She came out of her thoughts to find that the talk had taken another turn.
“And the wortht of it is,” the Cherub was saying, “we shall rehearthe all day and give a show every night and work ourselves to the bone, and then, when they’re good and ready, they’ll fire one of us!”
“That’s right!” agreed the Southern girl.
“You wait!” said the Cherub. “They’ll never open in New York with thirteen girls. Ike’s much too thuperstitious.”
“But they wouldn’t do a thing like that after we’ve all worked so hard!”
There was a general burst of sardonic laughter. Jill’s opinion of the chivalry of theatrical managers seemed to be higher than that of her more experienced colleagues. “They’ll do anything,” the Cherub assured her. “You don’t know the half of it, dearie,” scoffed Lois Denham. “You don’t know the half of it!”
“Wait till you’ve been in as many shows as I have,” said Babe, shaking her red locks. “The usual thing is to keep a girl slaving her head off all through the road-tour and then fire her before the New York opening.”
“If one is expecting to be treated fairly,” said the Duchess with a prolonged yawn, “one should not go into the show-business.”
And, having uttered this profoundly true maxim, she fell asleep again.
The slumber of the Duchess was the signal for a general move. Her somnolence was catching. The restorative effects of the meal were beginning to wear off. There was a call for a chorus-rehearsal at four o’clock, and it seemed the wise move to go to bed and get some sleep while there was time. The Duchess was roused from her dreams by means of a piece of ice from one of the tumblers; checks were paid; and the company poured out, yawning and chattering, into the sunlight of the empty boardwalk.
Jill detached herself from the group, and made her way to a seat facing the ocean. Tiredness had fallen upon her like a leaden weight, crushing all the power out of her limbs, and the thought of walking to the boarding-house where, from motives of economy, she was sharing a room with the Cherub, paralyzed her.
It was a perfect morning, clear and cloudless, with the warm freshness of a day that means to be hotter later on. The sea sparkled in the sun. Little waves broke lazily on the gray sand. Jill closed her eyes, for the brightness of sun and water was trying; and her thoughts went back to what the Cherub had said.