Montague wondered what one said to a chorus-girl on the way to supper.  Afterward his brother told him that Toodles had been the wife of a real-estate agent in a little town in Oklahoma, and had run away from respectability and boredom with a travelling theatrical company.  Now she was tripping her part in the musical comedy which Montague had seen at Mrs. Lane’s; and incidentally swearing devotion to a handsome young “wine-agent.”  She confided to Montague that she hoped the latter might see her that evening—­he needed to be made jealous.

“The Great White Way” was the name which people had given to this part of Broadway; and at the head of it stood a huge hotel with flaming lights, and gorgeous marble and bronze, and famous paintings upon the walls and ceilings inside.  At this hour every one of its many dining-rooms was thronged with supper-parties, and the place rang with laughter and the rattle of dishes, and the strains of several orchestras which toiled heroically in the midst of the uproar.  Here they found a table, and while Oliver was ordering frozen poached eggs and quails in aspic, Montague sat and gazed about him at the revelry, and listened to the prattle of the little ex-sempstress from Rivington Street.

His brother had “got her,” he said, by buying a speaking part in a play for her; and Montague recalled the orgies of which he had heard at the bachelors’ dinner, and divined that here he was at the source of the stream from which they were fed.  At the table next to them was a young Hebrew, whom Toodles pointed out as the son and heir of a great clothing manufacturer.  He was “keeping” several girls, said she; and the queenly creature who was his vis-a-vis was one of the chorus in “The Maids of Mandalay.”  And a little way farther down the room was a boy with the face of an angel and the air of a prince of the blood—­he had inherited a million and run away from school, and was making a name for himself in the Tenderloin.  The pretty little girl all in green who was with him was Violet Pane, who was the artist’s model in a new play that had made a hit.  She had had a full-page picture of herself in the Sunday supplement of the “sporting paper” which was read here—­so Rosalie remarked.

“Why don’t you ever do that for me?” she added, to Oliver.

“Perhaps I will,” said he, with a laugh.  “What does it cost?”

And when he learned that the honour could be purchased for only fifteen hundred dollars, he said, “I’ll do it, if you’ll be good.”  And from that time on the last trace of worriment vanished from the face and the conversation of Rosalie.

As the champagne cocktails disappeared, she and Oliver became confidential.  Then Montague turned to Toodles, to learn more about how the “second generation” was preying upon the women of the stage.