loin 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 What she had lost of her beauty had been
replaced by a keen knowledge of hum