“All right, all right, Jimmie. I can tell him the rest sometime. I don’t really hate to talk about myself--that’s on the level. And say, listen here, Jimmie, you’re my favourite sweetheart, ain’t you?” “Yes, ma’am,” assented Jimmie, warmly. “All right. Beat it up and get me about two quarts of that hot coffee and about four ham sandwiches, two for you and two for me. That’s a good kid.” “Sure!” exclaimed Jimmie, and was off. Merton Gill had been dazed by these revelations, by the swift and utter destruction of his loftiest ideal. He hardly cared to know, now, if Beulah Baxter were married. It was the Montague girl who had most thrilled him for two years. Yet, almost as if from habit, he heard himself asking, “Is--do you happen to know if Beulah Baxter is married?” “Baxter married? Sure! I should think you’d know it from the way that Sig Rosenblatt bawls everybody out.” “Who is he?” “Who is he? Why, he’s her husband, of course--he’s Mr. Beulah Baxter.” “That little director up on the platform that yells so?” This unspeakable person to be actually the husband of the wonder-woman, the man he had supposed she must find intolerable even as a director. It was unthinkable, more horrible, somehow, than her employment of a double. In time he might have forgiven that--but this! “Sure, that’s her honest-to-God husband. And he’s the best one out of three that I know she’s had. Sig’s a good scout even if he don’t look like Buffalo Bill. In fact, he’s all right in spite of his rough ways. He’d go farther for you than most of the men on this lot. If I wanted a favour I’d go to Sig before a lot of Christians I happen to know. And he’s a bully director if he is noisy. Baxter’s crazy about him, too. Don’t make any mistake there.” “I won’t,” he answered, not knowing what he said. She shot him a new look. “Say, Kid, as long as we’re talking, you seem kind of up against it. Where’s your overcoat a night like this, and when did you last--” “Miss Montague! Miss Montague!” The director was calling. “Excuse me,” she said. “I got to go entertain the white folks again.” She tucked up the folds of her blanket and sped around the pool to disappear in the mazes of the scaffolding. He remained a moment staring dully into the now quiet water. Then he walked swiftly away. Beulah Baxter, his wonder-woman, had deceived her public in Peoria, Illinois, by word of mouth. She employed a double at critical junctures. “She’d be a fool not to,” the Montague girl had said. And in private life, having been unhappily wed twice before, she was Mrs. Sigmund Rosenblatt. And crazy about her husband! A little while ago he had felt glad he was not to die of starvation before seeing his wonder-woman. Reeling under the first shock of his discoveries he was now sorry. Beulah Baxter was no longer his wonder-woman. She was Mr. Rosenblatt’s. He would have preferred death, he thought, before this heart-withering revelation. CHAPTER XI. THE MONTAGUE GIRL INTERVENES