Jenny was beginning to take an interest in herself. Introspection was dawning on her mind. She did not practice the meditation of age, infirmity and death; when these spectres confronted her, she dismissed them as too impalpable to count. Nor did she examine her conscience arduously like a Catholic neophyte. Unreasonable fits of weeping and long headaches were, nevertheless, very disconcerting; and she was bound to search her mind for the cause.
The first explanation that presented itself was age; but she was unwilling to admit the probability of growing old at twenty, and turned to health for the reason. She could not honestly assert that she was ill. Then she asked herself if disappointment was the cause, and wondered whether, if she were suddenly invited to head the Orient playbill, she would be exhilarated out of tears forever. Finally she decided, breathless in the solitude of a warm May dusk, that she wanted to fall in love. Desire, winged with the scent of lilac blossom, stole in through the sapphire window. Desire flooded her soul with ineffable aspirations. Desire wounded her heart as she whispered, timidly, faintly, "darling, my darling." From that moment she began to seek the unknown lover in the casual acquaintance. She began to imagine the electric light shining in the blue eyes of some newly-met fellow was not electric light at all. She would meet him on the next day, and, beholding him starkly dull, would declare again that men were "awful." The readiness with which they all capitulated puzzled her. Why was she attractive? Irene told her she made eyes; but this was false, or, if she did make eyes, they were made unconsciously. Men told her she led them on. There must be some lure in her personality fatal long before she attempted to exercise it; for, though latterly she had been deliberately charming to most men at first, she was so very ungracious the following day that anybody else but a man would have left her alone. The poor fools, however, seemed actually to rejoice in her hardness of heart. Moreover, why had this fascination never helped her to renown? She could dance better than many of the girls who were given pas seuls; but she had never escaped from the front line of boys. What was the good of working? Nothing came of it. She remained obscure and undefined to the public. It was not hers to trip from a rostrum into the affection of an audience. It was not hers to acknowledge the favor of applause by taking a call. There was no shower of carnations or rain of violets round her farewell curtseys. If she never danced again, it would not matter. Half bitterly she recalled the spangled dreams of childhood, and revived the splendor of a silver and pink ballet-skirt that now would seem such tawdry, trumpery apparel.
"Fancy," she said to May; "I used to want to be a Columbine and dance about Islington. Think of it. What an unnatural child!"
Columbine appeared fitfully in the Ballet-divertissements that opened the Orient's entertainment, but Jenny never portrayed that elusive personage. Certainly she played Harlequin once, when a girl was ill; and very gay and sweet she looked in the trim suit checkered with black and gold.
Jenny wondered why she had longed to grow up.
"I used to think that it was glorious to be grown up. But there's nothing in it. There might be, but there isn't. I wish I could be what I thought I would be as a kid."
"Oh, Jenny, don't talk so much, and get dressed," said Irene. "Aren't you coming out to-night?"
"I suppose so," Jenny answered. "I wish I couldn't. I wish I'd got to meet somebody. There, now I've told you."
"Hark at her. Hark at Jenny Pearl."
"Oh, well, I'm sick of going out with you."