She stood before the mirror. It seemed to her that her color was slowly returning. She slapped her cheeks to hasten it. Her thoughts were in a strange confusion. Just as she had been doing all night, she tried again to visualize her memories of those hard busy days of working out the Nature film, tried to build out of what she could faintly, brokenly piece together the picture as she had now seen it, a complete created thing. But it was a jumble; it always went back to a bit of this experience and a bit of that. She tried to believe that the stirring, confident, splendid young creature on the screen was herself.... She pressed her palms against her temples. She could have cried out.
It was a relief to fall into one, then another of the old exercises preliminary to the dance. She went at these hard, until she could feel the warm blood tingling in her finger tips. Then she tried out that difficult Russian step. It did not come easily. There was effort in it. And her balance was not good. Then, too, the room was too small.
After a moment's hesitation she ran down-stairs, shut herself into the parlor, moved the furniture back against the walls, went methodically to work.
Outside, a little later, the human materials for a romantic comedy were swiftly converging on her She did not know it. She did not once glance out the window. She heard nothing but the patter of her own light steps, the rustle of her silken costume, the clinking of the metals in the heels of the red boots that was meant to suggest the jingle of spurs.
Mrs. Wilde did have one of her headaches. She came home from Sunday-school with the children, leaving Aunt Matilda to uphold the good name of the household by remaining alone for church.
When the tall woman and the two little girls—the girls demure, the woman gloomy in her depth of sorrow—turned in at the front walk, a tall young man, in a baggy old gray suit, with a trick of throwing his right leg out and around as he walked and toeing in with the right foot, was rounding the corner, rushing along with great strides. His brow was knit, his manner distrait but determined.
The parlor door opened. Mrs. Wilde stood there, speechless. The girls crowded forward, incredulous, eager, their eyes alight. Becky jumped up and down and clapped her small hands. Mrs. Wilde suppressed her with a slap. The child began to whimper.