Moreover, she took naturally to the work, finding it more like play; and, being quite free from girlish timidity, she felt no stage-fright, even upon her first appearance.  Her recognition had followed quickly—­it was impossible to hide such perfection of loveliness as hers—­and the publicity pleased her.  In due course rival managers began to make offers, which Mrs. Knight, rising nobly to the first test of her business ability, used as levers to raise her daughter’s salary and to pry out of Bergman a five-year contract.  The role of the Fairy Princess was a result.

Thus it was that without conscious effort, without even a proof of merit beyond her appearance, Lorelei had arrived at the point where further advancement depended upon study and hard work; but, since these formed no part of the family program, she remained idle while Mrs. Knight and Jim arranged so many demands upon her time that she had no leisure for serious endeavors, even had she desired it.  Proficiency in stage-craft of any sort comes only at the expense of peonage, and this girl was being groomed solely for matrimony.

The principals who topped the Bergman bill were artists—­men and women who had climbed through years of patient effort; toward their subordinates they maintained an aloofness that is peculiar to the show business.  They moved in a world apart from the chorus:  the two classes impinged briefly eight times a week, but outside the theater they never saw each other.  Even Labaudie, the doll-like danseuse, looked down upon Lorelei and Lilas almost as she looked down upon the members of her ballet.  Out of all the big company there were perhaps a half-dozen chorus men and women who had eyes definitely fixed upon a stage career; the rest, like Lorelei and Lilas, regarded the work simply as an easy means of livelihood.

The theatrical profession is peculiar to itself.  It is a world with customs, habits, and ambitions differing from those of any other sphere.  That division of stage life to which Lorelei Knight belonged—­that army of men and women from shows like Bergman’s—­ constitutes a still more distinctive community—­a community, moreover, that is characteristic of New York alone.  Its code is of its own making; its habits of life are as individual as its figures of speech.  Although at first all this bewildered the country girl, at length she had come to adopt the new ways as a matter of course.  From the association she had learned much.  She had learned how to reap the fruits of popularity, how to take without giving, how to profit without sacrifice; and under her mother’s influence she was not allowed to forget what she had learned.