To my mind that weakened Cora's case greatly—she had so much less to resent, to brood over.
I took my trouble to Mr. Daly, after I had been out to the mad-house at Blackwell's Island, and had gained some useful information from that awful aggregation of human woe. He listened to Bèlot's description of Cora's beauty and its wrecking "scar"; he looked condemningly at the Rousseil picture, and then asked me what I wanted to do.
I told him I wanted a dreadful scar—then I wanted to veil it always; and he broke in with, "Then why have the scar, if it is to be veiled?"
But I hurried on: "My constant care to keep it covered will make people imagine it a hundred times worse than it really is. Then when the veil is torn off by main force, and they catch a glimpse of the horror, they will not wonder that her already-tottering brain should give way under such a blow to her vanity."
Mr. Daly studied over the matter silently for a few moments, then he said: "Yes, you are right. That scar is a great factor in the play; go ahead, and make as much of it as you can."
But right there I came up against an obstacle. I was not good at even an eccentric make-up. I did not know how to proceed to represent such a scar, as I had in my mind.
"Try," said Mr. Daly. I tried, and with tear-reddened eyes announced my failure, but I said: "I shall ask Mr. Lemoyne to help me—he is the cleverest and most artistic maker-up of faces I ever saw."
"Yes," said Mr. Daly, "get him to try it after rehearsal; you have no time to lose now!"
Only too well I knew that; so at once I approached Mr. Lemoyne, and made my wants known. I had not the slightest hesitation in doing so, because, in spite of his sinful delight in playing jokes on me, he was the kindest, most warm-hearted of comrades; and true to that character he at once placed his services at my disposal, though he shook his head very doubtfully over the undertaking.
"You know I never saw a scar of such a nature in my life," he said, as he lighted up his dressing-room.