ights blazed up, suddenly. A sad-looking group of men
trailed in and made for a corner where certain bulky, shapeless bundles
were soon revealed as those glittering and tortuous instruments which go
to make a jazz band.

"You better go, Lee. The crowd comes in awful early now, with all those
buyers in town."

Both hands on the table he half rose, reluctantly, still talking. "I've
got three other songs. They make Gottschalk's stuff look sick. All I
want's a chance. What I want you to do is accompaniment. On the stage,
see? Grand piano. And a swell set. I haven't quite made up my mind to
it. But a kind of an army camp room, see? And maybe you dressed as
Liberty. Anyway, it'll be new, and a knock-out. If only we can get away
with the voice thing. Say, if Eddie Foy, all those years never had a--"

The band opened with a terrifying clash of cymbal, and thump of drum.
"Back at the end of my first turn," he said as he fled. Terry followed
his lithe, electric figure. She turned to meet the heavy-lidded gaze of
the woman seated opposite. She relaxed, then, and sat back with a little
sigh. "Well! If he talks that way to the managers I don't see--"

Ruby laughed a mirthless little laugh. "Talk doesn't get it over with
the managers, honey. You've got to deliver."

"Well, but he's--that song _is_ a good one. I don't say it's as good as
he thinks it is, but it's good."

"Yes," admitted the woman, grudgingly, "it's good."

"Well, then?"

The woman beckoned a waiter; he nodded and vanished, and reappeared with
a glass that was twin to the one she had just emptied. "Does he look
like he knew French? Or could make a rhyme?"

"But didn't he? Doesn't he?"

"The words were written by a little French girl who used to skate down
here last winter, when the craze was on. She was stuck on a Chicago kid
who went over to fly for the French."

"But the music?"

"There was a Russian girl who used to dance in the cabaret and she--"

Terry's head came up with a characteristic little jerk. "I don't believe
it!"

"Better." She gazed at Terry with the drowsy look that was so different
from the quick, clear glance of the Ruby Watson who used to dance so
nimbly in the Old Bijou days. "What'd you and your husband quarrel
about, Terry?"

Terry was furious to feel herself flushing. "Oh, nothing. He
just--I--it was--Say, how did you know we'd quarrelled?"

And suddenly all the fat woman's apathy dropped from her like a garment
and some of