eart on providing Carthage with a _cafe dansant_. She
determined to save her money. Prue saving!

It was hard, too, for shoes gave out quickly and she could not wear the
same frock all the time. And sometimes at night she was so tired she
just could not walk home and she rode home in a hack. A number of young
men offered to buggy-ride her home or to take her in their little
automobiles. But they, too, seemed to confuse art and business with
foolishness.

Sometimes she would ask Ort to ride home with her, but she wouldn't let
him pay for the hack. Indeed he could not if he would. His devotion to
Prue's school had cost him his job, and the judge would not give him a
penny.

Sometimes in the hack Prue would permit Ort to keep his arm round her.
Sometimes when he was very doleful she would have to ask him to put it
round her. But it was all right, because they were going to get married
when Orton learned how to earn some money. He was afraid he would have
to leave Carthage. But how could he tear himself from Prue? She would
not let him talk about it.

XIV

Now the fame of Prue and her prancing was not long pent up in Carthage.
Visitors from other towns saw her work and carried her praises home.
Sometimes farmers, driving into town, would hear Mr. Maugans's music
through the open windows. Their daughters would climb the stairs and
peer in and lose their taste for the old dances, and wistfully entreat
Prue to learn them them newfangled steps.

In the towns smaller than Carthage the anxiety for the tango fermented.
A class was formed in Oscawanna, and Prue was bribed to come over twice
a week and help.

Clint Sprague, the manager of the Carthage Opera House, which was now
chiefly devoted to moving pictures, with occasional interpolations of
vaudeville, came home from Chicago with stories of the enormous moneys
obtained by certain tango teams. He proposed to book Prue in a chain of
small theaters round about, if she could get a dancing partner. She said
she had one.

Sprague wrote glowing letters to neighboring theater-managers, but,
being theater-managers, they were unable to know what their publics
wanted. They declined to take any risks, but offered Sprague their
houses at the regular rental, leaving him any profits that might result.

Clint glumly admitted that it wouldn't cost much to try it out in
Oscawanna. He would guarantee the rental and pay for the show-cards and
the dodgers; Prue would pay the fare and