“Not intimitely,” I replied.
“Don’t you love the Play?” she said. “I’m crazy about it. I’ve been back three times. Parts of it I know off by heart. He’s very handsome. That picture don’t do him justise.”
I gave her a searching glanse. Was it posible that, without any acquaintance with him whatever, she had fallen in love with him? It was indeed. She showed it in every line of her silly face.
I drew myself up hautily. “I should think it would be very expencive, going so often,” I said, in a cool tone.
“Not so very. You see, the play is a failure, and they give us girls tickets to dress the house. Fill it up, you know. Half the girls in the store are crazy about Mr. Egleston.”
My world shuddered about me. What—fail! That beautiful play, ending “My darling, my woman”? It could not be. Fate would not be cruel. Was there no apreciation of the best in Art? Was it indeed true, as Miss Everett has complained, although not in these exact words, that the Theater was only supported now by chorus girls’ legs, dancing about in uter abandon?
With an expression of despair on my features, I left the store, carrying the Frame under my arm.
One thing is certain. I must see the play again, and judge it with a criticle eye. If it is worth saving, it must be saved.
January 16th. Is it only a day since I saw you, Dear Dairy? Can so much have happened in the single lapse of a few hours? I look in my mirror, and I look much as before, only with perhaps a touch of paller. Who would not be pale?
I have seen him again, and there is no longer any doubt in my heart. Page Beresford is atractive, and if it were not for circumstances as they are I would not anser for the consequences. But things are as they are. There is no changing that. And I have read my own heart.