the largest available chair with the Lily Maid in his arms.
"Oh, yes!" she said, "I adore him! Look, mon ami." She rose, and going to the cheap bureau, took her hand bag (Dick had given it to her for her birthday) out of the upper drawer. From the bag she produced an unsealed letter directed in a prim little schoolgirl hand to:
c/o Keith's Theater,
Indianapolis, Ind.
The envelope and stationery were from the Raddison Hotel.
"Ha! Ha! You fool heem!" said Kalamas. "You leetle devil, you no try to fool me or I will keel you—so!"
He took her slender white neck in his huge, hairy fist.
Elaine laughed delightedly.
"Why, he's all right to take me to supper, to play with—but for love! I want my strong, grand lover, my Demetri!"
The letter had fallen to the floor. It lay forgotten for the space of twenty kisses. At last Kalamas picked it up and read laboriously, like a child learning its lesson:
"Dear Dickie Boy:
"It's very cold here this week, and I am so lonely for you. It is so tiresome having to go around alone all the time. I do wish there was some nice girl on the bill—just those horrid dancing girls. I haven't had any real girl friends since I left the convent.
"The sketch is going well as usual, and I got beautiful notices, which I enclose. Isn't the one fine that says, 'Broadway will want her soon, she is an ideal ingénue'?
"Tell me all about yourself. Oh, by the way, I have a new white dress for the act. It is very pretty. I like it better than my others. Well, it won't be long until we come back to New York.
Elaine."
That letter which was causing Demetri Kalamas to roar with laughter was being awaited eagerly by poor Dick (Elaine only wrote him once a week). When her letters came he read them over and over again, and cherished them fondly, keeping them in an inside pocket near his heart.
VIII
Things reached a crisis the very week Elaine wrote from Minneapolis. Dick and the boys were together in Indianapolis. Billy Elmer got a letter from Isobel Lambert which told of an imminent scandal. Isobel's friend had written that Mrs. Brown, driven to the last extremity by her jealous rage, was scheming to catch Elaine and her husband together in Milwaukee. Mrs. Brown told all her plans—a woman always must tell some one! She was going out ostensibly for a shopping trip, after the Monday matinée. Instead she would go with detectives to Elaine's room in the hotel, where she was confident they would discover the erring couple in a situation which would give her grounds for absolute divorce.
What should Billy do? The scandal would be noised abroad in no time, and then, poor Dick! But would it not be better for him to know the painful truth before the crash came? It was up to Billy to break it to the poor fellow as gently as possible.
"I'll stand by and hold your hand at the execution," said Hal. "Gee, but its tough on you, old man!"
First Bill postponed the tragedy until dinner time, but he simply couldn't spoil Dick's "eats." Finally he decided to wait until their after-theater sandwich and beer. But they finished lunching and reached the hotel, and still the deed wasn't done.
"Come to my room tonight, boys, and have a game of penny-ante. What do you say?" Dick asked. They went to his room.
At last Bill screwed his courage to the sticking place. "Say, Dick, girl's got a friend on the bill with 'Apple Blossoms,' and she"—he swal-
