“Me!”
“You, your own little, lone self, and no one else in the whole big, round world,” declared the actress with electrifying vigor. “Thou art the woman.”
“What must I do? How do I do it? What do I need?” cried Darcy in a breath.
“Grit.”
“Is that all?”
“All? No; it isn’t all. It’s just a beginning. But if you think it’s an easy one you don’t know what the word means yet.”
“Pooh!” retorted Darcy with another glance at the magic glass. “I’d cheerfully stand still and be stuck full of red-hot pins and needles, if it would make me look like that. I’ll furnish the grit,” she added confidently, “if you’ll show me how to do the rest.”
There came a gleam into her mentor’s eye that the girl missed. “Very well,” said Gloria. “Allowing that, let’s make a start. Of all your little ambitions which one would you like to have fulfilled first?”
The girl pondered. “Dress,” she decided presently. “I want to have beautiful, thrilling clothes, like a princess.”
“The one princess of my acquaintance,” observed Gloria, “looks as though she dressed herself backwards out of a mail-order catalogue. But that’s beside the question. Clothes cost money. How much money have you got?” Darcy clasped her hands. “I’m rich,” she announced triumphantly.