Cissy believed what she said, and meant only kindness, but her frank words quivered like a thorn in Geraldine's heart.
Oh, how could she think of him as an unprincipled flirt, awakening an interest in a young girl's heart only for his own amusement?
But still she knew that such men existed, and that many broken hearts lay at their door.
The dread that Harry Hawthorne might be one of these heartless men awoke to life within her a fierce and burning pride.
"No man shall break my heart. I will forget Harry Hawthorne," she vowed, bitterly, to herself; and when the actor came that night, he found her bright and gay as of yore. She had put on over her tortured heart that mask of smiles which many a woman wears through life to deceive a carping world.
"'I have a smiling face,' she said,
'I have jest for all I meet,
I have a garland for my head,
And all its flowers are sweet,
And so you call me gay,' she said.
"'Behind no prison grate,' she said,
'Which slurs the sunshine half a mile,
Live captives so uncomforted
As souls behind a smile.
God's pity let us pray,' she said."
Clifford Standish was charmed with her new mood. He saw that a reaction had begun.
"I am glad to see you so happy, for I am sure that you have decided to go on the road with us," he exclaimed, coaxingly.