The Easiest Way | Page 5

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 What she had lost of her beauty had been replaced by a keen knowledge of human nature.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 our eye on the main chance, that there isn't much time for anything else. Besides, she's been playing more or less ever since the season opened. I didn't see her in that last piece, but they say she was fine. Of course, it was Brockton's influence that got her the part. I expect to see her here to-night."
"So she's still stuck on Willard Brockton, eh?"
With a light laugh, she replied quickly:
"Laura's not the kind of girl to be 'stuck' on anybody--at least I hope she