"I was just eight years old, and I was half dead with starvation."
Her hands closed suddenly on the arms of her chair, and she lifted
herself upright. I went on:--
"I was alone--the rain was falling." (She drew her great fur cloak
closely about her.) "The night was coming on--and--and--I
begged--_openly_--LOUDLY--as only a hungry child can beg."
She sat back in her seat with a pale, frowning face; while within the
perfumed furry warmth of her cloak she shivered so that the diamonds at
her ears sent out innumerable tiny spears of colour.
The act went on to its close; her attention never flagged. When I
responded to a call before the curtain, she gravely handed me her bunch
of roses.
A few moments later, by a happy accident, I was presented to her; when
with that touch of bitterness that so often crept into her voice she
said:--
"You hold your glass too steadily and at too true an angle to quite
please me."
"I do not understand," I answered.
She smiled, her radiantly lovely smile, then with just a suspicion of a
sneer replied, "Oh, yes, I think you do; at all events, I do not find it
amusing to be called upon to look at too perfect a reflection of my own
childhood."