She's a fat leading lady, very fair and nearly fifty, I guess. But she's got a rollicking, husky voice in her fat throat that's sung the dollars down deep into her pockets. They say she's planted them deeper still—in the foundations of apartment houses—and that now she's the richest roly-poly on the Rialto.
Do you know, Maggie darlin', what I was saying to myself there in the box, while I watched the stage and waited for Obermuller? He said he'd drop in later, perhaps.
"Nance," I said, "I kind of fancy that apartment sort of idea myself. They tell you, Nancy, that when you've got the artistic temperament, that that's all you'll ever have. But there's a chance—one in a hundred—for a body to get that temperament mixed with a business instinct. It doesn't often happen. But when it does the result is—dollars. It may be, Nance—I shrewdly suspect it is a fact that you've got that marvelous mixture. Your early successes, Miss Olden, in another profession that I needn't name, would encourage the idea that you're not all heart and no head. I think, Nance, I shall have you mimic the artists during working hours and the business men when you're at play. I fancy apartment houses. They appeal to me. We'll call one 'The Nancy' and another 'Olden Hall' and another..."
"What'll I call the third apartment house, Mr. O?" I asked aloud, as I heard the rings on the portiere behind me click.
He didn't answer.
Without turning my head I repeated the question. And yet—suddenly—before he could have answered, I knew something was wrong.
I turned. And in that moment a man took the seat beside me and another stood facing me, with his back against the portieres.
"Miss Olden?" the man beside me asked.
"Yes."
"Nance Olden, the mimic, who entertains at private houses?"