“Why, child, you’ve got a good voice. And, Joe, you’ve been keeping her shut up all this time. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
The young man had little to say. He had brought Kitty almost under a protest, because he had no confidence in her ability and thought that his “girl” would disillusion her. It did not please him now to find his sister so fully under the limelight and himself “upstage.”
Kitty was quite in a flutter of delight; not so much with the idea of working as with the glamour of the work she might be allowed to do.
“I tell you, now,” Hattie Sterling pursued, throwing a brightly stockinged foot upon a chair, “your voice is too good for the chorus. Gi’ me a cigarette, Joe. Have one, Kitty?—I’m goin’ to call you Kitty. It’s nice and homelike, and then we’ve got to be great chums, you know.”
Kitty, unwilling to refuse anything from the sorceress, took her cigarette and lighted it, but a few puffs set her off coughing.
“Tut, tut, Kitty, child, don’t do it if you ain’t used to it. You’ll learn soon enough.”
Joe wanted to kick his sister for having tried so delicate an art and failed, for he had not yet lost all of his awe of Hattie.
“Now, what I was going to say,” the lady resumed after several contemplative puffs, “is that you’ll have to begin in the chorus anyway and work your way up. It wouldn’t take long for you, with your looks and voice, to put one of the ‘up and ups’ out o’ the business. Only hope it won’t be me. I’ve had people I’ve helped try to do it often enough.”
She gave a laugh that had just a touch of bitterness in it, for she began to recognise that although she had been on the stage only a short time, she was no longer the all-conquering Hattie Sterling, in the first freshness of her youth.
“Oh, I wouldn’t want to push anybody out,” Kit expostulated.
“Oh, never mind, you’ll soon get bravely over that feeling, and even if you didn’t it wouldn’t matter much. The thing has to happen. Somebody’s got to go down. We don’t last long in this life: it soon wears us out, and when we’re worn out and sung out, danced out and played out, the manager has no further use for us; so he reduces us to the ranks or kicks us out entirely.”
Joe here thought it time for him to put in a word. “Get out, Hat,” he said contemptuously; “you’re good for a dozen years yet.”
She didn’t deign to notice him, save so far as a sniff goes.
“Don’t you let what I say scare you, though, Kitty. You’ve got a good chance, and maybe you’ll have more sense than I’ve got, and at least save money—while you’re in it. But let’s get off that. It makes me sick. All you’ve got to do is to come to the opera house tomorrow and I’ll introduce you to the manager. He’s a fool, but I think we can make him do something for you.”
“Oh, thank you, I’ll be around tomorrow, sure.”
“Better come about ten o’clock. There’s a rehearsal tomorrow, and you’ll find him there. Of course, he’ll be pretty rough, he always is at rehearsals, but he’ll take to you if he thinks there’s anything in you and he can get it out.”
Kitty felt herself dismissed and rose to go. Joe did not rise.
“I’ll see you later, Kit,” he said; “I ain’t goin’ just yet. Say,” he added, when his sister was gone, “you’re a hot one. What do you want to give her all that con for? She’ll never get in.”
“Joe,” said Hattie, “don’t you get awful tired of being a jackass? Sometimes I want to kiss you, and sometimes I feel as if I had to kick you. I’ll compromise with you now by letting you bring me some more beer. This got all stale while your sister was here. I saw she didn’t like it, and so I wouldn’t drink any more for fear she’d try to keep up with me.”
“Kit is a good deal of a jay yet,” Joe remarked wisely.
“Oh, yes, this world is full of jays. Lots of ’em have seen enough to make ’em wise, but they’re still jays, and don’t know it. That’s the worst of it. They go around thinking they’re it, when they ain’t even in the game. Go on and get the beer.”
And Joe went, feeling vaguely that he had been sat upon.
Kit flew home with joyous heart to tell her mother of her good prospects. She burst into the room, crying, “Oh, ma, ma, Miss Hattie thinks I’ll do to go on the stage. Ain’t it grand?”
She did not meet with the expected warmth of response from her mother.
“I do’ know as it’ll be so gran’. F’om what I see of dem stage people dey don’t seem to ’mount to much. De way dem gals shows demse’ves is right down bad to me. Is you goin’ to dress lak dem we seen dat night?”
Kit hung her head.
“I guess I’ll have to.”
“Well, ef you have to, I’d ruther see you daid any day. Oh, Kit, my little gal, don’t do it, don’t do it. Don’t you go down lak yo’ brothah Joe. Joe’s gone.”
“Why, ma, you don’t understand. Joe’s somebody now. You ought to’ve heard how Miss Hattie talked about him. She said he’s been her friend for a long while.”
“Her frien’, yes, an’ his own inimy. You needn’ pattern aftah dat gal, Kit. She ruint Joe, an’ she’s aftah you now.”
“But nowadays everybody thinks stage people respectable up here.”
“Maybe I’m ol’-fashioned, but I can’t believe in any ooman’s ladyship when she shows herse’f lak dem gals
