Fortunately, I learned in time that there was an almost brand-new wife in the hotel next door, and I looked at him with big, reproachful eyes and kept my fingers to myself, and wisely put off the harvesting of my affections until some distant day.
Mind you, I was well within my rights in this matter. Girls always fall in love with stars—some fall in love with all of them, but that must be fatiguing; besides, as I said before, my affections were of such sparse growth they could not go round. Yet since I could honor thus but one star, I must say I look back with complete approval upon my early choice, and the shock to my heart did not prevent me from treasuring up some kindly words of advice from the artist-actor anent the making-up of eyes for the stage.
Said he to me one evening: "My girl, I want to speak to you about that 'make-up' you have on your eyes."
"Yes, sir?" I answered, interrogatively, feeling very hot and uncomfortable, "have I too much on?"
"Well, yes," he said, "I think you have, though you have much less than most women wear."
"Oh, yes," I hurriedly interposed, "there was a French dancer here who covered nearly a third of her eyelids with a broad blue-black band of pomatum, and she said——"
"Oh," he protested, "I know, she said it made the eyes large and lustrous, and as you see yourself in the glass it does seem to have that effect; but, by the way, what do you think of my eyes?"
And with truth and promptness, I made answer: "I think they're lovely."
My unexpected candor proved rather confusing, for for a moment he "Er-er-erd," and finally said: "I meant as a feature of acting, they are good acting eyes, aren't they? Well, you don't find them made up, do you? Now listen to me, child, always be guided as far as possible by nature. When you make up your face, you get powder on your eyelashes, nature made them dark, so you are free to touch the lashes themselves with ink or pomade, but you should not paint a great band about your eye, with a long line added at the corner to rob it of every bit of expression. And now as to the beauty this lining is supposed to bring, some night when you have time I want you to try a little experiment. Make up your face carefully, darken your brows and the lashes of one eye; as to the other eye, you must load the lashes with black pomade, then draw a black line beneath the eye, and a broad line on its upper lid, and a final line out from the corner. The result will be an added lustre to the made-up eye, a seeming gain in brilliancy; but now, watching your reflection all the time, move slowly backward from the glass, and an odd thing will happen, that made-up eye will gradually grow smaller and smaller, until, at a distance much less than that of the auditorium, it will really look more like a round black hole than anything else, and will be absolutely without expression. You have an admirable stage eye—an actor's eye, sensitive, expressive, well opened, it's a pity to spoil it with a load of blacking."
And I said, gratefully: "I'll never do it again, sir," and I never have, first from respect to a great actor's opinion, and gratitude for his kindly interest, later having tried his experiment, from the conviction that he was right, and finally because my tears would have sent inky rivulets down my cheeks had I indulged in black-banded eyes. So in all these years of work, just once, in playing a tricky, treacherous, plotting female, that I felt should be a close-eyed, thin-lipped creature, I have painted and elongated my eyes, otherwise I have kept my promise "not to do it again."