All this time I kept going through the motions of looking for an engagement. Now and then some shining bubble of opportunity seemed to float toward me, to dissolve in thin air as soon as I put my hand out to it. One of these brought me to Cline and Erskine's waiting room on the day that Cecelia Brune elected to register her complaint against what she considered a slight of her turn at the Varieté. She flounced about more than a little, not to let the rest of us escape the inference that she was not used to being kept waiting. When she had hooked and unhooked her handsome furs for the fourth time, she introduced me to Leon Griffin, who except for the name, I shouldn't have recognized for my hall neighbour. It was like being slapped in the face with my own hard condition to have him crowded on me in that character before the whole roomful. Life seemed so to have beggared him. In broad day he looked the sort of a man who has failed to sustain himself in the man's world, and must reinforce his value with the favour of women. Little touches of effeminacy about his dress failed to take the attention away from its shabbiness. His hair had the traditional thespian curl in spite of being cropped short, to allow of various make-ups, one surmised, and his very blue eyes were in a perpetual state of extenuating the meagreness of his other features. Being ashamed of my shame at meeting him there, I began to be very nice to him. Cecelia, in spite of her magnificent raiment, perhaps on account of it, had been disposed to graciousness. She drew us together with a wave of her hand.
"She ought to be doin' Ophelia on Broadway," she introduced me handsomely; "wouldn't that get you!"
"I saw you with the Hardings last year," Griffin assented, almost as though I might think it a liberty. "Where are you playing now?" He had the stamp of too many reverses on his face not to estimate mine at its proper worth. He had fine instincts too, for as soon as I told him that I was out of an engagement that season, he put himself on record quite simply. "My turn goes off next week—I'm trying to get Cline to put it on the circuit." When we came out of the office together he fell into step with me. One of the young women ahead of us made the shape of a bubble with her hands and blew it from her. "Pouff" she said. "There goes another of my chances." She laughed with a fine courage.
"They all go through with it," Griffin affirmed. "There's Eversley——" I have forgotten which of the well-known incidents he related.
"Eversley told me I might come to it. What made you think of him?" I demanded.
"I saw his name in the paper; he's to play here this winter. He's a wonder."
"He said wonderful things to me once." I had just recalled them.
"They'll come true then. Eversley never makes a mistake. Why, I remember once——" He broke off as though he had changed his mind about telling me. I was wondering if I couldn't get rid of him by stopping in at Sarah's, when he broke out again suddenly.
"To think of you being out of an engagement and a girl like Cecelia Brown—yes, I know her name is Brown, Cissy Brown of Milwaukee——"
"I've always suspected it," I admitted, "but it is her looks of course, and the clothes; Cecelia has lovely clothes."