"'Hot stuff,' said the man. 'It makes your coppers sizzle.'
"The criticism delighted Vhruebert. 'Miss Gross, you make our goppers sizzle,' he exclaimed, and then ordered wine and told me to be at his studio to-morrow at eleven. That was the real winning," Selma Cross concluded. "To-night I put the crown on it."
Paula invariably felt the fling of emotions when Selma Cross was near. The latter seemed now to have found her perfect dream; certainly there was fresh coloring and poise in her words and actions. It was inspiriting for Paula to think of Selma Cross and Stephen Cabot having been accepted by the hard-headed Vhruebert—that such a pair could eat his bread and drink his wine with merry hearts. It was more than inspiriting for her to think of this vibrant heart covering and mothering the physically unfortunate. Paula asked, as only a woman could, the question uppermost in both minds.
"Love me?" Selma whispered. "I don't know, dear. I know we love to be together. I know that I love him. I know that he would not ask me to take for a husband—a broken vessel——"
"But you can make him know that—to you—he is not a broken vessel!... Oh, that would mean so little to me!"
"Yes, but I should have to tell him—of old Villiers—and the other!... Oh, God, he is white fire! He is not the kind who could understand that!... I thought I could do anything, I said, 'I am case-hardened. Nothing can make me suffer!... I will go my way,—and no man, no power, earthly or occult, can make me alter that way,' but Stephen Cabot has done it. I would rather win for him to-night, than be called the foremost living tragedienne.... I think he loves me, but there is the price I paid—and I didn't need to pay it, for I had already risen out of the depths. That was vanity. I needed no angel. I didn't care until I met Stephen Cabot!"
"I think—I think, if I were Stephen Cabot, I could forgive that," Paula said slowly. She wondered at herself for these words when she was alone, and the little place of books was no longer energized by the other's presence.
Selma started up from the lounge, stretched her great arm half across the room and clutched Paula's hand. There was a soft grateful glow in the big yellow eyes. "Do you know that means something—from a woman like you? Always I shall remember that—as a fine thing from my one fine woman. Mostly, they have hated me—what you call—our sisters."
"You are a different woman—you're all brightened, since you met Stephen Cabot. I feel this," Paula declared.
"Even if all smoothed out here, there is still the old covenant in Kentucky," Selma said, after a moment, and sprang to her feet, shaking herself full-length.