"You must realize, girlie, that I wouldn't have worried you with this nasty business if I hadn't been afraid of letting us both in for something worse.... What do you think of the damned cat who cooked up a thing like that? It was pure spite work. You see it was like this: When I met this female reporter two years ago she was all for me. You remember the nice things she wrote about me when I played Chicago the last time? Well, she came on to New York last winter and I took her to lunch and showed her other little attentions just to keep on the good side of her. About the same time the other dame blew in, and I felt it was up to me to discharge some of my social debts to her. Here's where the elderly spinster reporter got sore. She thought she had a corner on the market. It's hell to be such a fascinatin' devil!..." Will winked at me, albeit a little dubiously, sensing a probable lack of appreciation on my part. "When I came back to Chicago this trip," he continued, "I received a note from my quondam friend and later she came back to my dressing-room to see me. She made some pertinent remarks about the other woman, hinted at some persons being ingrates after all she had done to boom them when they were 'also rans' and, now that they had got there, threw down their old friends. I lost my temper a bit and we parted bad friends. The result was she transferred her booming to ----" (Will named the character actor of his company) "and proceeded to lay it over me on every possible occasion.... These damned women are always worse when they get along in life...." "What did this 'club' woman expect of you?... What did she want?" Will looked at me blankly, then batted his eyes.... "Why ... why, I suppose the old hen wanted me to make love to her: she made a play for me and I threw her down hard." He took the clipping from my fingers and replaced it in his wallet. "Did you know that the--_the_ lady was coming to Cleveland?" I asked. "Why--not exactly; she said something about it while we were still in Chicago but I thought she was bluffing. As a matter of fact I thought she had more sense than to do a thing like that." "What led you to believe she had better sense?--anything in her past performances?" "No--but women are pretty foxy: they generally take care to cover their trails no matter how reckless they pretend to be. Not many of them want to lose their homes in spite of their protestations about giving up everything for 'thou'...." "Why did you not insist on her returning home at once? Couldn't you have gone to another hotel?" "What good would that have done? She would have followed. When she turned up in Cleveland I handed it to her straight, you may imagine. I didn't mince matters a little bit." "Was she afraid to go back home?"