"Costumes of approved brevity? No; at least not to start with."
Mr. Blumenthal also had risen. He looked at me, as if aroused to my ignorance of things theatrical, with a more personal and kindly interest.
"Sorry my offer doesn't strike you favourably," he said. "I'd like mighty well to bring you out; but if you hold off for opera—that isn't my line, though—mind you, I don't say it could be done; but if some one were found to put up the money, would you wait and study? Know what you'd be undertaking, I suppose—hard work, regular hours, open air, steady habits? That's the life of a singer. Your health good? No nerves? We might make a deal, if you mean business. Trouble is, so many beautiful women think beauty as an asset is worth more than it is; it makes 'em careless about studying while they're young, and it can't last—"
I never heard the end of that sentence. I flew home and went straight to my mirror. Sure enough, I fancied I saw a haggard look about the eyes—
My God! This gift of beauty doesn't confer immunity from fatigue, accident, old age. This loveliness must fade and crack and wrinkle, these full organ tones must shrivel to a shrill pipe; and I—I! shall one day be a tottering old woman, bent, gray, hideous!
And all the little disfiguring hurts of life—they frighten me! I never enter a train that I do not think, with a shudder, of derailment and bleeding gashes and white scars; or cross a street without looking about for the waving hoofs of runaway horses that shall beat me down, or for some bicycle rider who might roll me over in a limp heap on the paving stones.
Yesterday I saw a horrid creature; her face blotched with red by acid stain or by a birth mark. Why does she not kill herself? Why didn't she die before I saw her? I shall dream of her for months—of her and Darmstetter, old and wrinkled as I shall be some day, and dead—with that same awful look in my fixed eyes!
Ah, what a Nelly I have come to be! Is it possible that I once rode frisky colts bareback and had no nerves! I mustn't have nerves! They make one old. Mr. Blumenthal said so. But how to avoid them? Oh, I must be careful; so careful! How do women dare to ride bicycles?
And this theatrical Napoleon, part of whose business is the appraisement of beauty—did he suspect that mine was less than perfect? It was perfect a month ago.
He couldn't have meant that, or he was trying to make a better bargain by cheapening the wares I brought—