"Rest?" said Mildred. "Why should I rest?"
Mrs. Belloc started to protest, then abruptly changed. "Come to think of it, why should you? You're in perfect health, and it'll be time enough to rest when you 'get there.'"
"I'm tired through and through," said Mildred, "but it isn't the kind of tired that could be rested except by throwing up this frightful nightmare of a career."
"And you can't do that."
"I won't," said Mildred, her lips compressed and her eyes narrowed.
She and Moldini—and fat, funny little Mrs. Moldini—went to the mountains. And she worked on. She would listen to none of the suggestions about the dangers of keeping too steadily at it, about working oneself into a state of staleness, about the imperative demands of the artistic temperament for rest, change, variety. "It may be so," she said to Mrs. Brindley. "But I've gone mad. I can no more drop this routine than—than you could take it up and keep to it for a week."
"I'll admit I couldn't," said Cyrilla. "And Mildred, you're making a mistake."
"Then I'll have to suffer for it. I must do what seems best to me."
"But I'm sure you're wrong. I never knew anyone to act as you're acting. Everyone rests and freshens up."
Mildred lost patience, almost lost her temper. "You're trying to tempt me to ruin myself," she said. "Please stop it. You say you never knew anyone to do as I'm doing. Very well. But how many girls have you known who have succeeded?"