I could not help saying to myself that "rue" was not the only thing that could be so treated, since we all had rouge upon our cheeks; yet Semantha—ah, God forgive her—wore her rouge with a difference.
A little longer and we were all in Columbus, where a portion of each season was passed, our manager keeping his company there during the sitting of the legislature.
We had secured boarding-houses,—the memory of mine will never die,—and in fact our round bodies were beginning to fit themselves to the square holes they were expected to fill for the next few weeks, when we found ourselves sneezing and coughing our way through that spirit-crushing thing they call a "February thaw." Rehearsal had been long, and I was tired. I had quite a distance to walk, and my mind was full of professional woe. Here was I, a ballet girl who had taken a cold whose proportions simply towered over that nursed by the leading lady's self; and as I slipped and slid slushily homeward, I asked myself angrily what a fairy was to do with a handkerchief,—and in heaven's name, what was that fairy to do without one. The dresses worn by fairies—theatrical, of course—in those days would seem something like a fairy mother-hubbard now, at all events a home toilet of some sort, so very proper were they; but even so there was no provision made for handkerchiefs, no
thought apparently that stage fairies might have colds in their star-crowned heads.
So as my wet skirt viciously slapped my icy ankles, I almost tearfully declared to myself I would have to have a handkerchief, even though it wore pinned to my wings, only who on earth could get it off in time for me to use? Now if poor Semantha were only—and there I stopped, my eyes, my mind, fixed upon a woman a little way ahead of me, who stood staring in a window. Her figure drooped as though she were weary or very, very sad, and I said to myself, "I don't know what you are looking at, but I do know it's something you want awfully," and just then she turned and faced me. My heart gave a plunge against my side. I knew her. One woman's glance, lightning-quick, mathematically true, and I had her photograph—the last, the very last I ever took of poor Semantha.
As her eyes met mine, they opened wide and bright. The rosy colour flushed into her
face, her lips smiled. She gave a little forward movement, then before I had completed calling out her name, like a flash she changed, her brows were knit, her lips close-pressed, and all her face, save for the shameful red sign on her cheeks, was very white. I stood quite still—not so, she. She walked stiffly by, till on the very line with me she shot out one swift, sidelong glance and slightly shook her head; yet as she passed I clearly heard that grievous sound that coming from a woman's throat tells of a swallowed sob.
Still I stood watching her as she moved away, regardless quite of watery pool or deepest mud; she marched straight on and at the first corner disappeared, but never turned her head. As she had left me first without good-by, so she met me now without a greeting, and passed me by without farewell. And I, who knew her, understood at last the reason why. Poor wounded, loyal heart, who would deny herself a longed-for
pleasure rather than put the tiniest touch of shame upon so small a person as a ballet girl whom one year ago she had so lovingly called friend.
At last I turned to go. As I came to the window into which Semantha had so lovingly been gazing, I looked in too, and saw a window full of fine, thick underwear for men.