After she had delivered the last shot, as it were, she had no more to say, and they took their leave.
Deborah was so angry and so disappointed that she could scarcely eat any tea, but was actress enough not to show it; so perhaps there was an ironical truth in the lady’s statements after all.
“Fancy her telling you you could act,” said Susan.
“Oh, yes, they always tell you something like that, or they think your vanity will be wounded,” Deborah replied, and hoped the thunder-storm would pass off before they went into the street again.
They visited the theatre that night, and the fortune-teller passed completely out of Deborah’s mind, not to return for nearly two years.
As she sat in the theatre and watched a great actor she began thinking of the curious interest she had always taken in him ever since the hanging of the little picture, long before she knew there was such a man in reality at all.
“I wonder if, supposing I tried very hard with my writing, I might some day just be allowed to shake hands with him,” she thought. “I’d rather be spoken to by him than any other celebrity in the whole world.” She sighed.
“I’d never be able to make a great enough name. I try hard enough now, and it never has the least effect.”
When she went home she wrote another story, and pocketed all her pride and sent it to a very inferior novelette series. But they returned it.
Deborah then made up her mind.