“Would you?” She smiled like a pitying mother. “Why, I’ve given up even dreaming of that. That isn’t what keeps me going.”
“What is it, then, Jane?”
“Oh, a queer notion.” She laughed sadly. “A kind of kid’s notion, I guess, that if you live along, some way, some time, you’ll be able to make up for things you’ve done, and that perhaps there’ll be another meeting-place—a kind of a round-up—where you’ll be fit to forgive those you love and to be forgiven by them.”
Jasper walked about. He was touched and troubled. Some minutes later he said doubtfully, “Then you’ll carry through your purpose of not letting Pierre know you?”
“Yes. I’ve made up my mind to that. That’s what I’ve got to do. He mustn’t find me. We can’t meet here in this life. That’s certain. There are things that come between, things like bars.” She made a strange gesture as of a prisoner running his fingers across the barred window of a cell. “Thank you for warning me. Thank you for telling me what to do.” She smiled faintly. “I think he will know me, anyway,” she said, “but I won’t know him. Never! Never!”
That night the theater was late in emptying itself. Jane West had acted with especial brilliance and she was called out again and again. When she came to her dressing-room she was flushed and breathless. She did not change her costume, but drew her fur coat on over the green evening dress she had worn in the last scene. Then she stood before her mirror, looking herself over carefully, critically. Now that the paint was washed off, and the flush of excitement faded, she looked haggard and white. Her face was very thin, its beautiful bones—long sweep of jaw, wide brow, straight, short nose—sharply accentuated. The round throat rising against the fur collar looked unnaturally white and long. She sat down before her dressing-table and deliberately painted her cheeks and lips. She even altered the outlines of her mouth, giving it a pursed and doll-like expression, so that her eyes appeared enormous and her nose a little pinched. Then she drew a lock of waved hair down across the middle of her forehead, pressed another at each side close to the corners of her eyes. This took from the unusual breadth of brow and gave her a much more ordinary look. A coat of powder, heavily applied, more nearly produced the effect of a pink-and-white, glassy-eyed doll-baby for which she was trying. Afterwards she turned and smiled doubtfully at the astonished dresser.
“Good gracious, Miss West! You don’t look like yourself at all!”
“Good!”
She said good-night and went rapidly down the draughty passages and the concrete stairs. Jasper was standing inside the outer door and applauded her.
“Well done. If it weren’t for your pose and walk, my dear, I should hardly have known you myself.”