The blonde lady bent her head closer. Closer still.
When she raised her face to those other faces crowded near, her
eyes were round with surprise.
"'S far's I can make out, she says her name's Mamie, and she's
from Cuba. Well, wouldn't that eat you! I always thought they was
dark complected."
VII
THE LEADING LADY
The leading lady lay on her bed and wept.
Not as you have seen leading ladies weep, becomingly, with
eyebrows pathetically V-shaped, mouth quivering, sequined bosom
heaving. The leading lady lay on her bed in a red-and-blue-striped
kimono and wept as a woman weeps, her head burrowing into the
depths of the lumpy hotel pillow, her teeth biting the pillow-case
to choke back the sounds so that the grouch in the next room might
not hear.
Presently the leading lady's right hand began to grope about
on the bedspread for her handkerchief. Failing to find it, she sat
up wearily, raising herself on one elbow and pushing her hair back
from her forehead--not as you have seen a leading lady pass a lily
hand across her alabaster brow, but as a heart-sick woman does it.
Her tears and sniffles had formed a little oasis of moisture on the
pillow's white bosom so that the ugly stripe of the ticking showed
through. She gazed down at the damp circle with smarting, swollen
eyes, and another lump came up into her throat.
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