Gloria looked at her. She beheld an ungirlish frump of a thing with a lank but bulgy figure misclothed in woefully inappropriate garments, a muddy complexion, a sagging mouth, a drooping chin, a mass of deranged hair, and big, deep-gray, lusterless eyes, which implored her. The older woman considered and marveled.
“My dear child,” she said gently, “are you sure it isn’t some man?”
“I don’t care a darn for any man in the world,” returned the other with convincing promptitude. “It isn’t that. It’s just that I’m not—I don’t—” Her courage seemed to ebb out, but she gained command of herself and continued plaintively: “All I want is to be in the game as other girls play it—to have a little attention and maybe a box of candy or some flowers once in a while: not to have men look past me like a tree. It isn’t much to ask, is it? If you knew how tired I am of being just plain nobody! There’s a—a somebody inside here”—she thumped her narrow, ribby chest—“but I can’t get it out.” Rising lumpily to her feet, she stretched out hands of piteous and grotesque appeal. “Please, Gloria,” she prayed in a dwindling and saintly voice, “I want to raise just a little teeny bit of hell before I die.”
A flash of sympathy and comprehension from the actress’s intent face answered this noble aspiration. “Why, you’re real, aren’t you!” she exclaimed.
“Did you think I wasn’t even that?” returned the other reproachfully.
“Not so many people are. It’s something, anyway. Are you going to be honest, as well?”
“How, honest?”
“With me. Are you going to be frank?”
“Of course.”
“Then tell me what started you on this.”