ills, with a little laugh, "found
this one in a book. It was a woman who said that of herself. A woman
far from common, who died some few years ago. She was an actress. A
great artist."

"A great! . . . Lucky person! She had that refuge, that garment, while I
stand here with nothing to protect me from evil fame; a naked temperament
for any wind to blow upon. Yes, greatness in art is a protection. I
wonder if there would have been anything in me if I had tried? But Henry
Allegre would never let me try. He told me that whatever I could achieve
would never be good enough for what I was. The perfection of flattery!
Was it that he thought I had not talent of any sort? It's possible. He
would know. I've had the idea since that he was jealous. He wasn't
jealous of mankind any more than he was afraid of thieves for his
collection; but he may have been jealous of what he could see in me, of
some passion that could be aroused. But if so he never repented. I
shall never forget his last words. He saw me standing beside his bed,
defenceless, symbolic and forlorn, and all he found to say was, 'Well, I
am like that.'"

I forgot myself in watching her. I had never seen anybody speak with
less play of facial muscles. In the fullness of its life her face
preserved a sort of immobility. The words seemed to form themselves,
fiery or pathetic, in the air, outside her lips. Their design was hardly
disturbed; a design of sweetness, gravity, and force as if born from the
inspiration of some artist; for I had never seen anything to come up to
it in nature before or since.

All this was part of the enchantment she cast over me; and I seemed to
notice that Mills had the aspect of a man under a spell. If he too was a
captive then I had no reason to feel ashamed of my surrender.

"And you know," she began again abruptly, "that I have been accustomed to
all the forms of respect."

"That's true," murmured Mills, as if involuntarily.

"Well, yes," she reaffirmed. "My instinct may have told me that my only
protection was obscurity, but I didn't know how and where to find it.
Oh, yes, I had that instinct . . . But there were other instincts and
. . . How am I to tell you? I didn't know how to be on guard against myself,
either. Not a soul to speak to, or to get a warning from. Some woman
soul that would have known, in which perhaps I could have seen my own
reflection. I assure you the only woman that ever addressed me di