Well, I didn't strain my eyes. I'd have been just as pleased to know that Lester was going to slip out of my young life forever and to forget him complete within the next two days. Only I couldn't. There was Miss Joyce to remind me. Not that she says a word. She ain't the chatty, confidential kind. But it was natural for me to wonder now and then if they was still as chummy as at the start. He'd been away a month or more I expect, before either of us passed his name, and then it came out accidental. I starts dictatin' a letter to a firm in St. Louis, Lester & Riggs. The name sort of startles Miss Joyce. "I beg pardon?" says she, her pencil poised over the pad. "No, not Lester Biggs," says I. "By the way, how is he these days?" "I'm sure I don't know," says she. "I--I haven't seen him for weeks." "Oh!" says I. "Kind of thought you'd be droppin' him down the coal shute or something." She shrugs her shoulders and shakes her head. "It was he who dropped me," says she. "Flat." "Considerin' Lester," says I, "that's more or less of a compliment." "I am not so sure of that," says Miss Joyce. "You see, he was quite frank about it. He--he said I had no style or zipp about me. Well, I'm afraid it's true." "Even so," says I, "it was sweet of him to throw it at you, wasn't it?" She indulges in a sketchy, quizzin' smile. "I think some of the girls at Zinsheimer's had been teasing him about me," she goes on. "They called me 'the poor little working girl,' I believe. I've no doubt I looked it. But I haven't been able to spend much for clothes--as yet." "Of course," says I, throwin' up a picture of an invalid mother and a coon-huntin' father back in the alfalfa somewhere. "And so far you ain't missed much by not havin' 'em. I should put Lester's loss down on the credit side if I was makin' the entry." "He could dance, though," says Miss Joyce, as she gets busy with her pencil again. Then a few weeks later I was handed my big jolt. We was gettin' out a special report for the directors' meetin' one day after lunch when right in the middle of a table of costs Miss Joyce glances anxious at the clock and drops her note book. "I'm so sorry," says she, "but couldn't we finish this tomorrow morning?" "Why, I suppose we might," says I, "if it's anything important." "It is," says she. "If I'm not there by 3 o'clock the stage manager will not see me at all, and I do so want to land an engagement this time." "Eh?" says I gawpin'. "Stage manager! You?" "Why, yes," says she. "You see, I tried once before. I was almost taken on, too. They liked my voice, they said, but I wasn't up on my dancing. So I've been taking lessons of a ballet master. Frightfully expensive. That's where all my money has gone. But I think they'll give me a chance this time. It's for the chorus of that new 'Tut! Tut! Marie' thing, you know, and they've advertised for fifty girls."