She smiled and nodded, without comprehending in the least. She was thinking, with a desperate longing, of the shelter of her room, still so far away.
"Very well. I'm going to see you once more," he said abruptly. "Then it's for you to decide. If you want me to come,"—he hesitated to give full emphasis,—"it's for you to send for me!"
She remembered the ultimatum afterward. Now she murmured something commonplace.
He caught her hand.
"Can't you tell me now?"
"What?" she said, striving to recall his meaning.
"Do you want me to come? Is it your wish?"
"Why—yes, why not?" she answered mechanically—nor did she see what leaped into his eyes.
She went hurriedly up the stoop and in. Suddenly she had the feeling that she used to have when she had left the tense concentrated glare of the footlights and passed into the relief of the shadowy wings. The smiles fled from her lips, the nervous provocative mask dropped away. She felt a mortal heaviness of accomplishment. She had lasted through the afternoon; she had not betrayed herself. Half-way up the second flight, she sat down abruptly, exhausted; then, straining every nerve in her body, she reached the haven of her room, as a spent swimmer battling for the shore.
Then a new trial. From behind her door came the sound of voices. Again she took up her mask. The next moment Winona had sprung to her, embracing her feverishly, crying: