"Thank you," answered the young woman, with an ease equal to his own. And then they both waited while regarding each other seriously. Finally the tension relaxed and Dennis Farraday gave a big, jovial laugh while he made his admission:
"I don't know a thing about the play business. I'm just sitting in with Mr. Vandeford for the fun of it."
"An angel?" asked the girl, with a laugh that somehow accorded with his.
"That's it. He's gone out and left me to—to cut my eye teeth."
"On me?"
"Looks that way," and again they both laughed.
"Maybe I can help you," volunteered the girl, after the laugh. "I am Mildred Lindsey, and Mr. Chambers sent me in to see if I could support Miss Hawtry."
"Er—er, what experience?" Mr. Dennis Farraday managed to ask by fishing into his impressions of the last two hours.
"Five years in stock on the Pacific coast, two years in towns between, and two weeks in a flivver here on Broadway early in the spring. Dead broke, hungry, and about ready to make good for some manager." As the answer was fired point-blank at him, Mr. Dennis Farraday seemed to see a fire of psychic hunger blaze as high as that of wolfish, physical agony in the girl's eyes.
Mr. Dennis Farraday eagerly searched on the paper of guidance in casting made out by Mr. Adolph Meyers for the benefit of Mr. Vandeford and found "woman support," and opposite the item of salary, seventy-five dollars. He doubled.