"It's the loveliest new scent," she said. "I bought a sample in town."
Estelle burst into a laugh, rather a hysterical laugh, it is true, but a laugh nevertheless. It showed that the strain and tension were relaxing to some extent.
"Isn't it sweet?" Alice asked.
"It is, dear. Let me smell it again. It makes me feel better," and Estelle breathed in deep of the odorous scent.
"How silly I was to give way like that," she went on. "But I simply couldn't help it. This has been going on for so long, and it got so I couldn't stand it another minute. How would you like it not to know who you are?"
"Not very much, I'm afraid," said Ruth, softly.
"That, in a way, is why it has been such a relief to be in the moving pictures," Estelle went on. "I could be so many different characters, and, at times, I thought perhaps, by chance, I might be cast for the very part I have lost—cast for my real self, as it were."
"You must have had a hard time," said Alice.
"I haven't told you half the story yet," Estelle went on. "Would you like to hear the rest?"
"Indeed we would!" exclaimed Ruth. "Not from any idle curiosity, but because we want to help you."