As is often the case, women were her enemies and men were her friends, and she slid along in a happy-go-lucky way, letting the morrow take care of itself.
There was no question but that her figure was the making of her, just as Jennie Joyce’s legs made her famous from one end of the country to the other when she was a reigning favorite at Koster & Bial’s old place on Twenty-third street two decades ago.
The photographer who secured some good poses of Curves in tights found himself busy printing them to supply the demand, and it was as easy to get her before a camera as it was to get a kid to a candy store. If she had received a dollar for every time she wrote across the bottom of one of her photographs “Sincerely yours, Curves,” she would have had a bank account that would have been broad, wide and deep. But she was simply a good fellow and she made no attempt to live by her wits. Like many another poor devil, she probably thought she would always be young, good-looking and popular. She didn’t know that those whom the public applauds to-day it kills to-morrow, and that it takes but a week in New York to make a favorite less than a memory.
But there was one incident in her career that stands out in relief from anything of the kind that anyone had ever done before, and it is worth telling. It was characteristic of her to do a thing of this sort, and she was the one woman in a hundred who could have got away with it.
A soulful-eyed, chocolate-skinned Brahmin priest had come to town to spread his faith, and because he talked in an exceedingly entertaining manner and told some curious and interesting stories he came to be a fad. It wasn’t that the people who went to see and hear him were interested in his religion, but it was because he was a novelty that he filled his lecture room every afternoon. Two men and Curves dropped in one afternoon at a time when this spreader of a new creed was telling about the money it would cost to do good in the world, and on that subject he was particularly eloquent.
“You Americans,” he said, “don’t know what it is to make a sacrifice; you don’t know what it is to deny yourselves any of the good things of life. Your men would not forego their cigars or wine even if the spiritual salvation of the world depended upon it, and your women would not permit themselves one particle of physical discomfort nor cheaper wearing apparel even though a hundred souls were the price. The whole world is selfish and wrapped up in itself, and religion is either a fad or a jest. The man with a million gives a few thousands and thinks he has done well, but he denies himself nothing. The woman with a check book doles out dimes and fancies herself a philanthropist, but will she make any sacrifice for the general good?”
“Here’s one who will.”
Two-thirds of the people in the room turned around and looked at Curves, and one of the fellows with her took her arm and whispered:
“What is the matter, are you dotty?”
The ox-like eyes of the religious enthusiast seemed to blaze up a bit.