"Sure. It's part of the graft."

"I see."

"She has to piece out her salary like the other girls. Why, her
whole family is around her neck--mother, brother, and father. Old
man Knight was run over by a taxi-cab last summer. It didn't hurt
the machine, but he's got a broken back, or something. Too bad it
wasn't brother Jimmy. You must meet him, by the way. I never heard
of Lorelei's doing anything really--bad."

For the moment Campbell Pope made no reply. Meanwhile a great wave
of singing flooded the regions at the back of the theater as the
curtain rose and the chorus broke into sudden sound. When he did
speak it was with unusual bitterness.

"It's the rottenest business in the world, Slosson. Two years ago
she was a country girl; now she's a Broadway belle. How long will
she last, d'you think?"

"She's too beautiful to last long," agreed the press-agent,
soberly, "especially now that the wolves are on her trail. But her
danger isn't so much from the people she meets with as the people
she eats with. That family of hers would drive any girl to the
limit. They intend to cash in on her; the mother says so."

"And they will, too. She can have her choice of the wealthy
rounders."