The Easiest Way | Page 5

the dresses will be paid
for, the Lord only knows."

Elfie St. Clair was a typical Tenderloin grafter. A woman absolutely
devoid of moral conscience, she styled herself an actress, yet was one
only by courtesy. By dint of pulling all kinds of wires she contrived
from time to time to get a part to play, but her stage activities were
really only a blind to conceal her true vocation. A cold-blooded
courtesan of the most brazen and unscrupulous type, she was,
notwithstanding, one of the most popular women in the upper
Tenderloin. She dressed with more taste than most women of her class,
and her naturally happy disposition, her robust spirits and spontaneous
gaiety had won her many friends. For all that she was an unscrupulous
grafter, the kind of woman who deliberately sets out to lure men to
destruction. She knew she was bad, yet found plenty of excuses for
herself. She often declared that she hated and despised men for the
wrong they had done her. Imposed upon, deceived, mistreated in her
early girlhood by the type of men who prey on women, at last she
turned the tables, and armed only with her dangerous charm and beauty,
started out to make the same slaughter of the other sex as she herself
had suffered, together with many of her sisters.
While still in her teens she came to Broadway and entering the chorus
of one of the local theatres, soon became famous for her beauty. On
every hand, stage-door vultures were ready to give her anything that a
woman's heart can desire, from fine clothes to horses, carriages, jewels,
money, and what not. But at that time there was still some decency left
in her, the final sparks of sentiment and honest attachment were not yet
altogether extinguished. She fell in love with an actor connected with
the company, and during all the time that she might have profited and
become a rich woman by the attention of outside admirers, she
remained true to her love, until finally her fame as the premier beauty
of the city had begun to wane. The years told on her, there were others
coming up as young as she had been, and as good to look at, and she
soon found that, through her faithfulness to her lover, the automobile of
the millionaire, which once waited at the stage door for her, was now
there for some one else. Yet she was contented and happy in her day
dream, until one day the actor jilted her, and left her alone.
That was the end of her virtuous resolves. From then on, she steeled her

heart against all men. What she had lost of her beauty had been
replaced by a keen knowledge of human nature. She determined to give
herself up entirely to a life of gain, and she went about it coldly,
methodically. She knew just how much champagne could be drunk
without injuring the health; she knew just what physical exercise was
necessary to preserve what remained of her beauty. There was no trick
of the hairdresser, the modiste, the manicurist, or any one of the legion
of queer people who devote their talents to aiding the outward
fascinations of women, with which she was not familiar. She knew
exactly what perfumes to use, what stockings to wear, how she should
live, how far she should indulge in any dissipation, and all this she
determined to devote to profit.
She had no self delusions. She knew that as an actress she had no future;
that the time of a woman's beauty is limited. Conscious that she had
already lost the youthful litheness of figure which had made her so
fascinating in the past, she laid aside every decent sentiment and chose
for her companion the man who had the biggest bank roll. His age, his
position in life, whether she liked or disliked him, did not enter into her
calculations at all. She figured out that she had been made a fool of by
men, and that there was only one revenge, the accumulation of a
fortune to make her independent of them once and for all. She had, of
course, certain likes and dislikes, and in a measure, she indulged them.
There were men whose company she preferred to that of others, but in
the case of these, their association was practically sexless, and had
come down to a point of mere good fellowship.
"Seen Laura lately?" asked the lawyer suddenly, after Elfie had given
the waiter her order.
"No--not for some days."
Warner looked surprised.
"I thought you and she were inseparable. You haven't quarreled, have
you?"
The girl laughed.

"Quarreled--no. Laura's too sweet a girl to quarrel with. Only you know
how it is. We're both so busy, with