“That is true, no doubt. One might as well speak of a successful saint as a successful artist. Every saint is not canonized, and every artist is not praised. But surely appreciation is a help.”
“Yes, dearest; and I am grateful for it. And it gives encouragement to one's friends!”
“Let us suppose that they had not cared for your acting, dear child. What then?”
“I should have known that it was my vocation just the same. Don't believe that I shan't have my full share of doubts and struggles. This little first step makes me the more anxious about my next.”
The older woman looked at her, and sighed deeply.
“You are too young to know life so well! I am sure you have suffered more severely than any of us—who say more and cry more. Your face has changed a good deal in the last day or two. In one way, it isn't so pretty as it was.”
“No one can look quite so plain as I can look, Pensée,” she answered, laughing.
“Let me finish what I had in my mind! You are not so pretty—not so much like a picture. But when I see you now, I don't think about your features at all. I watch your expressions—they suggest the whole world to me—all the things I have thought and felt. Rachel's face is like that. I am sure now that you were meant to be an actress. I have been very stupid. How I wish I understood you better, and could be more of a friend. I don't understand Robert entirely. Do you?”
“Yes, I understand him.”
“I wonder how you came to love each other. I suppose it happened for the best. But it seems such a pity”—she paused and then repeated the words—“it seems such a pity that all doesn't come right—in the old-fashioned way.”