There was something in her glowing, childish face, innocent of make-up, and in her seeming frank enjoyment of the mishap that took the house by storm. The man in the box applauded until his face was purple; gloved hands in the parquet tapped approval; the balcony stormed; the gallery whistled.
She never knew how she got off the stage, or whether the director shouted praise or blame as she darted through the wings. It was not until she reached the dressing-room, and the girls crowded excitedly around her that she knew she had scored a hit.
She came on once more at the end of the last act in the grand ballet, where all the dancers performed intricate manoeuvers under changing lights. Every time the wheeling figures brought her round to the footlights, there was a greeting from the front, and, despite warnings, she could not suppress a responsive wag of the head or a friendly wave of the paw.
"She is so fresh, so fresh!" groaned Pulatki from the wings.
"She's alive," said Reeser. "She'll never make a show girl, and she's got no voice to speak of. But she's got a personality that climbs right over the footlights. I'm going to engage her for the rest of the season."
When the play was over, Nance, struggling into Birdie's complicated finery in the dressing-room below, wondered how she could ever manage to exist until the next performance. Her one consolation was the immediate prospect of seeing Mac Clarke and the mysterious Monte to whom Birdie had said she must be nice. As she pinned on a saucy fur toque in place of her own cheap millinery, she viewed herself critically in the glass. Beside the big show girls about her, she felt ridiculously young and slender and insignificant.
"I believe I'll put on some paint!" she said.
Birdie laughed.
"What for, Silly? Your cheeks are blazing now. You'll have time enough to paint 'em when you've been dancing a couple of years."
They were among the last to leave the dressing-room, and when they reached the stage entrance, Birdie spied two figures.