locks from the confining combs and pins.

The meeting of the two was not marked by the effusion vocal,
gymnastical, osculatory and catechetical that distinguishes the
greetings of their unprofessional sisters in society. There was a
brief clinch, two simultaneous labial dabs and they stood on the same
footing of the old days. Very much like the short salutations of
soldiers or of travellers in foreign wilds are the welcomes between
the strollers at the corners of their criss-cross roads.

"I've got the hall-room two flights up above yours," said Rosalie,
"but I came straight to see you before going up. I didn't know you
were here till they told me."

"I've been in since the last of April," said Lynnette. "And I'm going
on the road with a 'Fatal Inheritance' company. We open next week in
Elizabeth. I thought you'd quit the stage, Lee. Tell me about
yourself."

Rosalie settled herself with a skilful wriggle on the top of Miss
D'Armande's wardrobe trunk, and leaned her head against the papered
wall. From long habit, thus can peripatetic leading ladies and
their sisters make themselves as comfortable as though the deepest
armchairs embraced them.

"I'm going to tell you, Lynn," she said, with a strangely sardonic
and yet carelessly resigned look on her youthful face. "And then
to-morrow I'll strike the old Broadway trail again, and wear some
more paint off the chairs in the agents' offices. If anybody had told
me any time in the last three months up to four o'clock this
afternoon that I'd ever listen to that 'Leave-your-name-and-address'
rot of the booking bunch again, I'd have given 'em the real Mrs.
Fiske laugh. Loan me a handkerchief, Lynn. Gee! but those Long Island
trains are fierce. I've got enough soft-coal cinders on my face to go
on and play _Topsy_ without using the cork. And, speaking of corks--
got anything to drink, Lynn?"

Miss D'Armande opened a door of the wash-stand and took out a bottle.

"There's nearly a pint of Manhattan. There's a cluster of carnations
in the drinking glass, but--"

"Oh, pass the bottle. Save the glass for company. Thanks! That hits
the spot. The same to you. My first drink in three months!

"Yes, Lynn, I quit the stage at the end of last season. I quit it
because I was sick of the life. And especially because my heart and
soul were sick of men--of the kind of men we stage people have to be
up against. You know what the game is to us--it's a fight against 'em
all the way d