The Easiest Way | Page 8

and
demurely resumed her relations with the unsuspecting theatre manager.
The jilted lover became crazed, and one night at a restaurant, attempted
to murder them both.
From that time on, her career was a succession of brilliant coups in
gaining the confidence and love, not to say the money, of men of all
ages, and all walks of life. Her powers of fascination were as potent as
her professions of reform were insincere. She never made an honest
effort to be an honest woman, she never tried to do the square thing.
Yet, like other women of her type, she found all sorts of excuses for her
wrongdoing. She pretended that she was persecuted, a victim of
circumstances, and was ever ready to explain away the viciousness of
character, which was really responsible for her troubles.
In spite of her success on the stage, she was an indifferent actress. Her
lack of true feeling, her abuse of the dramatic temperament in her
private affairs, had been such as to make it impossible for her sincerely
to impress audiences with genuine emotional power, and therefore,
despite the influences which she always had at hand, she remained a
mediocre artist.
Her meeting with Willard Brockton was, from her point of view, the
best possible thing that could have happened. Brockton was a New
York stock broker, and like many men of his tastes and means, was a
good deal of a sensualist. Of morals he frankly confessed he had none,
yet he was an honest sensualist for he played the game fair. He never
forgot that he was a gentleman. He was perfectly candid about his
amours and never expected more from a woman than he could give to
her. He was honest in this, that he detested any man who sought to take
advantage of a pure woman. He abhorred any man who deceived a

woman. The same in love as in business, he believed that there was
only one way to go through life, and that was to be straight with those
with whom one deals. A master hand in stock manipulation and other
questionable practices of Wall Street, he realized that he had to pit his
cunning against the craft of others. He was not at all in sympathy with
present-day business methods, but he did not see any particular reason
why he should constitute himself a reformer. Although still in the prime
of life, he cared nothing for society and held aloof from it. If he went to
the trouble to keep in touch at all with people of his own set, it was
simply for business reasons. What he seemed to delight in most was the
life of Bohemia, with its easy camaraderie, its lax moral code, its
contempt for the conventions. He enjoyed the company of women of
facile virtue, the gay little supper parties after the theatre, and the glass
that inebriates and cheers, in a word, he enjoyed going the pace that
kills. He was a man of many liasons, but none were as serious or had
lasted so long as his present pact with Laura Murdock. No woman
before had been clever enough to hold him. He appeared very fond of
her, and completely under her influence. His friends shook their heads,
looked wise, and took and gave odds that he would be so foolish as to
marry her.
The couple took seats at a table, the cynosure of all eyes. Every head
turned in their direction, conversations were temporarily suspended and
there was much whispering and craning of necks, to get a glimpse of
the young woman whose reputation, or lack of it, was already so
notorious. Far from being embarrassed at this display of public interest,
Laura seemed to enjoy the attention she excited. Languidly sinking into
her seat, she said to her escort with a smile:
"Don't they stare? You'd think they had never seen a woman before."
Brockton laughed as he lit a fresh cigar.
"How do you know they're staring at you? I'm not such a bad looker
myself."
Laura ran over the menu to see what there was to tempt her appetite.

"Bring me some lobster," she said to the waiter.
"And a bottle of wine--Moet and Chandon white seal," broke in
Brockton, "frappé--you understand, and make it a rush order. I have to
get away in a few minutes."
Laura pursed her delicately chiseled lips together in a pout. She liked to
do that on every possible occasion, because, having practiced it at home
before the mirror, she thought it looked cunning.
"You're surely going to give yourself time to eat a bite, aren't you?" she
cried in affected dismay.
The broker looked at his watch.
"I must be in Boston early to-morrow morning. The express leaves the