“Oh, you're an actress! Well, if you think mine is a hard life for a woman, why—”
“Me!” said the green-gold blonde, and laughed not prettily. “I ain't a woman. I'm a queen of burlesque.
“Burlesque? You mean one of those—” Emma McChesney stopped, her usually deft tongue floundering.
“One of those 'men only' troupes? You guessed it. I'm Blanche LeHaye, of the Sam Levin Crackerjack Belles. We get into North Bend at six to-morrow morning, and we play there to-morrow night, Sunday.” She took a step forward so that her haggard face and artificially tinted hair were very near Emma McChesney. “Know what I was thinkin' just one second before you come out here?”
“No; what?”
“I was thinkin' what a cinch it would be to just push aside that canvas thing there by the steps and try what the newspaper accounts call 'jumping into the night.' Say, if I'd had on my other lawnjerie I'll bet I'd have done it.”
Into Emma McChesney's understanding heart there swept a wave of pity. But she answered lightly: “Is that supposed to be funny?”
The plump blonde yawned. “It depends on your funny bone. Mine's got blunted. I'm the lady that the Irish comedy guy slaps in the face with a bunch of lettuce. Say, there's something about you that makes a person get gabby and tell things. You'd make a swell clairvoyant.”
Beneath the comedy of the bleached hair, and the flaccid face, and the bizarre wrapper; behind the coarseness and vulgarity and ignorance, Emma McChesney's keen mental eye saw something decent and clean and beautiful. And something pitiable, and something tragic.
“I guess you'd better come in and get some sleep,” said Emma McChesney; and somehow found her hand resting on the woman's shoulder. So they stood, on the swaying, jolting platform. Blanche LeHaye, of the Sam Levin Crackerjack Belles, looked down, askance, at the hand on her shoulder, as at some strange and interesting object.