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“Mine weren’t either. It was Oswald Kane’s.”

“Nobody would ever guess that you’re anything but Russian from the word go.”

“You did.”

“That was only because I’d known you. And even then I mightn’t have been on if I hadn’t heard your imitations. Do you remember that night?”

“Do I remember it! That was the night that ‘made me what I am to-day.’”

He laughed.

“I did my best to please you,” she went on, “and Oswald Kane was in front and liked my act. He came back afterward and arranged to sign me.”

“So that was why you left me cold. I dated you for supper and went round after the show, to find my bird had flown. Believe me, I was the most disappointed rube in town.”

“I wouldn’t have remembered my own name after Kane saw me.”

“Is that why you canned it?”

She laughed then, her low, rich contralto. “That was all his plan. I was as amazed when he told me about it as if he’d asked me to change my skin. He’s never told ssss1 me why he did it—he doesn’t trouble to tell you why. But I suppose he thought the public needed a thrill, something new, something different. And my impersonations gave him the idea. I think I might have made good if he had let me go on as just plain Parsons. But of course, not half the hit that Parsinova has made.”