Montague recalled cases where the two sets had met as at some of the private entertainments.  It was getting to be the fashion to hobnob with the stage people on such occasions; and he recalled how naturally the younger people took to this.  Only the older women held aloof; looking down upon the women of the stage from an ineffable height, as belonging to a lower caste—­because they were obliged to work for their livings.  But it seemed to Montague, as he sat and talked with this poor chorus-girl, who had sold herself for a little pleasure, that it was easier to pardon her than the woman who had been born to luxury, and scorned those who produced her wealth.

But most of all, one’s sympathies went out to a person who was not to be met in either of these sets; to the girl who had not sold herself, but was struggling for a living in the midst of this ravening corruption.  There were thousands of self-respecting women, even on the stage; Toodles herself had been among them, she told Montague.  “I kept straight for a long time,” she said, laughing cheerfully—­“and on ten dollars a week!  I used to go out on the road, and then they paid me sixteen; and think of trying to live on one-night stands—­to board yourself and stop at hotels and dress for the theatre—­on sixteen a week, and no job half the year!  And all that time—­do you know Cyril Chambers, the famous church painter?”

“I’ve heard of him,” said Montague.

“Well, I was with a show here on Broadway the next winter; and every night for six months he sent me a bunch of orchids that couldn’t have cost less than seventy-five dollars!  And he told me he’d open accounts for me in all the stores I chose, if I’d spend the next summer in Europe with him.  He said I could take my mother or my sister with me—­and I was so green in those days, I thought that must mean he didn’t intend anything wrong!”

Toodles smiled at the memory.  “Did you go?” asked the man.

“No,” she answered.  “I stayed here with a roof-garden show that failed.  And I went to my old manager for a job, and he said to me, ‘I can only pay you ten a week.  But why are you so foolish?’ ’How do you mean?’ I asked; and he answered, ’Why don’t you get a rich sweetheart?  Then I could pay you sixty.’  That’s what a girl hears on the stage!”

“I don’t understand,” said Montague, perplexed.  “Did he mean he could get money out of the man?”

“Not directly,” said Toodles; “but tickets—­and advertising.  Why, men will hire front-row seats for a whole season, if they’re interested in a girl in the show.  And they’ll take all their friends to see her, and she’ll be talked about—­she’ll be somebody, instead of just nobody, as I was.”

“Then it actually helps her on the stage!” said Montague.

“Helps her!” exclaimed Toodles.  “My God!  I’ve known a girl who’d been abroad with a tip-top swell—­and had the gowns and the jewels to prove it—­to come home and get into the front row of a chorus at a hundred dollars a week.”