The next week Lester went on the road with his comic opera company; the Grahame Wests sailed to England, Letty Chamberlain and the other “Gee Gees,” as Travers called the Gayety Girls, departed for Chicago, and Travers and Van Bibber were left alone.

* * * * *

The annual ball was a month in the past, when Van Bibber found Travers at breakfast at their club, and dropped into a chair beside him with a sigh of weariness and indecision.

“What’s the trouble?  Have some breakfast?” said Travers, cheerfully.

“Thank you, no,” said Van Bibber, gazing at his friend doubtfully; “I want to ask you what you think of this.  Do you remember that girl at that servants’ ball?”

“Which girl?—­Tall girl with red hair—­did fancy dance?  Yes—­why?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking about her lately,” said Van Bibber, “and what they said of her dancing.  It seems to me that if it’s as good as they thought it was, the girl ought to be told of it and encouraged.  They evidently meant what they said.  It wasn’t as though they were talking about her to her relatives and had to say something pleasant.  Lester thought she could make a hundred dollars a week if she had had six lessons.  Well, six lessons wouldn’t cost much, not more than ten dollars at the most, and a hundred a week for an original outlay of ten is a good investment.”

Travers nodded his head in assent, and whacked an egg viciously with his spoon.  “What’s your scheme?” he said.  “Is your idea to help the lady for her own sake—­sort of a philanthropic snap—­or as a speculation?  We might make it pay as a speculation.  You see nobody knows about her except you and me.  We might form her into a sort of stock company and teach her to dance, and secure her engagements and then take our commission out of her salary.  Is that what you were thinking of doing?”

“No, that was not my idea,” said Van Bibber, smiling.  “I hadn’t any plan.  I just thought I’d go down to that hotel and tell her that in the opinion of the four people best qualified to know what good dancing is, she is a good dancer, and then leave the rest to her.  She must have some friends or relations who would help her to take a start.  If it’s true that she can make a hit as a dancer, it seems a pity that she shouldn’t know it, doesn’t it?  If she succeeded, she’d make a pot of money, and if she failed she’d be just where she is now.”

Travers considered this subject deeply, with knit brows.

“That’s so,” he said.  “I’ll tell you what let’s do.  Let’s go see some of the managers of those continuous performance places, and tell them we have a dark horse that the Grahame Wests and Letty Chamberlain herself and George Lester think is the coming dancer of the age, and ask them to give her a chance.  And we’ll make some sort of a contract with them.  We ought to fix it so that she is to get bigger money the longer they keep her in the bill, have her salary on a rising scale.  Come on,” he exclaimed, warming to the idea.  “Let’s go now.  What have you got to do?”