III“OVERin Dell’s room.” How often every day that little phrase answered, “Where’ve you been?” “Where are you going?” “Where’d you hear that?” “Over in Dell’s room.”Della Prance’s room was No. 381, third floor, in a little ramshackle hotel on upper Broadway. Della Prance and her elder, divorced, “not-feeling-very-well” sister had grumbled daily at the old peacock-blue and garnet plush furniture, with its nibbled corners and threadbare polka dots; at the dilapidated cretonne-covered divan, with “that caster out again”; and at the dirty, torn, faded old-rose wall-paper, only to have Della conclude, sighing: “Oh, well, what’s the use of tearing up and moving? After all, Sis, the old placehasgot atmosphere.”Evidently there were others who shared her opinion. For never was there such a popular rendezvous as “over in Dell’s room.” And never was there a girl so popular as Della Prance.“Over in Dell’s room” they laughed; “over in Dell’s room” they wept. From the unknown aspirant of Smiley’s to the “featured” celebrity who couldnotunderstand why she got those awful notices on her opening night, one and all received genuine sympathy “over in Dell’s room.”“Over in Dell’s room” they damned, “over in Dell’s room” they praised. “What d’ you think, Dell! Lazette is stranded out in Omaha, and is working her way back to Smiley’s. Playing a real chambermaid now, for a change, in the Grand Hotel! It looks like a good, long engagement, too.” “She got theleadin that play, really? Flora Gordo! That’s bully! She deserves it. Say, I want to get up and yell when a girl wins out honestly in this business. It’s impossible, but itcanbe done.”Toward five o’clock the room fairly clattered. Dell was like the leader of an orchestra; she struck high C. And while the sharps and flats of those excited voices ran upward, through arpeggios of laughter, to mingle with the chords and discords of the clamorous piano, where the latest song “hits” were banged and yelled, Dell would feel her liveliest notes of merriment suddenly change to a nervous tremolo. The elevator door had banged! Was this grand concerted movement to culminate in a series of staccato door-whacks by that irate hotel proprietor?Not this time. To-day, the grand finale was more musical, with the long, persistent tinkling of the telephone-bell.“Let her ring!” “Tell ’em to come over, Dell.” “The more the merrier—what?”As Della Prance sent one of her high-spirited, whimsically affected “hello’s!” over the wire, a fresh explosion of laughter rattled along with it. An instant later, something ominous in Dell’s voice wrought a sudden transition in those mirthful faces. While the company wondered, the receiver clicked, and from the pale, bewildered Dell their answer came.“Say, you all—or I guess the most of you, anyway—have heard of Jean Caspian? Well, that was Clara—Clara Coolwood—on the ’phone. What d’you think? She’s just run into Jean, down and out, in a little cheap-joint place. Oh, girls, think of it! Jean Caspian is manicuring nails down in Fourteenth Street!”A faint gasp was audible, though no one uttered a word. But their unspoken thoughts seemed to cry out the inevitable reflex of egoism: “Oh, the stage! The life of the stage! I wonder whereI’llend up.”“Poor Clara!” Dell continued.“It’s been about two months now. Jean just suddenly disappeared out of her life. Clara wrote to Jean’s mother—to every one who knew her, but she never got an answer. And here to-day in Smiley’s office some girl Clara got into conversation with told her about this little place where you get your nails done for twenty cents. Jean Caspian! Think of it!” Dell shook her head incredulously. “I tell you, when a genius like that—”“Good Lord!” From the corner of the room a raucous voice rattled in. “Genius!” she gibed. “Well, I never saw a so-called genius yet that didn’t end at the bottom of the ladder. These actresses with a future! Say, take it from me, you can usually find them—well, like your wonderful Jean Caspian, in the manicure parlors. But, say, whenever you hear it whispered, ‘Oh,she’llnever act!’ believeme, you can just watch for Somebody’s Favorite to give you the wink in electric lights.”With a fling, she donned her hat and coat, and moved toward the door. “Say, don’t you mind anything I say, Dell. I’m madder than a wet hen to-day. This hard-luck atmosphere has got on my nerves. Good-by, everybody! See you at Smiley’s in the morning.”When the other guests had taken their leave, and Dell was at last alone, she slipped into a kimono and rang the call-bell. A few minutes later she heard the sound of footsteps in the hall.“Ice-water boy!” she muttered thirstily, and flung open the door. “Oh,” she cried, “it’s Clara!”Clara burst forth without a preface.“I never should have known her, Dell! Why, she’s so thin, haggard, sort of, butthatisn’t it. Jean was so different, somehow. Wait till I get these hat-pins out.”After she had seated herself she was silent for a moment. Then she seized Dell’s hand.“Dell, it’s funny, but really it seemed to me as if Jean were—why, she was even greater than she was that wonderful night in Milwaukee with Norman.”Dell brought her back to realities. “But what did shesay?”“Why, I only had time for a word. I said, ‘Why, Jean!’ She had a little bowl of water, and she said, ‘Oh, Clara,pleasedon’t talk to me now! I’m awfully busy. Come in some other time, won’t you?’ And before I knew it, she was gone.”For another hour the two girls discussed Jean Caspian and a way to help her. The result of their planning was that the next morning Dell appeared at Clara’s room with a triumphantly extended hand.“Eighty-eight dollars! Well, they can say what they choose about actors, but when it comes to practical generosity, they’re there, right down to the last little girl in the chorus. Look here! Forty dollars from English Toppling! And we used to call him a tight-wad.”An hour later Clara and Dell, half hoping, half fearing to find Jean in such a place, walked into a little shop bearing the sign: “Lizzie Lord. Manicuring.” But as Clara was about to reply to the question, “Nails done, lady?” she suddenly stepped back and whispered to Dell:“I’ll bet Jean’s here under an assumed name. That’s why she asked me not to call her name out.” She turned to the desk again. “Is that—that young lady with the light hair here?”“Miss Miller, you mean?”Clara hesitated. Some one, evidently Lizzie Lord, called from behind a screen: “No, that girl ain’t here no more; she quit us last night.”At this the two girls started reluctantly to leave, when the proprietress, a terrible blonde, emerged to add tartly: “Hold on. We got plenty o’ girls can beat Miss Miller manicuring—she wa’n’t only a beginner, anyways. Set down; you won’t have to wait but a minute.”Clara timidly explained that she wanted only her friend’s address. But “Maggie Miller” had left no address in the shop. The proprietress didn’t know it. Never had known it. She waddled back behind the screen.“Maggie Miller!” exclaimed Clara, as the girls left. “Oh, I can’t bear to think what that must mean! It makes me perfectly sick. How in the world are we ever going to find her now?”Days passed, weeks went by, and still no trace of Jean Caspian. It seemed almost incredible that no one could obtain any news of her even “over in Dell’s room.”Over in Dell’s room they said, “What a shame that such a talented girl should end so disastrously!” Over in Dell’s room they told interesting anecdotes about her. Ambitious girls, who had hitherto withheld their secret opinions, at last feltthat there was no longer danger of her rivalry, and came boldly out of the woods. “Yes, Jean Caspian certainly was a genius.” Time passed, and over in Dell’s room Jean Caspian was now usually referred to in the past tense. Clara Coolwood began to lose hope. She read the papers constantly, fearing each morning to hear of the suicide of Maggie Miller. So the winter drifted by. Newer, more interesting topics were discussed over in Dell’s room.“They say the marcel is coming back again,” said Dell, one snowy afternoon, as she was entertaining the wife of an actor friend. “Your hair is wonderful, Mrs. Wade. Have you been reckless enough to indulge in the fifty-dollar permanent wave, or is that the transient curl of a day?”Pretty Mrs. Wade laughed.“I got it this morning, thank you—only thirty-five cents—at Rosenburg’s, a little place on Thirty-eighth Street. But if you girls ever go there be sure to ask for that pretty blonde girl they have. By the way, do you know, she’s the very image of that leading woman Guy Norman had when I went on to see Harry once. In fact, I told her she ought to go on the stage. Say, that girl’s got the touch all right; she gives agrandshampoo.”“What’s her name?” Clara asked excitedly. “Miller?”“Oh, no. Now, let me see—seems to me some onedidcall her—what was it, now? Hobbs, I think; or was it Cobb?”Clara Coolwood was already on her feet, and Dell, too. In fifteen minutes they were out of the house. They would lose no time this time. They reached the place breathless; and, not seeing Jean, asked at once for “Miss ’Obb.”The proprietress gazed at them with a cold professional eye, noting their straying tresses. “Miss Robb, you mean? Why, she left last Thursday. No, I don’t expect to get her back; she said she was sick. But we got other girls just as good; better, in fact. Miss Robb was smart enough; she took hold pretty well, but she lacked experience. Oh, Miss Lipstein! Here, please!”“Oh,” said Clara, “I don’t wish my hair done to-day, thank you. I wanted to see Miss Casp—Cobb—personally. Could you give me her address?”The woman immediately lost interest, shook her head, and turned away.Clara’s and Dell’s hands met and telegraphed a wordless message they could not speak. This second futile effort to solve Jean’s mystery left them too heart-broken for words.It was late in the spring when Della Prance came upon another clue. This was at Floy Tulliver’s.“Say, Dell, whatever became of Jean Caspian?” Floy asked. “We all expected so much of her after the hit she made with Norman. Too bad she didn’t strike New York, where some of the big managers like Littleton could have seen her! Oh, that reminds me—funny thing, too. Say, Dell, you remember Betty, that blonde maid I had? Well, I had a picture of Jean on my dresser, right here, and, well—why, Betty used to tell me about a girl that used to work where she worked. Said it was one of those gown places, where they sew on bindings and things,—sort of a sweat-shop, I s’pose,—and Betty always used to say that girl looked so much like Jean’s picture. Yes, really. She was quite positive of it. Only this girl wasn’t so pretty, she said, and was thinner, and—oh, I don’t know. But, anyway, she said the eyes were perfect of her. Yes, itwasqueer. Oh, I have no idea where the place was, Dell. Why, let’s see—Betty left me about two months ago.”After thinking all this over seriously, and not without tears, Dell decided not to mention it to Clara Coolwood. It would only break open the wound that was slowly healing in Clara’s heart.For Clara was full of excitement now over her new stock engagement as leading lady in Lowell. Her talk was all of hats and gowns, salaries and parts and matinées. She smiled now at every one’s jokes and her whole manner was scented with success.So, as the weeks lapsed into months, over in Dell’s room the name of Jean Caspian gradually faded into a memory.
III
“OVERin Dell’s room.” How often every day that little phrase answered, “Where’ve you been?” “Where are you going?” “Where’d you hear that?” “Over in Dell’s room.”
Della Prance’s room was No. 381, third floor, in a little ramshackle hotel on upper Broadway. Della Prance and her elder, divorced, “not-feeling-very-well” sister had grumbled daily at the old peacock-blue and garnet plush furniture, with its nibbled corners and threadbare polka dots; at the dilapidated cretonne-covered divan, with “that caster out again”; and at the dirty, torn, faded old-rose wall-paper, only to have Della conclude, sighing: “Oh, well, what’s the use of tearing up and moving? After all, Sis, the old placehasgot atmosphere.”
Evidently there were others who shared her opinion. For never was there such a popular rendezvous as “over in Dell’s room.” And never was there a girl so popular as Della Prance.
“Over in Dell’s room” they laughed; “over in Dell’s room” they wept. From the unknown aspirant of Smiley’s to the “featured” celebrity who couldnotunderstand why she got those awful notices on her opening night, one and all received genuine sympathy “over in Dell’s room.”
“Over in Dell’s room” they damned, “over in Dell’s room” they praised. “What d’ you think, Dell! Lazette is stranded out in Omaha, and is working her way back to Smiley’s. Playing a real chambermaid now, for a change, in the Grand Hotel! It looks like a good, long engagement, too.” “She got theleadin that play, really? Flora Gordo! That’s bully! She deserves it. Say, I want to get up and yell when a girl wins out honestly in this business. It’s impossible, but itcanbe done.”
Toward five o’clock the room fairly clattered. Dell was like the leader of an orchestra; she struck high C. And while the sharps and flats of those excited voices ran upward, through arpeggios of laughter, to mingle with the chords and discords of the clamorous piano, where the latest song “hits” were banged and yelled, Dell would feel her liveliest notes of merriment suddenly change to a nervous tremolo. The elevator door had banged! Was this grand concerted movement to culminate in a series of staccato door-whacks by that irate hotel proprietor?
Not this time. To-day, the grand finale was more musical, with the long, persistent tinkling of the telephone-bell.
“Let her ring!” “Tell ’em to come over, Dell.” “The more the merrier—what?”
As Della Prance sent one of her high-spirited, whimsically affected “hello’s!” over the wire, a fresh explosion of laughter rattled along with it. An instant later, something ominous in Dell’s voice wrought a sudden transition in those mirthful faces. While the company wondered, the receiver clicked, and from the pale, bewildered Dell their answer came.
“Say, you all—or I guess the most of you, anyway—have heard of Jean Caspian? Well, that was Clara—Clara Coolwood—on the ’phone. What d’you think? She’s just run into Jean, down and out, in a little cheap-joint place. Oh, girls, think of it! Jean Caspian is manicuring nails down in Fourteenth Street!”
A faint gasp was audible, though no one uttered a word. But their unspoken thoughts seemed to cry out the inevitable reflex of egoism: “Oh, the stage! The life of the stage! I wonder whereI’llend up.”
“Poor Clara!” Dell continued.“It’s been about two months now. Jean just suddenly disappeared out of her life. Clara wrote to Jean’s mother—to every one who knew her, but she never got an answer. And here to-day in Smiley’s office some girl Clara got into conversation with told her about this little place where you get your nails done for twenty cents. Jean Caspian! Think of it!” Dell shook her head incredulously. “I tell you, when a genius like that—”
“Good Lord!” From the corner of the room a raucous voice rattled in. “Genius!” she gibed. “Well, I never saw a so-called genius yet that didn’t end at the bottom of the ladder. These actresses with a future! Say, take it from me, you can usually find them—well, like your wonderful Jean Caspian, in the manicure parlors. But, say, whenever you hear it whispered, ‘Oh,she’llnever act!’ believeme, you can just watch for Somebody’s Favorite to give you the wink in electric lights.”
With a fling, she donned her hat and coat, and moved toward the door. “Say, don’t you mind anything I say, Dell. I’m madder than a wet hen to-day. This hard-luck atmosphere has got on my nerves. Good-by, everybody! See you at Smiley’s in the morning.”
When the other guests had taken their leave, and Dell was at last alone, she slipped into a kimono and rang the call-bell. A few minutes later she heard the sound of footsteps in the hall.
“Ice-water boy!” she muttered thirstily, and flung open the door. “Oh,” she cried, “it’s Clara!”
Clara burst forth without a preface.
“I never should have known her, Dell! Why, she’s so thin, haggard, sort of, butthatisn’t it. Jean was so different, somehow. Wait till I get these hat-pins out.”
After she had seated herself she was silent for a moment. Then she seized Dell’s hand.
“Dell, it’s funny, but really it seemed to me as if Jean were—why, she was even greater than she was that wonderful night in Milwaukee with Norman.”
Dell brought her back to realities. “But what did shesay?”
“Why, I only had time for a word. I said, ‘Why, Jean!’ She had a little bowl of water, and she said, ‘Oh, Clara,pleasedon’t talk to me now! I’m awfully busy. Come in some other time, won’t you?’ And before I knew it, she was gone.”
For another hour the two girls discussed Jean Caspian and a way to help her. The result of their planning was that the next morning Dell appeared at Clara’s room with a triumphantly extended hand.
“Eighty-eight dollars! Well, they can say what they choose about actors, but when it comes to practical generosity, they’re there, right down to the last little girl in the chorus. Look here! Forty dollars from English Toppling! And we used to call him a tight-wad.”
An hour later Clara and Dell, half hoping, half fearing to find Jean in such a place, walked into a little shop bearing the sign: “Lizzie Lord. Manicuring.” But as Clara was about to reply to the question, “Nails done, lady?” she suddenly stepped back and whispered to Dell:
“I’ll bet Jean’s here under an assumed name. That’s why she asked me not to call her name out.” She turned to the desk again. “Is that—that young lady with the light hair here?”
“Miss Miller, you mean?”
Clara hesitated. Some one, evidently Lizzie Lord, called from behind a screen: “No, that girl ain’t here no more; she quit us last night.”
At this the two girls started reluctantly to leave, when the proprietress, a terrible blonde, emerged to add tartly: “Hold on. We got plenty o’ girls can beat Miss Miller manicuring—she wa’n’t only a beginner, anyways. Set down; you won’t have to wait but a minute.”
Clara timidly explained that she wanted only her friend’s address. But “Maggie Miller” had left no address in the shop. The proprietress didn’t know it. Never had known it. She waddled back behind the screen.
“Maggie Miller!” exclaimed Clara, as the girls left. “Oh, I can’t bear to think what that must mean! It makes me perfectly sick. How in the world are we ever going to find her now?”
Days passed, weeks went by, and still no trace of Jean Caspian. It seemed almost incredible that no one could obtain any news of her even “over in Dell’s room.”
Over in Dell’s room they said, “What a shame that such a talented girl should end so disastrously!” Over in Dell’s room they told interesting anecdotes about her. Ambitious girls, who had hitherto withheld their secret opinions, at last feltthat there was no longer danger of her rivalry, and came boldly out of the woods. “Yes, Jean Caspian certainly was a genius.” Time passed, and over in Dell’s room Jean Caspian was now usually referred to in the past tense. Clara Coolwood began to lose hope. She read the papers constantly, fearing each morning to hear of the suicide of Maggie Miller. So the winter drifted by. Newer, more interesting topics were discussed over in Dell’s room.
“They say the marcel is coming back again,” said Dell, one snowy afternoon, as she was entertaining the wife of an actor friend. “Your hair is wonderful, Mrs. Wade. Have you been reckless enough to indulge in the fifty-dollar permanent wave, or is that the transient curl of a day?”
Pretty Mrs. Wade laughed.
“I got it this morning, thank you—only thirty-five cents—at Rosenburg’s, a little place on Thirty-eighth Street. But if you girls ever go there be sure to ask for that pretty blonde girl they have. By the way, do you know, she’s the very image of that leading woman Guy Norman had when I went on to see Harry once. In fact, I told her she ought to go on the stage. Say, that girl’s got the touch all right; she gives agrandshampoo.”
“What’s her name?” Clara asked excitedly. “Miller?”
“Oh, no. Now, let me see—seems to me some onedidcall her—what was it, now? Hobbs, I think; or was it Cobb?”
Clara Coolwood was already on her feet, and Dell, too. In fifteen minutes they were out of the house. They would lose no time this time. They reached the place breathless; and, not seeing Jean, asked at once for “Miss ’Obb.”
The proprietress gazed at them with a cold professional eye, noting their straying tresses. “Miss Robb, you mean? Why, she left last Thursday. No, I don’t expect to get her back; she said she was sick. But we got other girls just as good; better, in fact. Miss Robb was smart enough; she took hold pretty well, but she lacked experience. Oh, Miss Lipstein! Here, please!”
“Oh,” said Clara, “I don’t wish my hair done to-day, thank you. I wanted to see Miss Casp—Cobb—personally. Could you give me her address?”
The woman immediately lost interest, shook her head, and turned away.
Clara’s and Dell’s hands met and telegraphed a wordless message they could not speak. This second futile effort to solve Jean’s mystery left them too heart-broken for words.
It was late in the spring when Della Prance came upon another clue. This was at Floy Tulliver’s.
“Say, Dell, whatever became of Jean Caspian?” Floy asked. “We all expected so much of her after the hit she made with Norman. Too bad she didn’t strike New York, where some of the big managers like Littleton could have seen her! Oh, that reminds me—funny thing, too. Say, Dell, you remember Betty, that blonde maid I had? Well, I had a picture of Jean on my dresser, right here, and, well—why, Betty used to tell me about a girl that used to work where she worked. Said it was one of those gown places, where they sew on bindings and things,—sort of a sweat-shop, I s’pose,—and Betty always used to say that girl looked so much like Jean’s picture. Yes, really. She was quite positive of it. Only this girl wasn’t so pretty, she said, and was thinner, and—oh, I don’t know. But, anyway, she said the eyes were perfect of her. Yes, itwasqueer. Oh, I have no idea where the place was, Dell. Why, let’s see—Betty left me about two months ago.”
After thinking all this over seriously, and not without tears, Dell decided not to mention it to Clara Coolwood. It would only break open the wound that was slowly healing in Clara’s heart.
For Clara was full of excitement now over her new stock engagement as leading lady in Lowell. Her talk was all of hats and gowns, salaries and parts and matinées. She smiled now at every one’s jokes and her whole manner was scented with success.
So, as the weeks lapsed into months, over in Dell’s room the name of Jean Caspian gradually faded into a memory.