"There is no need to despair," she quietly said; "the friend of whom I have spoken will be successful, and I am certain you will be a great actress yet. With me it is different. I will never rise above mediocrity."
"You don't seem to care much," said Miss Wade, looking at her pale, still face.
"I don't," said the actress, in the same quiet way.
"Have you no ambition at all, then?"
"No!"
She did not say it indifferently, but in a tone of hard endurance. Miss Wade's large eyes were fixed curiously on her face.
"I think," she said, "you have seen a great deal of trouble, and that it has crushed the ambition out of you. You were never born to be one of Mrs. Butterby's lodgers! Pardon me if I am impertinent."
"You are not," the actress said, neither denying nor acknowledging the charge. "Whatever I once was, I am Mrs. Butterby's lodger now, and a poor actress, who must sew the spangles on her own dress."
She took off the bed a short pink gauze skirt, and a bunch of tinsel braid, and began the womanly work of sewing, with her swift fingers.
"Are you to wear that to-night?" asked Miss Wade.