again.
Then she saw that there was a new one among them!
It stood all by itself in a Dutch-silver frame on a table in one
corner. The pictured face in it was broad and fore-shortened. It
was crowned by a swirl of blond hair ... It was Sonya Chotek's face!
Live pangs of jealousy stabbed Gloria like two-edged knives at the
sight. She wondered if Stan was in love with that face.... She
wondered if he thought Sonya Chotek was beautiful.
Was she beautiful? ... Gloria picked up the picture of the actress
and studied it closely. Then she crossed the room to a mirror that
hung there against the wall, and looked at her own face. Under the
deep coppery waves of her hair, it smiled back at her ... vivid and
sparkling.
"Pooh!" she said aloud, "I make her look like thirty cents!"
She put Sonya Chotek's picture back on the table, so that it faced
the wall.
It was then that the telephone in Wayburn's bedroom rang.
Gloria flew to it and unhooked the receiver.
"Hello," she said.
The voice that answered her had a foreign accent. It was a woman's
voice. It was Sonya Chotek's voice, Gloria knew at once.
"Who is this speaking, please?" it asked.
Gloria didn't answer. She banged the receiver back on its hook, and
turned away from the phone. Then she stopped dead-still.
Wayburn had come in. He was standing in the doorway between the two
rooms. Of course, he must have been listening....
He stared at her as if she had been a ghost. "For the love of Mike!
Where did you drop from?"
Gloria's voice was wistful when she answered. "From home, of
course--aren't you glad to see me?"
Wayburn ignored her question.
"Who was that on the phone just now?" he asked harshly.
"Oh, just some Jane who wanted to talk to you," Gloria replied. She
managed to ripple a laugh at him, flippantly, as she walked past him
into the sitting-room.
She was hurt--bewildered. What was the matter with Stan? The Stan
who used to catch her hands in his, give her a look that was like a
caress, and call her "Russet"?
"Aren't you going to ask me to sit down, or say you're glad to see
me, or anything?" she asked.
She dropped into a chair, and watched Wayburn through her lashes. He
took off his overcoat and hung it up. He lighted a cigarette with a
steady hand. He drew up a chair and sat down.
And not until then did he answer her.
"Well," he said, "as a matter of fact, I'm not exactly tickled to
death to see you, Gloria.... What have you done? Left your husband?"
Not exactly tickled to death to see her! Stan not glad to see her?
... She tried to speak but her lips would scarcely move. They were
white and drawn.
"I suppose you'd call it that--" she said at last. Her voice
vibrated high and thin, like a violin string that has been stretched
too taut. It broke suddenly.
She wanted to tell Stan how empty life at home had been for her since
he dropped out of her life--how terribly she had missed him.
But his coldness froze her. She couldn't tell him anything. Her
voice was congealed in her throat.
"Does your husband know you're here with me?" Wayburn asked. He
gripped the arms of his chair with both hands as he leaned forward,
hanging upon her answer.
"Suppose he does know it? What difference would it make?" Gloria's
voice was a dull whisper.
"Difference!" Wayburn shouted. "It would make a deuce of a
difference to me!" He began to dash up and down the room like a
caged tiger.
He stopped suddenly before her chair, and glared down at her.
"Do you suppose I want to be dragged into your troubles?" he asked
violently. "Do you suppose I want that husband of yours to hunt me
up and shoot me, eh?--What could I do with you, anyway--"
Gloria saw in a flash how his mind was working. She shook with cold
anger that was like an icy chill. And when she answered Wayburn her
voice came from between clenched teeth. She couldn't get them apart.
"I see what you're driving at, Stan," she said. "You think I'm
asking you to take care of me--well, I may be cheap, but I'm not so
cheap as that!"
Her anger broke over him suddenly like flooding waters bursting
through a dam.
"I'm not such a fool as to expect help from you!" she cried. "Why,
you can't take care of yourself!--I'll bet you're still living on
that $200 you borrowed from me!"
She could see Wayburn wince. That had got under his skin!
"Don't worry, I'll pay every red cent of it back!" he said.
Gloria sneered. "I'll frame it when I get it," she said. She wanted
to hurt Wayburn. She hated him, suddenly, as she had never hated any
one in all her life before--
The telephone in the other room rang sharply. Wayburn slammed the
door after him as he hurried in to answer it.
Gloria tiptoed to it, and laid her ear against the panels of it to
listen.
"Hello, Sunshine," she heard Wayburn say. Her lip curled. That was
like Stan--to call Sonya Chotek "Sunshine," as he had once called her
"Russet."
Pet names were part of Stan's love-making, part of his "line" with
women! Little caressing names that were like kisses on his lips as
he whispered them! And they meant exactly what his kisses meant.
Nothing! Nothing at all!
Oh, she had found Stan Wayburn out at last. He was a coward and a
cad. Why hadn't she seen it long ago?
Wayburn came back into the room. He sat on the arm of Gloria's
chair, and laid his hand on Gloria's shoulder.
"Now, let's talk this over quietly," he said.
At his touch, all the fury went out of Gloria. She hated him, yes,
but with a kind of misery. She turned in her chair and looked up at
him, pleading with her eyes.
"Don't send me back home, Stan!" she begged. "If you knew how lonely
I've been! ... If you only knew! Look here, I'll get a job on the
stage. Maybe Kit Cameron can get me into the show she's in....!"
Wayburn got up.
"No, you'd better go home," he said brutally. His voice cut like a
whip. And Gloria went mad for a moment.
She crossed the room, and picked up Sonya Chotek's picture. She held
it above her head, and brought it down hard on the back of the
nearest chair. The glass broke in a hundred pieces.... Above the
crash of it, Gloria heard the sound of Wayburn's laugh.
"Well, that's about all you can do about it!" he said. "I married
Sonya Chotek yesterday!"
Gloria took the news of Wayburn's marriage as she might have taken
the news of his death--standing very straight and still. Too hurt to
cry! Too shocked to say a word!
So he had married Sonya Chotek yesterday.....
There was a strained look in her eyes as she turned them from Sonya's
broken photograph to Wayburn's face. They searched it as if it could
tell her all she wanted to know.
At last she found her voice. "How long have you been in love with
her?"
Wayburn smiled. "For quite a long time, if you must know," he said.
"Months."
It began to dawn upon Gloria that she had been treated shamefully by
Wayburn.
He had made love to her when he had really been in love with Sonya
Chotek. And he had borrowed money from her to follow Sonya Chotek
here and marry her!
Gloria groaned aloud. Oh, what a fool she had made of herself! For
deep in her heart she had always known that Stan truly didn't care
about her....
Perhaps if she had scorned him, laughed at him, he would be on his
knees to her still! For that was the way with men: They wanted most
what they couldn't have! ... They spent their lives wishing for the
moon. The fruit that hung highest on the tree ... that was the fruit
they craved. The woman who belonged to somebody else was the woman
they desired above all other women!
... She had been too easy for Wayburn. She had always been at his
beck and call, just as she was here now, this very minute!
"You coward!" she flared up at him. "All the time you were telling
me how crazy you were about me you knew you were going to marry
another woman! ... Why, you're nothing but a crook!"
Wayburn's smile widened.
"And all the time you were letting me make love to you you were
married to another man!" he said. "You were doing a little
double-crossing, yourself, I'd say!"
Gloria couldn't find a word to say. She knew that he was telling the
truth ... unvarnished, and unpleasant to listen to!
"The wonder to me is that Gregory ever married you," Wayburn went on.
"I can't understand any man ever taking you seriously, Gloria.... I
never did, you know. Not for a minute. I had the low-down on you
right from the start."
"The low-down on me?" Gloria asked him. "What do you mean?"
"Oh, I'd seen your kind of woman before. The world's full of them,"
Wayburn went on insolently. "Light-weights ... that's the way men
size you up! Dolls to play around with for a while...."
Gloria picked up her hat and began to put it on. She didn't have to
stay here to be insulted any longer.
Wayburn spoke again. "You're a member of the great sisterhood that
takes everything and gives nothing in return," he said.
That stung Gloria to anger.
"You say that! You!" she cried. "What have I ever taken from you,
I'd like to know! Nothing but a lot of applesauce!"
"I wasn't talking about myself. I was speaking of your husband,"
Wayburn said clearly. "You've never made him any decent return for
what he's given you. Have you?"
"You're a great one to talk!" Gloria answered. "You were glad enough
to ride around in the car he'd given me, weren't you? You didn't
mind spoiling my life with him just for the fun of the thing, did
you? ... And now you have the nerve to pull this holier-than-thou
stuff on me!--Oh, it's too funny...."
Her voice rose shrilly on a high wave of hysteria. She laughed and
laughed until she was weak. She lay limply in her chair, with her
arms hanging at her sides. She was beyond tears, done for.
She heard the door of the room open. She looked up. Wayburn was
going out. She stood up then and laid one hand on his arm. But he
pulled away from her. "No," he said. The door closed on him.
Moments ticked by. After a while she pulled herself together, and
got up to go.
Gloria had no feeling in her as she left Stanley Wayburn's boarding
house. She was so terribly hurt that she was numb to her own pain.
She walked along block after block without knowing what she was
doing. She stopped sometimes to look into shop windows--but only
because she had always loved to do so.
It was after seven when she got back to her hotel. She walked past
the open door of the dining-room. Her own room was dark.
Without turning on the lights, she flung herself down on the hard
hotel bed. The best thing that could have happened would have been
to cry herself to sleep. But she could neither cry nor sleep.
An hour passed. She got up and undressed. Her movements were slow,
and she moved without a sound. She felt as if the person she loved
had died, and that the body was in the next room. She must be very
still....
Toward morning she fell asleep.
When she awoke the sun was high.
Gloria lay in bed trying to make up her mind whether to go home or to
go and hunt a job in New York.
She looked into the mirror. Her face showed no sign of the strain
she had been through.
And Gloria was sure she had never been prettier in her whole life
than she was that May morning, when she rang the doorbell of Kit
Cameron's apartment in Fifty-ninth street.
Kit was having breakfast in bed. She was in black satin pajamas. A
green ribbon banded her hair that was like black satin above her
black eyes. Her smooth skin was the color of cream.
"Why, it's little Gloria Gordon!" she exclaimed, when the elderly
maid led Gloria into the big, airy bedroom.
"Bring another cup and some fresh coffee for Miss Gordon, please,
Elsie." Then she turned to Gloria.
"What in the world are you doing here?" she asked,
"Hunting a job," Gloria answered briefly.
"A job! What do you want with a job?" Kit asked in surprise. "I
thought you'd married a millionaire back home."
"So did I," Gloria laughed. "But I got stung."
Kit took her hand sympathetically.
"Poor Gloria! You found out he didn't have one cent to rub up
against another, I suppose," she said. "That's the way with fellows,
nowadays.... They all look as if they have a bank account, and a
house-boat at Palm Beach. But there's nothing to most of them but a
line of talk and a fur overcoat that ain't even paid for! ...
'Buttonshoe boys' I call 'em!"
Gloria frowned a little. She didn't want Kit to think that Dick was
that kind of a man. Buttonshoe boy, indeed!
"Oh, it wasn't the money that made the trouble, Kit," she said
quickly. "We just didn't hit it off.... Don't get it into your head
that I married him for nothing but money. I thought I was pretty
keen about him at first."
Kit sighed, as she sugared her grapefruit.
"That's the way with love. It wears out too soon," she said. "A
girl ought to marry for money."
"Only, it's so hard to find," she went on wistfully. "Most of these
'heavy-sugar papas' with real money are tied up to some hatchet-faced
wife who's hanging on to 'em like grim death! ... A girl has a hard
time these days, especially in the show business."
The show business! Ah, now they were getting down to brass tacks!
"Kit," Gloria began, "I came to ask you to help me get a job on the
stage. Do you suppose you could introduce me to Ginfeld?"
Kit widened her green eyes.
"Well, you sure have your nerve!" she said. "Ginfeld's girls are
supposed to be the best-looking girls in the world!"
Gloria narrowed her eyes. Could it be that Kit didn't think she was
pretty enough for a Ginfeld chorus girl?
"You used to say I was better looking than you, Kit," she said at
last.
"I know. But I'm a type! Pure Spanish! Ginfeld says so," Kit said
with pride. "And ... aren't you getting the least bit too fat, dear?"
She looked across the room into the mirror above the dressing-table.
She ran a hand down her own exquisite flatness. "I'll tell you
what!" she said suddenly. "I'm going down to the shop for rehearsal
in a little while. I'll take you along, Gloria. And if Ginfeld is
there, I'll introduce you to him. That's the best I can do for
you.... And after all, some girls spend years just trying to see
Ginfeld."
Gloria was delighted.