n and
motors, and admiration and yachting and Paris--why, Paris alone would be
enough!--And how do you suppose a girl can see that sort of thing about
her day after day, and never wonder why some women, who don't seem to
have any more right to it, have it all tumbled into their laps, while
others are writing dinner invitations, and straightening out accounts,
and copying visiting lists, and finishing golf-stockings, and matching
ribbons, and seeing that the dogs get their sulphur? One looks in one's
glass, after all!"

She launched the closing words at him on a cry that lifted them above
the petulance of vanity; but his sense of her words was lost in the
surprise of her face. Under the flying clouds of her excitement it was
no longer a shallow flower-cup but a darkening gleaming mirror that
might give back strange depths of feeling. The girl had stuff in her--he
saw it; and she seemed to catch the perception in his eyes.

"That's the kind of education I got at Mrs. Murrett's--and I never had
any other," she said with a shrug.

"Good Lord--were you there so long?"

"Five years. I stuck it out longer than any of the others." She spoke as
though it were something to be proud of.

"Well, thank God you're out of it now!"

Again a just perceptible shadow crossed her face. "Yes--I'm out of it
now fast enough."

"And what--if I may ask--are you doing next?"

She brooded a moment behind drooped lids; then, with a touch of hauteur:
"I'm going to Paris: to study for the stage."

"The stage?" Darrow stared at her, dismayed. All his confused
contradictory impressions assumed a new aspect at this announcement; and
to hide his surprise he added lightly: "Ah--then you will have Paris,
after all!"

"Hardly Lady Ulrica's Paris. It s not likely to be roses, roses all the
way."

"It's not, indeed." Real compassion prompted him to continue: "Have you
any--any influence you can count on?"

She gave a somewhat flippant little laugh. "None but my own. I've never
had any other to count on."

He passed over the obvious reply. "But have you any idea how the
profession is over-crowded? I know I'm trite----"

"I've a very clear idea. But I couldn't go on as I was."

"Of course not. But since, as you say, you'd stuck it out longer than
any of the others, couldn't you at least have held on till you were sure
of some kind of an opening?"

She made no reply for a moment; then she turned a listless glance to the
rain-beaten window.