After she had gone out, I viewed myself in the dingy mirror. I wondered if I really looked easy to that sly lady. I was not inclined to follow her into any basement den and run the chance of her having told some of the gang that I had insulted her, so they might have an excuse to beat me into insensibility, rob me and throw me into the gutter, from whence I would be gathered up by the kind hearted policeman and carted away to the station more dead than alive and be called upon to answer to the charge of drunk and disorderly conduct, the next day, and pay tribute to the tune of a big fine, while my assailants were waiting for more “suckers.”
Curiosity and stubbornness led me to follow at a safe distance and try if possible to ascertain what sort of a place she entered.
It was on a corner; a view of the marble steps and shining brass rails denoted cleanliness. Bright lights diffused a warmth of welcome, while strains of music floated from the farther recesses of the basement. An expensive sign told me that the place was a “cafe.” “Ladies’ Entrance” was the inimitable farce that adorned the wall directly over one pair of steps leading downward, while numerous announcements over the other stairway announced all that was to be found by a respectable man of leisure. With a slight feeling of trepidation, I descended to the source of hilarity; as I drew nearer the music I became braver. I sought a table in a far off corner, and had not been there long when my new found acquaintance approached me.
“Now,” I said, “I want you to tell me all about yourself.”
“And if I do will you advise me as to what course to pursue to right a wrong?”
“I will try. But first have a drink. You are all upset; take a little liquor to steady your nerves.”
The drinks being disposed of, she began.
“Ah well, it is a short story. I came to Chicago during the World’s Fair. I was a pretty child of seventeen. My parents were very wealthy. My former home was Grand Rapids, Michigan, but I became so enamored with the exciting life of this great city that I prevailed upon my parents to allow me to remain here and enter a school of music. For four years I advanced rapidly. Society’s doors were wide open to me everywhere. I was in great demand at all social functions on account of my rich voice. I made many friends and was loved and petted by all. I met a man, one who also sang; our sympathetic natures readily embraced each other, our souls were in harmony, we saw with the same eyes, heard with the same ears, and lived by the agencies of the same heart beats.
“Time flew as it only can for lovers. We became engaged. All looked like one eternal, joyous day, but as time brings joy, so does it also bring pain. My fiance held a position of trust and responsibility. He came to me one day and said: ‘Jeanette, we must break our engagement,’ I thought he was joking, but no such good fortune. He meant he was thousands of dollars short in his accounts and wished to break off with me before it became public, so that the disgrace would not rest so heavily on me. He was noble for that, but I refused to release him, and wired my father, who came. I told him all, and my Dad was a good Dad; he anticipated my wish, and at once offered to make good all of Leslie’s shortage. It was decided that the matter should be settled in that way. Just then a new feature came to light. It developed that before I met Leslie he had been badly smitten on his employer’s daughter, Emily Sutton. I had never seen her; in fact, up to this time I did not know there was such a girl on earth. Miss Sutton was conscious of Leslie’s financial trouble, and as she had recently come into a large fortune in her own right, she, too, offered aid to the man we both loved. She had heard of me and demanded that I be jilted, and she become his wife. He refused, whereupon her influence was brought to bear upon her father and to spite me, Leslie was taken into custody. My father was true blue, and furnished the necessary bond which gave Leslie his liberty. He disappeared, and the affair caused an estrangement between my parents, which eventually drove my father to suicide. My mother and I quarreled; she said such bitter things about the loss my father had sustained by reason of his signing Leslie’s bond, that I refused to accept a dollar of the balance of the estate. She eventually married again and her second husband lost all my poor Dad had left.