However, I've a
couple of heavy ulsters which will serve just as well."
He turned his back, as though he did not expect a reply, and untied a
rubber-covered roll of blankets. Then he drew the two ulsters from a
clothes-bag and threw them down on the bedding.
"Vaudeville artist, I suppose?"
He asked the question seemingly without interest, as though to keep the
conversation going, and, in fact, as if he knew the stereotyped answer
beforehand. But to Frona the question was like a blow in the face.
She remembered Neepoosa's philippic against the white women who were
coming into the land, and realized the falseness of her position and
the way in which he looked upon her.
But he went on before she could speak. "Last night I had two
vaudeville queens, and three the night before. Only there was more
bedding then. It's unfortunate, isn't it, the aptitude they display in
getting lost from their outfits? Yet somehow I have failed to find any
lost outfits so far. And they are all queens, it seems. No
under-studies or minor turns about them,--no, no. And I presume you
are a queen, too?"
The too-ready blood sprayed her cheek, and this made her angrier than
did he; for whereas she was sure of the steady grip she had on herself,
her flushed face betokened a confusion which did not really possess her.
"No," she answered, coolly; "I am not a vaudeville artist.
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