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"You there, Maggie," he ordered, "chin up a bit more, some flash in your eyes, more pep in your bearing as though you were asking all the dames of the Winter Garden, and the Charity Ball, and the Horse Show, and that gang of tea-swilling women at the Ritzmore you sell cigarettes to as though you were asking them all who the dickens they think they are... O God, can't you do anything!"
Larry had seen Maggie only in the plain dark suit which she had worn to her daily business of selling cigarettes at the Ritzmore; and once, on the night of his return from Sing Sing, in that stage gypsy costume, which though effective was cheap and impromptu and did not at all lift her out of the environment of the Duchess's ancient and grimy house.
"How about my time?" retorted Maggie, who indeed had a grievance. "I was supposed to have the day off, but instead I had to carry that tray of cigarettes around till the last person in the Ritzmore had finished lunch. Anyhow," she added, "I don't see that your time's worth so much when you spend it on such painty messes as these."
Barney and father said a chorus was no place for me." She drew nearer. "Oh, Larry, I've such a lot to tell you." "Go on." "Well" she cocked her head impishly "I've been going to school." "Going to school! Where?" "Lots of places. Just now I'm going to school at the Ritzmore Hotel." "At the Ritzmore Hotel!" He stared at her bewildered. "What are you learning there?" "To be a lady."
This invitation from Miss Sherwood was an ordeal she had never counted on. She had watched the fine ladies at the millinery shop and while selling cigarettes at the Ritzmore, when she had been modeling her manners, and had believed herself just as fine a lady as they. But that had been in the abstract.
This hotel did, indeed, in its people, its furnishings, its atmosphere, seem sober and commonplace after the Ritzmore; but at the Ritzmore she had been merely a cigarette-girl, a paid onlooker at the gayety of others. Here she was a real guest here her great life was beginning! Maggie's heart beat wildly.
This amiable pastime of throwing stones at each other was just then interrupted by the entrance of Maggie for an appointed sitting, before going to her business of carrying a tray of cigarettes about the Ritzmore. She gave Hunt a pleasant "good-morning," the pleasantness purposely stressed in order to make more emphatic her curt nod to Larry and the cold hostility of her eye.
And so more keenly than ever, because she was more determined than ever, Maggie studied the groups of well-dressed men and women who ate and danced at the Ritzmore, among whom she circulated in her short, smart skirt with her cigarette tray swung from her neck by a broad purple ribbon.
So I've been working in places where the swellest women come. First in a milliner shop; then as dresser to a model in the shop of a swell modiste; always watching how the ladies behave. Now I'm at the Ritzmore, and I carry a tray of cigarettes around the tables at lunch and at tea-time and during dinner and during the after-theater supper.
"Maggie, I'll get my real clothes late this afternoon; how about my dropping in at the Ritzmore for a cup of tea, and letting me buy some cigarettes and talk to you when you're not busy?" he inquired when Hunt had finished with her. "You may buy cigarettes, but you'll get no talk!" she snapped, and head high and dark eyes flashing contempt, she swept past him. Hunt watched her out.
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