“Look here,” said Emma McChesney, suddenly, rising and coming over to the woman in the big chair, “that's not the life for a woman like you. I can get you a place in our office—not much, perhaps, but something decent—something to start with. If you—”
“For that matter,” put in Ethel Morrissey, quickly, “I could get you something right here in our store. I've been there long enough to have some say-so, and if I recommend you they'd start you in the basement at first, and then, if you made good, they advance you right along.”
Blanche LeHaye stood up and, twisting her arm around at the back, began to unbutton her gingham apron.
“I guess you think I'm a bad one, don't you? Well, maybe I am. But I'm not the worst. I've got a brother. He lives out West, and he's rich, and married, and respectable. You know the way a man can climb out of the mud, while a woman just can't wade out of it? Well, that's the way it was with us. His wife's a regular society bug. She wouldn't admit that there was any such truck as me, unless, maybe, the Municipal Protective League, or something, of her town, got to waging a war against burlesque shows. I hadn't seen Len—that's my brother—-in years and years. Then one night in Omaha, I glimmed him sitting down in the B. H. row. His face just seemed to rise up at me out of the audience. He recognized me, too. Say, men are all alike. What they see in a dingy, half-fed, ignorant bunch like us, I don't know. But the minute a man goes to Cleveland, or Pittsburgh, or somewhere on business he'll hunt up a burlesque show, and what's more, he'll enjoy it. Funny. Well, Len waited for me after the show, and we had a talk. He told me his troubles, and I told him some of mine, and when we got through I wouldn't have swapped with him. His wife's a wonder. She's climbed to the top of the ladder in her town. And she's pretty, and young-looking, and a regular swell. Len says their home is one of the kind where the rubberneck auto stops while the spieler tells the crowd who lives there, and how he made his money. But they haven't any kids, Len told me. He's crazy about 'em. But his wife don't want any. I wish you could have seen Len's face when he was talking about it.”
She dropped the gingham apron in a circle at her feet, and stepped out of it. She walked over to where her own clothes lay in a gaudy heap.
“Exit the gingham. But it's been great.” She paused before slipping her skirt over her head. The silence of the other two women seemed to anger her a little.
{Illustration: '“Why, girls, I couldn't hold down a job in a candy factory'”}
“I guess you think I'm a bad one, clear through, don't you? Well, I ain't. I don't hurt anybody but myself. Len's wife—that's what I call bad.”
“But I don't think you're bad clear through,” tried Emma McChesney. “I don't. That's why I made that proposition to you. That's why I want you to get away from all this, and start over again.”
“Me?” laughed Blanche LeHaye. “Me! In a office! With ledgers, and sale bills, and accounts, and all that stuff! Why, girls, I couldn't hold down a job in a candy factory. I ain't got any intelligence. I never had. You don't find women with brains in a burlesque troupe. If they had 'em they wouldn't be there. Why, we're the dumbest, most ignorant bunch there is. Most of us are just hired girls, dressed up. That's why you find the Woman's Uplift Union having such a blamed hard time savin' souls. The souls they try to save know just enough to be wise to the fact that they couldn't hold down a five-per-week job. Don't you feel sorry for me. I'm doing the only thing I'm good for.”