She sipped at it absently, brokenly, reminding me of a bird drinking from a saucer-edge. But I made her take more of it. I persisted, until I could see a faint and shell-like tinge of color creep into her cheeks.
Then she looked at me, for the first time, with comprehending and strangely grateful eyes. She made a move, as though to speak. But as she did so I could see the quick gush of tears that came to her eyes and her gesture of hopelessness as she looked down at the newspaper on the floor.
"Oh, I want to die!" she cried brokenly and weakly. "I want to die!"
Her words both startled and perplexed me. Here, within a few hours' time, I was encountering the second young person who seemed tired of life, who was ready and walling to end it.
"What has happened?" I asked, as I held more of the Burgundy out for her to drink. Then I picked up the afternoon paper with the flaring head-lines.
She pointed with an unsteady finger to the paper in my hands.
"Do you know her?" she asked.
'"Yes, I happen to know her," I admitted.
"Have you known her long?" asked the girl.
"Only a couple of years," I answered. "Since she first went with Frohman."