e swam
high into Della's face as she stepped out of the elevator, and dyed her
neck.

"I should worry! I was never out with him in a show in my life that he
didn't ogle a hole in every queen he seen. Out in Spokane onct he--"

"Western circuit--Western circuit--"

They hurried down a curving, white-tile corridor, rows of doors with
eye-like glass panes were lined up on each side, and the tick-tack of
typewriters penetrating. Della's breath came heavier and faster, and a
layer of vivid pink showed through the artificial red.

"You wait out here a minute, Della. I wanna step in here, at the Bijou,
and see if Louis Rafalsky is doin' anything this morning. Then we'll
shoot up to the Empire--"

"Sure--I--I'll wait, Ysobel."

She leaned against the wall and placed her hand over the region of her
lace yoke and heart, as if she would regulate their heaving.

A flash of cerise plume, a jangle of chatelaine jewelry, and Ysobel
disappeared behind one of the doors, her many-angled silhouette flashing
against the far side of the ground glass.

Della breathed in deep and gulped in her dry, hot throat; her fingers,
the damp cold born of nervousness, curled in toward her warm palms. She
daubed at her lips with a handkerchief.

Simultaneously a door opposite her opened, and a short, bullet-headed
figure in a light checked suit, and a diamond horseshoe scarf-pin that
caught the points of light stepped out into the pale nimbus cast by the
white signal-light of an up-going elevator.

With a gasp that caught in her throat Della darted in her too narrow
skirt across the corridor, reached out, and grasped the light-gray
coat-sleeve.

"Look," she cried, thrusting herself between him and the trellis-work of
the elevator-shaft and throwing back her head so that her bare neck,
soft as the breast feathers of a dove, rose and fell with a dove's
agitated breathing, "Look--I'm here!"

The short figure turned on his heel and looked up at her, his
shoulder-line a full three inches below hers, and his small, predaceous
eyes squinting far back into his head.

"Gad--what?"

"I--I'm here--sir--don't you remember--me--I'm here."

He regarded her with the detailed appraisal of the expert, and his
glance registered points in her favor.

"Gad!" he repeated.

"Don't--you remember--me--sir--don't--"

"Not bad for a big girl--are you--eh?"

"Don't you remember?"

"Sure--you're the little girl I met out West--didn't I?--two seasons ago