Read "A Queen of the Stage" by Fred M. White online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Timidly, almost appealingly, a girl with pathetic blue eyes looked at a man opposite to her. They were a striking contrast; the girl so young and fair and innocent of the world, the man wearing an assumption of benevolence which was belied by the furtiveness of his eyes, and the sensual lips. Smooth were his words; but anybody who knew the world would have mistrusted Roger Carney instinctively. As to the rest, he was a theatrical agent in very poor repute, though Elsie Vane was ignorant of that when she wrote to him from the country in reply to a plausible advertisement. He spread out his hands and affected a look of sympathy.
"My dear young lady," he said. "I trust you will see that I am not to blame. As I wrote to you, I had succeeded in obtaining for you a part in a first-rate touring company. Judge of my surprise when I found that the manager was nothing but a barefaced swindler. These things will happen, you know, in the profession."