FullReads

So it was that Emma McChesney, hatted and veiled by 5:45, saw the curtains of the berth opposite rent asunder to disclose the rumpled, shapeless figure of Miss Blanche LeHaye. The queen of burlesque bore in her arms a conglomerate mass of shoes, corset, purple skirt, bag and green-plumed hat. She paused to stare at Emma McChesney’s trim, cool preparedness.

“You must have started to dress as soon’s you come in last night. I never slep’ a wink till just about half a hour ago. I bet I ain’t got more than eleven minutes to dress in. Ain’t this a scorcher!”

When the train stopped at North Bend, Emma McChesney, on her way out, collided with a vision in a pongee duster, rose-colored chiffon veil, chamois gloves, and plumed hat. Miss Blanche LeHaye had made the most of her eleven minutes. Her baggage attended to, Emma McChesney climbed into a hotel ‘bus. It bore no other passengers. From her corner in the vehicle she could see the queen of burlesque standing in the center of the depot platform, surrounded by her company. It was a tawdry, miserable, almost tragic group, the men undersized, be-diamonded, their skulls oddly shaped, their clothes a satire on the fashions for men, their chins unshaven, their loose lips curved contentedly over cigarettes; the women dreadfully unreal with the pitiless light of the early morning sun glaring down on their bedizened faces, their spotted, garish clothes, their run-down heels, their vivid veils, their matted hair. They were quarreling among themselves, and a flame of hate for the moment lighted up those dull, stupid, vicious faces. Blanche LeHaye appeared to be the center about which the strife waged, for suddenly she flung through the shrill group and walked swiftly over to the ‘bus and climbed into it heavily. One of the women turned, her face lived beneath the paint, to scream a great oath after her. The ‘bus driver climbed into his seat and took up the reins. After a moment’s indecision the little group on the platform turned and trailed off down the street, the women sagging under the weight of their bags, the men, for the most part, hurrying on ahead. When the ‘bus lurched past them the woman who had screamed the oath after Blanche LeHaye laughed shrilly and made a face, like a naughty child, whereupon the others laughed in falsetto chorus.

A touch of real color showed in Blanche LeHaye’s flabby cheek. “I’ll show’m she snarled. That hussy of a Zella Dacre thinkin’ she can get my part away from me the last week or so, the lyin’ sneak. I’ll show’m a leadin’ lady’s a leadin’ lady. Let ’em go to their hash hotels. I’m goin’ to the real inn in this town just to let ’em know that I got my dignity to keep up, and that I don’t have to mix in with scum like that. You see that there? She pointed at something in the street. Emma McChesney turned to look. The cheap lithographs of the Sam Levin Crackerjack Belles Company glared at one from the bill-boards.

“That’s our paper,” explained Blanche LeHaye. “That’s me, in the center of the bunch, with the pink reins in my hands, drivin’ that four-in-hand of johnnies. Hot stuff! Just let Dacre try to get it away from me, that’s all. I’ll show’m.”

She sank back into her corner. Her anger left her with the suddenness characteristic of her type.

“Ain’t this heat fierce?” she fretted, and closed her eyes.

Now, Emma McChesney was a broad-minded woman. The scars that she had received in her ten years’ battle with business reminded her to be tender at sight of the wounds of others. But now, as she studied the woman huddled there in the corner, she was conscious of a shuddering disgust of her–of the soiled blouse, of the cheap finery, of the sunken places around the jaw-bone, of the swollen places beneath the eyes, of the thin, carmined lips, of the–

Blanche LeHaye opened her eyes suddenly and caught the look on Emma McChesney’s face. Caught it, and comprehended it. Her eyes narrowed, and she laughed shortly.

“Oh, I dunno,” drawled Blanche LeHaye. “I wouldn’t go’s far’s that, kid. Say, when I was your age I didn’t plan to be no bum burlesquer neither. I was going to be an actress, with a farm on Long Island, like the rest of ’em. Every real actress has got a farm on Long Island, if it’s only there in the mind of the press agent. It’s a kind of a religion with ’em. I was goin’ to build a house on mine that was goin’ to be a cross between a California bungalow and the Horticultural Building at the World’s Fair. Say, I ain’t the worst, kid. There’s others outside of my smear, understand, that I wouldn’t change places with.”