Her fortitude wavered momentarily as she looked at her watch—­wavered, but held, and at last she found herself on the stage with no concise recollection of how she had reached it, beyond a shadowy memory of Smitherton’s smiling face in the wings.  The curtain rose, and the public—­part of it was the rabble—­fed its eyes on the beauty they had paid to see—­the beauty of a fallen royalty.

There are times when vaudeville galleries are not excessively polite.  This was such a time.  For a few moments Mary Burton had the stage to herself, and her acting was in dumb-show.  This was the author’s device for allowing the audience a full realization of her remarkable beauty—­and to the device the audience responded.

From high up among the hoodlums Mary caught, quite distinctly, long low whistles of very sensual admiration and such critical epigrams as “Wow!” “Oi-yoi!"...  “Me for that!” and “Some girl!”

She felt for an instant that she was standing there wrapped in a blaze of shame, bound to a stake of vulgar heckling.  Then suddenly a scornful fire mounted through her arteries and with that serene and regal dignity that added majesty to her beauty she went on as though this stage were her rightful throne and those people out there were gazing up at her from a ground level.

The act ran twenty-five minutes, during which time Mr. Lewis and Mr. Smitherton stood together in the wings.  Mr. Lewis rubbed his hands.

“I ask you, Smitherton,” he inquired, “could we have arranged it better if we was running the world ... first-page stories again tomorrow in every paper in town.  We’ll have to hire the Hippodrome.”

“First-page stories, what do you mean?”

Lewis looked at the young man and enlightened.  “Oh, I forgot you didn’t know the latest.  Well, the girl’s mother is dead and the old man’s just followed suit in a pauper’s cot in Bellevue.  How’s that for heart-interest?  You’re a reporter.  I ask you, will they feature that on Park row?  Will they give us space for that I ask you?”

“And she went on ... my God!”

“Oh, of course I ain’t told her yet,” Mr. Lewis hastened to add.  “She might have gone up.”

Smitherton caught him violently by the arm and backed him farther against the wall.  His own face was suddenly pale.  “You withheld the news and let her go on?  You did that?”

But the vaudeville manager only gazed blankly back into those indignant eyes and his face was full of perplexity.

“For God’s sake, Smitherton, what are you pulling all this tragedy stuff about?  Ain’t you her manager?  Did you want the whole act queered?  Wasn’t the old woman nutty and the old man a bum, and weren’t they dead-weight for her to carry?  Didn’t they have to die sometime—­and could they ever have picked a luckier time to do it?  I ask you now, could they?”

“Great God!” exclaimed the reporter.  But the manager went on.