It raised new and wordless ambitions. For the first time in her life she saw society dress on the stage. The play was one which pretended, at least, to show New York and London life. Therefore men in claw-hammer coats came and went, with strange accents and with cabalistic motions of hats and gloves, and women moved about with mystic swagger.
The heroine glowed like a precious stone in each act, now sapphire, now pearl, now ruby. She spoke in a thick, throaty murmur and her white shoulders shone like silver, and her wide childish eyes were like wells of light-diffusing liquid.
Rose gazed at her with unwearying eyes. Her bosom rose and fell as if she had been running, and she said in her heart: "I can do that! I could stand there and do that!"
Then the theme of the play filled her with strange new thoughts. These people lived out before her a condition which she had read about but which had never been discussed in her presence. A husband discovers his wife to have been a lover and mother in her girlhood, and in a tempest of self-righteous passion flings her to the ground in scorn and horror.
She clings to his feet (in approved stage fashion), pleading for mercy: "I was so young!"
He would not listen. "Go!—or no, stay—I will go. I make the home over to you, but never look upon my face again."
While Rose burned with shame and indignation, the outraged woman on the stage grew white and stern.
"Who are you to condemn me so?" she asked in icy calm. "Are you the saint you profess to be? Will one offence contain your crime against me?"
"What do you mean?" thundered the man and husband.
"You know what I mean. In my weakness I was stained, ineffaceably; I admit it—but you, in your strength, have you not preyed upon weak women? The law allows you to escape disgrace—nature and law force me to suffer with mine."