"Mary Blake," whispered a heavy-featured man with a freshly scraped jowl like that of a very clean pig, as he leaned across to his vis-à-vis, whose bobbed hair shone like the evening primrose in the dusk. "Been to see her three times in 'Dark Roads.' Closed to-night, or I'd take you, girlie, though maybe you wouldn't like it anyway. Pretty high-brow, even for me," and he smoothed his slippery dark hair complacently. He felt, strenuously, that he knew what he knew. "Great artist, that," he ruminated, gazing after the retreating figures. "Poor old Quinn knew how to pick 'em out of the atmosphere, somehow. Pity he had to kick-in after her first season, but Mary Blake was a lucky girl to have him for a manager in the start-off. They say Fred Jones has made a pot of money out of 'Dark Roads' and, of course, she's the whole show. Quinn's training was worth everything to her, naturally, but the girl has talent, genius even----" The primrose one was scarcely listening. "Who's the man?" she interrupted, a trifle impatiently. Even in her not-too-discriminating eyes there was a sharp contrast between the man who had just passed and the perfumed self-complacency who had done her the honour of taking her to an after-theatre supper. "That?" queried her companion. "Oh, that's Don Morris--Donald Van Loo Morris." He rolled the name on his tongue. "Real class he is, girlie, so don't get any little heart flutters about him. Belongs to all the old families in New York. His sister is Mrs. Francis Atterbury--see her pictures in all the society papers. Holds the record for being the only person who has ever had the honour of showing off the Blake in captivity. Yep! Mary gave a reading in Mrs. Atterbury's house in Gramercy Park early last fall, and nobody else has been able to get near the girl with a ten-foot pole before or since. Some exclusive, she is! Clever little devil," he chuckled. "Knows how to enhance her popularity. Bet Quinn shot it into her good and strong that a successful beginner ought to be seen off-stage as little as possible. Never have seen her myself except across the foot-lights, and once in a while at some quiet restaurant, or a place like this which maybe isn't any too quiet, but it's sort of dim and one doesn't attract too much attention, eh, girlie? Else would I be here, what?" and he laughed fatly. The girl wrinkled up her baby nose. "Oh, quit your kiddin'," she said, petulantly, "and tell me some more about the tall, good-lookin' guy. He's my idea of what a real gentleman ought to look like, he sure is. What does he do for a living, or don't he do anything or anybody?"