As she began to cross the stage on her way out a voice came from the depths of the auditorium:
"Miss Mortimer, we're not concerned with your private appointments. If they're to interfere with your work here you can look for another engagement somewhere else."
The show-girl glanced in the direction of the voice and shrugged.
"Mean you'll fire me, Mr. De Freyne? Well, I don't care. Pa's rich!"
She walked off jauntily, her high heels clicking on the boards, a costly plume streaming over her left ear. The lessee of the Pall Mall Theater said nothing. He was mildly amused. He stood in the dark at the back of the dress circle complacently regarding his theatrical seraglio. All the girls were pretty, or if not pretty, showy. Some had been selected for their figures, some for their faces, some for both. No duchess, not even a fashionable duchess, was arrayed like one of these. Solomon in all his glory might perhaps have competed with them, but not the lilies of the field. Presently De Freyne's gimlet eyes picked out Maggy and Alexandra. Their appearance disturbed his equanimity.
He watched them attentively for ten minutes or so, at the end of which period the tired stage-manager dismissed the chorus for the morning. De Freyne's authoritative voice again made itself heard.
"Miss Delamere and Miss Hersey. Step up to my room before you go, please. I want to speak to you."
The girls exchanged scared glances. A special interview with De Freyne was sufficiently unusual to fill them with dismay. He was not in the habit of detaining members of his chorus for the fun of the thing.
They groped their way along dim, soft-carpeted passages to the front of the house and entered the managerial office. De Freyne was blunt to a degree. He wasted no time.
"You two girls have got to make more of a show," he told them. "I can't have shabby dresses at the Pall Mall."