[Illustration: Clara Morris in "Evadne"]
Surprised, he walked at her side. The way was long, the silence grew painful. He ventured to suggest supper as they passed a restaurant; she gently declined. At last she stopped directly beneath a gas-lamp, and from her face, with sorrow-hollowed eyes and temples, where everyone of her seventy-six
years had been stamped in cruel line and crease and wrinkle, she lifted up the veil and raised her sad old eyes reproachfully to his. He staggered back, turned red, turned white, stammered, took off his hat, attempted to apologize, then turned and fled.
"And what," I asked, "did you say to him?"
"Say, say," she repeated; "justice need not be cruel. Why add anything to the sight of this?" and she drew a finger down her withered cheek.
'Twas said with laughing bitterness, for she had been very fair, and well guarded, too, in the distant past; while then I could but catch her tired hands and kiss them, in a burst of pity that this ancient gentlewoman might not walk in peace through the city streets because fate had left her without a protector.
Appeal to the police, I think some one says. Of course, if he is about; but recall that famous old recipe of Mrs. Glass beginning, "First catch your hare and then—"
so, just catch your policeman. But believe me, they rarely appear together,—your tormentor of women and your policeman,—unless, indeed, the former is stupidly in liquor; and then what good if he is arrested? shame will prevent you from appearing against him. Silence and speed, therefore, are generally the best defensive weapons of the frightened, lonely girl.
Once through fright, fatigue, and shame I lost all self-control, and turning to the creature whom I could not outwalk, I cried out with a sob, "Oh, I am so tired, so frightened, and so ashamed; you make me wish that I were dead!" And to my amazement, he answered gruffly, "It's a pity I'm not," and disappeared in the dark side street.
After an actress has married and has a protector to see her safely home nights, she is apt to recall and to tell amusing stories of her past experiences; but I notice those tales are never told by the girls—they