"What are you
learning there?"
"To be a lady." She laughed at his increasing bewilderment. "A real
lady, Larry," she went on excitedly. "Oh, it's such a wonderful idea!
Father had never seemed to think much of me till the night I went to a
masquerade ball with Mr. Hunt, and he and Barney saw me in these
clothes. They had never seen me really dressed up before; Barney said
it was an eye-opener. They saw how I could be of big use to you all.
But to be that, I've got to be a lady--a real lady, who knows how to
behave and wear real clothes. That's what they're doing now: making me
a lady."
"Making you a lady!" exclaimed Larry. "How?"
"By putting me where I can watch real ladies, and study them. Barney
cut short my being in a chorus; Barney said a chorus girl never
learned to pass for a lady. So I've been working in places where the
swellest women come. First in a milliner shop; then as dresser to a
model in the shop of a swell modiste; always watching how the ladies
behave. Now I'm at the Ritzmore, and I carry a tray of cigarettes
around the tables at lunch and at tea-time and during dinner and
during the after-theater supper. I'm supposed to be there to sell
cigarettes, but I'm really there to watch how the ladies handle their
knives and forks and behave toward the men.
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