LAURA.  No, thank you.

[Sits in chair right of table, facing ELFIE.

ELFIE.  H’m-m, h’m-m, hah! [Lights cigarette.] Now go ahead.  Tell me all the scandal.  I’m just crazy to know.

LAURA.  There’s nothing to tell.  I haven’t been able to find work, that is all, and I’m short of money.  You can’t live in hotels, you know, with cabs and all that sort of thing, when you’re not working.

ELFIE.  Yes, you can.  I haven’t worked in a year.

LAURA.  But you don’t understand, dear.  I—­I—­Well, you know I—­well, you know—­I can’t say what I want.

ELFIE.  Oh, yes, you can.  You can say anything to me—­everybody else does.  We’ve been pals.  I know you got along a little faster in the business than I did.  The chorus was my limit, and you went into the legitimate thing.  But we got our living just the same way.  I didn’t suppose there was any secret between you and me about that.

LAURA.  I know there wasn’t then, Elfie, but I tell you I’m different now.  I don’t want to do that sort of thing, and I’ve been very unlucky.  This has been a terribly hard season for me.  I simply haven’t been able to get an engagement.

ELFIE.  Well, you can’t get on this way.  Won’t [Pauses, knocking ashes off cigarette to cover hesitation.] Brockton help you out?

LAURA.  What’s the use of talking to you [Rises and crosses to fireplace.], Elfie; you don’t understand.

ELFIE. [Puffing deliberately on cigarette and crossing her legs in almost a masculine attitude.] No?  Why don’t I understand?

LAURA.  Because you can’t; you’ve never felt as I have.

ELFIE.  How do you know?

LAURA. [Turning impatiently.] Oh, what’s the use of explaining?

ELFIE.  You know, Laura, I’m not much on giving advice, but you make me sick.  I thought you’d grown wise.  A young girl just butting into this business might possibly make a fool of herself, but you ought to be on to the game and make the best of it.

LAURA. [Going over to her angrily.] If you came up here, Elfie, to talk that sort of stuff to me, please don’t.  I was West this summer.  I met someone, a real man, who did me a whole lot of good,—­a man who opened my eyes to a different way of going along—­a man who—­Oh, well, what’s the use?  You don’t know—­you don’t know. [Sits on bed.

ELFIE. [Throws cigarette into fireplace.] I don’t know, don’t I?  I don’t know, I suppose, that when I came to this town from up state,—­a little burg named Oswego,—­and joined a chorus, that I didn’t fall in love with just such a man.  I suppose I don’t know that then I was the best-looking girl in New York, and everybody talked about me?  I suppose I don’t know that there were men, all ages and with all kinds of money, ready to give me anything for the mere privilege of taking me out to supper?  And I didn’t do it, did I?  For three years