Isabelle heard him laugh; the light was turned off, and her parents went on their way. They never had any part in her crises. They thought this terrible, wracking fiasco was funny! She covered her ears to shut out the hideous wild laughing of that audience. She could never forget it as long as she lived—that gust of laughter, as if the solid earth had begun to rock and roll.
She tried to think back to the beginning of the disaster, but it was all hazy in her mind—a chaos of lights, people, applause, excitement—a mixture of the rôle she was playing and the one she had made up for herself. She could not remember when it was that she began on the wrong Mary.
She viewed the ruins of her hopes, lying all about her. She heard Cartel’s shrieks of rage, and that awful laughing! It was terrible—terrible! And nobody would understand. There was nothing for her to do, but die.
She thought back to another time when she had wanted to die, and dear Mrs. Benjamin had comforted her. If only she were here now she would understand, and help her to face her disgrace. What was she to do? How could she live it down? She must hide somewhere. Maybe she ought to disappear in the morning, before her parents were awake. That would let her out of the much-dreaded interview with them. So with this idea in her mind, she fell into troubled sleep, at dawn.
When she woke, it was to broad daylight, and the presence of her father and mother.
“Oh!” sighed Isabelle, as her eyes fell on them.
“You’ve been asleep all day,” said her mother. “We thought maybe you’d taken something.”
“Taken something?”
“Drug, or something.”