His improvidence she could not contemn, remembering the brilliant career which, before her advent, had appeared to be opening before him. Despite her lonely childhood, despite the endurance which had filled her time in lieu of laughter and play, she was glad now that always she had known. With the full hurt of her heart she hoped that, if he had not understood in life, he knew to-night that always—always—she had known.
Darkness had taken possession of the room.
A thought that darkness possessed her prospects also caused her to light the gas. She must not stumble into the future. She must cease looking backward; must turn and face forward. Determinedly she settled to the “Help Wanted” columns, a hopeful array.
However, as she read through one after another of the advertisements, down one column and up the next, the confidence inspired by their numbers decreased. She had not expected at once to sight an opportunity in which she might utilize the somewhat haphazard learning with which she was equipped. But she had hoped for something—something she could do.
And then:
WANTED—Pretty, young girl of innocent type. No experience necessary. Good pay to right person. Apply Wednesday, 10:30 A.M., to Vincent Seff, —— Fifth Avenue.
In small type, with the reserve of opportunity, it stood out from the rest. Dolores re-read it. “No experience necessary.” That was the kindest thing said to her since the cry of her father’s late-born anxiety: “You have beauty and innocence, my girl.” The advertisement seemed addressed to her.
As if in period to or amusement over her conclusions, there sounded a gurgle from the gas meter. The vapor flickered; sputtered; went out. Funerals, even in the East One-Hundreds, are expensive. And the slot of the meter never would have mistaken the single five cent piece remaining in her purse for the quarter that was its exaction. In darkness Dolores retired.
As she lay in her narrow white-iron bed, she saw in the gloom, even more clearly than under the jet, that the want-ad was meant for her. The signature had possessed, from first glance, a familiar look. Vincent Seff ... Vincent Seff.... Could she have heard that name before?
With the first ray of gratuitous daylight, recognition flooded her mind. Of course. Why shouldn’t it look familiar, that name? Often had she glanced at it when waiting around the corner to safeguard her father home from the publishing house. In letters of brass, hammered into an ebony plate, it identified the most alluring windows along that highway of lures: