suddenly exhausted. Bob Flick quickly poured out a glass of her father's
cognac and held it to her lips. She took a sip of it and it seemed to
revive her.

"He thought that I," her voice was hoarse and labored, "he thought that
I was like those other women that he has picked up and got tired of and
left, Selma Le Grand, and Fanny Estrel, and others. I wonder where he
thinks that I've been living that I wouldn't know about them. Fanny
Estrel! I went to see her once in vaudeville, and, before I'd hardly got
my seat, someone next me began to whisper that she used to be one of
Hanson's head-liners and that he was crazy about her once. And there she
was, old, and fat and tired, playing in an ingenue sketch in a cheap
house!" She laughed harshly. "That's what he was offering me," with a
flare of passion, "and I was too green to know it!"

"And he, where is he?" asked her father, speaking more quickly than was
his wont and eyeing her closely.

"Out there, I suppose, I don't care. Oh, no," meeting his eye and
catching his unspoken question. "He's safe enough; don't worry."

"Shall I make him shoot, Pearl?" asked Flick softly. "He won't have
much chance with me, you know. I'll get him in Pete's place and pick a
quarrel. He'll understand. You won't be in it."

"No, you won't, Bob, although I can see how you're wanting to," she said
decisively. "The Black Pearl!" she broke out presently. "My name's an
awful good advertisement. It gives me a reputation for being worse than
I am." She laughed cynically. "But he believed it." Her whole face
darkened again.

"He needn't go away believing it, Pearl." Once more Flick spoke softly,
persuasively, and once more her father looked at her hopefully.

She looked quickly from one to the other as if about to accede, and
then, dropping her head on her arms crossed on her knees, she fell into
wild and tempestuous weeping. "No," she cried, "no, promise me you
won't, Bob. Oh, Oh, Oh!" she wailed and rocked back and forth. "What
shall I do? What shall I do?"

At last she lifted her heavy eyes and looked at the two men. "I want to
go away from here, quick," she said, "quick."

"With Sweeney," said her father, well pleased.

"No." She threw out her hands as if putting the thought from her with
abhorrence. "No, I can't dance and I won't. I never want to dance again.
I never will dance again," passionately.

"But that is a feeling which will soon pass away, my daughter," urged
her father.