desired it. Proficiency in stage-craft of any sort comes only at
the expense of peonage, and this girl was being groomed solely for
matrimony.

The principals who topped the Bergman bill were artists--men and
women who had climbed through years of patient effort; toward
their subordinates they maintained an aloofness that is peculiar
to the show business. They moved in a world apart from the chorus:
the two classes impinged briefly eight times a week, but outside
the theater they never saw each other. Even Labaudie, the doll-
like danseuse, looked down upon Lorelei and Lilas almost as she
looked down upon the members of her ballet. Out of all the big
company there were perhaps a half-dozen chorus men and women who
had eyes definitely fixed upon a stage career; the rest, like
Lorelei and Lilas, regarded the work simply as an easy means of
livelihood.

The theatrical profession is peculiar to itself. It is a world
with customs, habits, and ambitions differing from those of any
other sphere. That division of stage life to which Lorelei Knight
belonged--that army of men and women from shows like Bergman's--
constitutes a still more distinctive community--a community,
moreover, that is characteristic of New York alone. Its code is of
its own making; its habits of life are as individual as its
figures of speech. Although at first all this bewildered the
country girl, at length she had come to adopt the new ways as a
matter of course. From the association she had learned much. She
had learned how to reap the fruits of popularity, how to take
without giving, how to profit without sacrifice; and under her
mother's influence she was not allowed to forget what she had