Page:Claire Ambler (1928).djvu/153

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have knelt gracefully, and that even with the man she loved she could not evade her damnable artist's stage directions.

"I'm terrible!" she moaned to herself; and looked in the mirror. "But maybe it's because of that."

She meant her extraordinary prettiness. Perhaps her duality was caused by her comeliness—girls born to be pretty might be doomed for that very reason, to behave picturesquely. "Ah! If he knew me as I really am," she thought, "he wouldn't care for me; he'd be horrified instead." Then she had a brightening idea. "Probably every other good-looking girl in the world has these same two natures." And now she smiled to the glass. "Except the stupid ones!"

She was not really despondent; she was excited, and happily so. Moreover, in her thought, "If he knew me as I really am he wouldn't care for me," there was a significant assumption, although she did not pause to make it more definite. Nevertheless, it was therein contained: "Not knowing me, he does care for me!"

Yet she had said to him: "You've looked me well over and you've decided I'm a fool!" She had wept when he touched her with his hand, so pitiably thin; but the tears that filled her eyes then were already in