“Poor people don’t buy steel.”

“No; but they make it.  I knew Mr. Wharton and the rest of them years ago, for I was born and raised in a furnace town.  My father worked in a Bessemer plant—­until he was killed.  What I saw there made me an anarchist.”

Through the open window overlooking the alley came a sound of singing; two voices raised in doubtful harmony, one loud and strong, the other rasping, hoarse, and uncertain.

    Of all the girls that I adore,
      There’s none so sweet as Sa-a-a-hall-ee.

“Ouch!  Who’s that?” queried Lilas.

“Bob Wharton and the Judge.  Wharton’s waiting to take me to supper.”

“Drunk, as usual, of course.  Think of a fool like that with millions behind him—­millions that his father wrung out of sweating, suffering foreigners like my father.  He’s squandering blood-money.  That’s what it is—­blood-money.”

“You are bitter to-night.  Is Mr. Hammon living on blood-money, too?”

“Yes; he is.”

“Is that why you’re planning to blackmail it out of him?”

Lilas paused in her dressing and turned slowly, brows lifted.  Her dark eyes met the blue ones unwaveringly.

“Blackmail?  What are you talking about?” Mrs. Croft went pale, and retired swiftly but noiselessly into the lavatory, closing the door behind her.  “What did Max tell you over the ’phone?” asked Lilas, sharply.

“Nothing.”

“Then where did you get—­that?  From Jim?”

“Jim’s pretty bad, I imagine, but he keeps his badness to himself.  No.  I’ve overheard you and Max talking.”

“Nonsense.  We’ve never mentioned such a thing.  The idea is absurd.  I get mad at Jarvis—­he’s enough to madden anybody—­perhaps I’m jealous, but blackmail!  Why, you’re out of your head.”

The girls had nearly finished dressing when a commotion sounded in the hall outside and Mrs. Croft, after investigation, reported that Robert Wharton had been forcibly expelled from a dressing-room.  He could be heard gently apologizing and explaining that he was in quest of a Fairy Princess, whereupon Lorelei hastily locked her door.

“That’s the worst of these swells,” observed Lilas, as she left.  “They pay high and go anywhere they please.  Bergman caters to them.”

Lorelei delayed her toilet purposely, and finally dismissed Croft; then she wrote a note to John Merkle, in care of his bank.  By this time the cavernous regions at the rear of the theater were nearly deserted.  She listened; but, hearing Wharton still in conversation with the watchman, she locked her door once more and sat down to wait.  As she fingered the note a doubt formed in her mind—­a doubt as to the advisability under any circumstances of leaving written evidence in another’s hands.  Finally she destroyed the missive, determining to make use of the telephone on the following day.  As to just what to do after that she was undecided.