"You will be when you come back!"

"Yes--that's the trouble!" said Dore, laughing. "But it never lasts!"

"And day before yesterday?"

"What about it?"

"That wonderful Italian you came home raving about?"

"Ah, yes! that was a great disappointment!" She repeated, in a tone of discouragement: "A great disappointment! It's the second meeting that's so awful! Men are so stupid, it's no fun any more!" All at once she noticed her friend's att.i.tude. "What's the matter? You're not angry!"

"No, not that!" Winona rose, flinging down the manicuring sticks, drawing a deep breath. "Only, when I see you throwing over a chance like that from Blainey--"

"What! You want the job?" exclaimed Dore, struck by the thought.

"Want it?" cried the girl bitterly. "I'd go up Broadway on my knees to get it!"

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Ah! this has got to end sometime," said the girl, locking and unlocking her fingers. "Snyder was right. It's work--work! She's lucky!"

Dore became suddenly thoughtful. Between Salamanders real confidences are rare. She knew nothing of the girl who was separated from her but by a wall, but there was no mistaking the pain in her voice.

"I'm sorry!" she said.

"Yes, I've come to the end of my rope," said Winona. "I'm older than you--I've played too long!"

"You shall have the job!"

"Oh, it's easy to--"

"I'll go to-morrow. I'll make Blainey give it to you."

"He won't!"

"He? Of course he will! That old walrus? He'll do anything I tell him!

That's settled! I'll see him to-morrow!"

Winona turned, composing her pa.s.sion.

"I'm a fool!" she said.

"Hard up?"

"Busted!"

"The deuce! So'm I! Never mind; we'll find some way--"

"Why don't you take the job yourself?"

"I? Never! I couldn't! It's too soon to be serious!" exclaimed Dore, laughing in order to relieve the tension. "When I'm twenty-three--in six months--not before! It's all decided."

"First time you've been to one of Sa.s.soon's parties?" asked Winona abruptly.

"First time! I'm quite excited!"

"You've met him, then?"

"No, not yet! I'm going as a chorus girl."

"What?"

"He's entertaining the s.e.xtette of the _Gay Prince_--I'm to replace one.

I got the bid through Adele Vickers--you remember her? She's in the s.e.xtette."

"Adele Vickers," said Winona, with a frown.

"It's on the quiet, naturally," said Dore, not noticing the expression.

"I'm to be taken for a chorus girl, by old Sa.s.soon too--complications, heaps of fun!"

"You're crazy! Some one'll recognize you!"

"Bah!"

"Sa.s.soon doesn't play fair!" said Winona abruptly.

"Dangerous?"

"He doesn't play the game fair!" repeated Winona, with more insistence.

"I like precipices!" said Dore, smiling.

"How you express things, Dodo!"

"Why? Don't you like 'em?"

"Yes, naturally. But with Sa.s.soon--"

"It's such fun!" said Dore, shaking her curls.

Her companion crossed her fingers and held them up in warning.

"Dodo, be careful!"

"I'll take care of myself!" said Dore scornfully, and a flash of excitement began to show in the dark blue shadows of her eyes.

"Different! Sa.s.soon is on the black list, Dodo!"

Albert Edward Sa.s.soon, whom two little Salamanders were thus discussing in a great barn of a room, third floor front of Miss Pim's boarding-house, was the head of the great family of Sa.s.soon, which for three generations had stood, socially and financially, among the first powers of the city.