Now all you got to do is to show
me your contract with Sweeney and I'll double what he gave you, play you
over a bigger circuit, and advertise you, so's before your contract with
me's expired you'll be asked to do a few turns on the Metropolitan Opera
stage of New York City, New York."
"Love me to-day," sang Lolita, meltingly, if with grating harshness.
"That's right, Lolita, sing your pretty song," coaxed Pearl. "Come on,
I'll sing with you." She lifted her languorous eyes and sang softly,
almost under her breath, but straight at Hanson:
"Love me to-day,
Love me an hour;
Love is a flower,
Fading alway."
The blood surged to his temples at the direct challenge, he half rose
and leaned toward her. Then, as she laughed at him, he sat down. "Treble
Sweeney's offer, by God!" he said hoarsely. "Cash down beforehand." He
brought his fist down on the arm of the chair with a crash.
"Oh, I ain't ready to make any plans yet," Pearl announced
indifferently. "I want to talk things over with Pop first. He'll be down
from the mines before long, maybe to-day."
She sat for a few moments in silence, her eyes fixed on the far purple
hazes of the desert. "Oh, I wish there weren't so many of me," she said
at last and wistfully. "After I'm 'out' a while, I'll get to longing so
for the desert that I'm likely to raise any kind of a row and break any
old contract just to get here. I can't breathe. I feel as if everything,
buildings and people and all, were crowding me so's if I didn't have a
place to stand; and then, after I'm here a while, I got to see the
footlights, I got to hear them clapping, I got to dance for the big
crowds.
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