The Rainbow's End
"Well, I am discovered--and lost." Julie, lazily making theannouncement after a long silence, shut her magazine with a sigh ofsleepy content; and braced herself more comfortably against the oldrowboat that was half buried in sand at her back. She turned as shespoke to smile at the woman near her, a frail, keen-faced littlewoman luxuriously settled in an invalid's wheeled chair."Ann--you know you're not interested in that book. Did you hear whatI said? I'm discovered.""Well, it was sure to happen, sooner or later, I suppose." Mrs.Arbuthnot, suddenly summoned from the pages of a novel brought hergaze promptly to the younger woman's face, with the pitifully alertinterest of the invalid. "You were bound to be recognized by someone, Ju!""Don't worry, a cannon wouldn't wake him!" said Julia, in referenceto Mrs. Arbuthnot's lowered voice, and the solicitous look the wifehad given a great opened beach umbrella three feet away, under whichDr. Arbuthnot slumbered on the warm sands. "He's forty fathoms deep.No," continued the actress, returning aggrievedly to her ownaffairs, "I suppose there's no such thing as escaping recognition--even as late in the season as this, and at such an out-of-the-wayplace. Of course, I knew," she continued crossly, "that variouspeople here had placed me, but I did rather hope to escape actualintroductions!""Who is it--some one you know?" Mrs. Arbuthnot adjusted the pillowat her back, and settled herself enjoyably for a talk."Indirectly; it's that little butterfly of a summer girl--the oneJim calls 'The Dancing Girl'--of all people in the world!" saidJulie, locking her arms comfortably behind her head. "You know howshe's been haunting me, Ann? She's been simply determined upon anintroduction ever since she placed me as her adored Miss Ives ofmatinee fame. I imagine she's rather a nice child--every evidence ofmoney--the ambitious type that longs to do something big--and isgiven to desperate hero worship. She's been under my feet for aweek, with a Faithful Tray expression that drives me crazy. I'vetaken great pains not to see her.""And now--?" prompted the other, as the actress fell silent, and satstaring dreamily at the brilliant sweep of beach and sea beforethem."Oh--now," Miss Ives took up her narrative briskly. "Well, a newyoung man arrived on the afternoon boat and, of course, the DancingGirl instantly captivated him. She has one simple yet direct methodwith them all," she interrupted herself to digress a little. "Shegets one of her earlier victims to introduce him; they all go downfor a swim, she fascinates him with her daring and her bobbing redcap, she returns to white linen and leads him down to play tennis--they have tea at the 'Casino,' and she promises him the second two-step and the first extra that evening. He is then hers to command,"concluded Julie, bringing her amused eyes back to Mrs. Arbuthnot'sface, "for the remainder of his stay!""That's exactly what she does do," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, laughing,"but I don't see yet--""Oh, I forgot to say," Miss Ives amended hastily, "that to-day'syoung man happens to be an acquaintance of mine; at least his uncleintroduced him to me at a tea last winter. She led him by to thetennis courts an hour ago, and, to my disgust, I recognized him.That's all Miss Dancing Girl wants. Now--you'll see! They'll come upto our table in the dining-room to-night, and to-morrow she'll bringup a group of dear friends and he'll bring up another--to beintroduced; and--there we'll be!""Oh, not so bad as that, Julie!""Oh, yes, indeed, Ann!" pursued Miss Ives with morose enjoyment."You don't know how helpless one is. I'll be annoyed to death forthe rest of the month, just so that the Dancing Girl can go back tothe city this winter and say, 'Oh, girls, Julia Ives was stayingwhere mamma and I were this summer, and she's just a dear! Shedoesn't make up one bit off the stage, and she dresses just asplain! I saw her every day and got some dandy snapshots. She's justa darling when you know her.'""Well! What an unspoiled modest little soul you are, Julie!"interrupted the doctor's admiring voice. He wheeled away theumbrella and, lying luxuriously on his elbows in the sun, beamed atthem both through his glasses."Jim," said the actress, severely, "it's positively indecent--thehabit you're getting of evesdropping on Ann and me!""It gives me sidelights on your characters," said the doctor, quitebrazenly."Ann--don't you call that disgraceful?""I certainly do, Ju," his wife agreed warmly. "But Jim has no senseof honor." Ann Arbuthnot, in the fifteen years of her married life,had never been able to keep a thrill of adoration out of her voicewhen she spoke, however jestingly, of her husband. It trembled therenow."Well, what's wrong, Julie? Some old admirer turn up?" asked thedoctor, sleepily content to follow any conversational lead, in theidle pleasantness of the hour."No--no!" she corrected him, "just some silly social complicationsahead--which I hate!""Be rude," suggested the doctor, pleasantly."Now, you know, I'd love that!" said Mrs. Arbuthnot, youthfully."I'd simply love to be followed and envied and adored!""No, you wouldn't, Ann!" Miss Ives assured her promptly. "You'd likeit, as I did, for a little while. And then the utter uselessness ofit would strike you. Especially from such little complacent, fluffywhirlings as that Dancing Girl!""Yes, and that's the kind of a girl I like," persisted the other,smiling."That's the kind of a girl you were, Ann, I've no doubt," said theactress, vivaciously, "only sweeter. I know she wore white rufflesand a velvet band on her hair, didn't she, Jim? And roses in herbelt?""She did," said the doctor, reminiscently. "I believe she flirted inher kindergarten days. She was always engaged to ride or dance orrow on the river with the other men--and always splitting herdances, and forgetting her promises, and wearing the rings and pinsof her adorers.""And the fun was, Ju," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, girlishly, with brightcolor in her cheeks, "that when Jim came there to give two lectures,you know, all the older girls were crazy about him--and he was tenyears older than I, you know, and I never dreamed--""Oh, you go to, Ann! You never dreamed!" said Miss Ives, lazily."Honestly, I didn't!" Mrs. Arbuthnot protested. "I remember mybrother Billy saying, 'Babs, you don't think Dr. Arbuthnot is cominghere to see me, do you?' and then it all came over me! Why, I wasonly eighteen.""And engaged to Billy's chum," said the doctor."Well," said the wife, naively, "he knew all along it wasn'tserious.""You must have been a rose," said Miss Ives, "and I would have hatedyou! Now, when I went to dances," she pursued half seriously, "I satin one place and smiled fixedly, and watched the other girls dance.Or I talked with great animation to the chaperons. Ann, I've feltsometimes that I would gladly die, to have the boys crowd around mejust once, and grab my card and scribble their names all over it. Ididn't dress very well, or dance very well--and I never could talkto boys." She began to trace a little watercourse in the sand withan exquisite finger tip. "I was the most unhappy girl on earth, Ithink! I felt every birthday was a separate insult--twenty, andtwenty-two, and twenty-four! We were poor, and life was--oh, notdramatic or big!--but just petty and sordid. I used to rage becausethe dining-room was the only place for the sewing-machine, and ragebecause my bedroom was really a back parlor. Well!--I joined atheatrical company--came away. And many a night, tired out anddiscouraged, I've cried myself to sleep because I'd never have anygirlhood again!"She stopped with a half-apologetic laugh. The doctor was watchingher with absorbed, bright eyes. Mrs. Arbuthnot, unable to imagineyouth without joy and beauty, protested:"Julie--I don't believe you--you're exaggerating! Do you mean youdidn't go on the stage until you were twenty-four!""I was twenty-six. I was leading lady my second season, and starredmy third," said the actress, without enthusiasm. "I was starred in'The Jack of Clubs.' It ran a season in New York and gave me mystart. Lud, how tired we all got of it!""And then I hope you went back home, Ju, and were lionized," saidthe other woman, vigorously."Oh, not then! No, I'd been meaning to go--and meaning to go--allthose three years. The little sisters used to write me--such forlornlittle lettersbut I couldn't manage it. Andthen--the very night 'Jack' played the three hundredth time, as ithappened--I had this long wire from Sally and Beth. Mother was veryill, wanted me--they'd meet a certain train, they were counting thehours--"Miss Ives demolished her watercourse with a single sweep of herpalm. There was a short silence."Well!" she said, breaking it. "Mother got well, as it happened, andI went home two months later. I had the guest room, I remember.Sally was everything to mother then, and I tried to feel glad. Bethwas engaged. Every one was very flattering and very kind in theintervals left by engagements and weddings and new babies and familygatherings. Then I came back to 'Jack,' and we went on the road. Andthen I broke down and a strange doctor in a strange hospital put metogether again," she went on with a flashing smile and a suddenchange of tone, "and his wholly adorable wife sent me double whiteviolets! And they--the Arbuthnots, not the violets--were the nicestthing that ever happened to me!""So that was the way of it?" said the doctor."That was the way of it.""And as the Duchess would say, the moral of that is--?""The moral is for me. Or else it's for little dancing girls, I don'tknow which." Miss Ives wiped her eyes openly and, restoring herhandkerchief to its place, announced that she perceived she had beentalking too much.Presently the Dancing Girl came down from the tennis-court, with herdevoted new captive in tow. The captive, a fat, amiable-lookingyouth, was warm and wilted, but the girl was fresh and buoyant asever. They heard her allude to the "second two-step" and somethingwas said of the "supper dance," but her laughing voice stopped asshe and her escort came nearer the actress, and she gave Julie herusual look of mute adoration. The boy, flushing youthfully, liftedhis hat, and Julie bowed briefly.They were lingering over their coffee two hours later, when thenewly arrived young man made the expected move. He threaded thetables between his own and the doctor's carefully, the eager DancingGirl in his wake."I don't know whether you remember me, Miss Ives--?" he began, whenhe could extend a hand.Julie turned her splendid, unsmiling eyes toward him."Mr. Polk. How do you do? Yes, indeed, I remember you," she said,unenthusiastically. "How is Mr. Gilbert?""Uncle John? Oh, he's fine!" said young Polk, rapturously. "I wonderwhy he didn't tell me you were spending the summer here I""I don't tell any one," said Julie, simply. "My winters are socrowded that I try to get away from people in the summer.""Oh!" said the boy, a little blankly. There was an instant's pausebefore he added rather uncomfortably:"Miss Ives--Miss Carter has been so anxious to meet you--""How do you do, Miss Carter?" said Julie, promptly, politely. Shegave her young adorer a ready hand. The usually poised Dancing Girlcould not recall at the moment one of the things she had planned tosay when this great moment came. But she thought of them all as shelay in bed that night, and the conviction that she had bungled thelong-wished-for interview made her burn from her heels to the lobesof her ears. What had she said? Something about having longed forthis opportunity, which the actress hadn't answered, and somethingabout her desperate admiration for Miss Ives, at which Miss Ives hadmerely smiled. Other things were said, or half said--the girlreviewed them mercilessly in the dark--and then the interview hadterminated, rather flatly. Marian Carter writhed at therecollection.But the morning brought courage. She passed Julie, who was freshfrom a plunge in the ocean, and briskly attacking a late breakfast,on her way from the dining-room."Good morning, Miss Ives! Isn't it a lovely morning?""Oh, good morning, Miss Carter. I beg pardon--?""I said, 'Isn't it a lovely morning?'""Oh--? Yes, quite delightful.""Miss Ives--but I'm interrupting you?"Julie gave her book a glance and raised her eyes expectantly to MissCarter's face, but did not speak."Miss Ives," said Miss Carter, a little confusedly, "mamma waswondering if you've taken the trip to Fletcher's Forest? We've ourmotor-car here, you know, and they serve a very good lunch at theInn.""Oh, thank you, no!" said Julie, positively. "Very good of you--butI'm with the Arbuthnots, you know. Thank you, no.""I hoped you would," said Miss Carter, disappointed. "I know you usea motor in town," she answered daringly. "You see I know all aboutyou!"Miss Ives paid to this confession only the small tribute of raisedeyebrows and an absent smile. She was quite at her ease, but in thelittle silence that followed Miss Carter had time to feel baffled--in the way. "Here is Mrs. Arbuthnot," she said in relief, as Anncame slowly in on the doctor's arm. Before they reached the tablethe girl had slipped away.That afternoon she asked Miss Ives, pausing beside the basking groupon the sands to do so, if she would have tea informally with mammaand a few friends. Oh--thank you, Miss Ives couldn't, to-day. Thankyou. The next day Miss Carter wondered if Miss Ives would like tospin out to the Point to see the sunset? No, thank you so much. MissIves was just going in. Another day brought a request for MissIves's company at dinner, with just mamma and Mr. Polk and theDancing Girl herself. Declined. A fourth day found Miss Carter,camera in hand, smilingly confronting the actress as she came out onthe porch."Will you be very cross if I ask you to stand still just a moment,Miss Ives?" asked the Dancing Girl."Oh, I'm afraid I will," said Julie, annoyed. "I don't like to bephotographed!" But she was rather disarmed at the speed with whichMiss Carter shut up her little camera."I know I bother you," said the girl, with a wistful sincerity thatwas most becoming and with a heightened color, "but--but I justcan't seem to help it!" She walked down the steps beside Julie,laughing almost with vexation at her own weakness. "I've alwaysadmired so--the people who do things! I've always wanted to dosomething myself," said Miss Carter, awkwardly. "You don't know howunhappy it makes me. You don't know how I'd love to do something foryou!""You can, you can let me off being photographed, like a sweetchild!" said Julie, lightly. But twenty minutes later when, verytrim and dainty in her blue bathing suit and scarlet cap, she cameout of the bath-house to join Ann and the doctor on the beach, shereproached herself. She might have met the stammered littleconfidence with something warmer than a jesting word, she thoughtwith a little shame."You're not going in again!" protested Ann. "Oh, chil-dren!""I am," said Miss Ives, buoyantly. "I don't know about Jim. AtJim's age every step counts, I suppose. These fashionable doctorshabitually overeat and oversleep, I understand, and it makes themlazy.""I am going in, Ann," said the doctor, with dignity, rising from thesand and pointedly addressing his wife. A few moments later he andJulie joyously breasted the sleepy roll of the low breakers, andpushed their way steadily through the smoother water beyond."Oh, that was glorious, Jim!" gasped the actress, as they gained theraft that was always their goal and pulling herself up to sit siren-wise upon it. She was breathless, radiant, bubbling with the joy ofsun and air and green water. She took off her cap and let thesunlight beat on her loosened braids."How you love the water, Julie!""Yes--best of all. I'm never so satisfied as when I'm in it!""You never look so happy as when you are," he said."Oh, these are happy days!" said Julie. "I wish they could lastforever. Just resting and playing--wouldn't you like a year of it,Jim?"The doctor eyed her quietly."I don't know that I would," he said seriously, impersonally.There was a little silence. Then the girl began to pin up her braidswith fingers that trembled a little."Ann's waving!" she said presently, and the doctor caught up herscarlet cap to signal back to the far blur on the beach that wasAnn. He watched the tiny distant groups a moment."Here comes your admirer!" said he."Where?" Julie was ready at once to slip into the water."Oh--finish your hair--take your time! She's just in the breakers.We'll be off long before she gets here.""That reminds me, Jim," Miss Ives was quite herself again, "thatwhen I was in the bath-house a few moments ago your Dancing Girl andthat pretty little girl who is visiting her came into the next room.You know how flimsy the walls are? I could hear every word theysaid.""If you'd been a character in a story, Ju, you'd have felt it yourduty to cough!""Well, I didn't," grinned Miss Ives; "not that I wanted to hear whatthey were saying. I didn't even know who they were until I heardlittle Miss Carter say solemnly, 'Ethel, I used to want mamma to getthat Forty-eighth Street house, and I used to want to do Europe, butI think if I had one wish now, it would be to do something thatwould make everybody know me--and everybody talk about me. I'd loveto be pointed out wherever I went. I'd love to have people stare atme. I'd like to be just as popular and just as famous as JuliaIves!'""She has got it badly, Ju!" the doctor observed."She has. And it will be fuel on the flames to have me start to swimback to shore while she is swimming as hard as she can to the raft!"said the lady, tucking the last escaping lock under her cap andspringing up for the plunge that started the home trip.It was only a little after midnight that night when Julie, lyingwakeful in the sultry summer darkness, was startled by a person inher room."It's Emma, Miss Ives," said Mrs. Arbuthnot's maid, stumbling about,"Mrs. Arbuthnot wants you.""She's ill!" Julie felt rather than said the words, instantly alertand alarmed, and reaching for her wrapper and slippers."No, ma'am. But the doctor feels like he ought to go down to thefire, and she's nervous--""The fire?""Yes'm," said Emma, simply, "the windmill is afire!""And I sleeping through it all!" Miss Ives was still bewildered,fastening the sash of her cobwebby black Mandarin robe as shefollowed Emma through the passage that joined her suite to theArbuthnots'."Ann, dear--Emma tells me the laundry's on fire?" said she, enteringthe big room. "I had no idea of it!""Nor had we," the doctor's wife rejoined eagerly. "The first we knewwas from Emma. Jim says there's no danger. Do you think there is?""Certainly not, Ann!" Julie laughed. "I'll tell you what we can do,"she added briskly. "We'll wheel you down the hall here to thewindow; you can get a splendid view of the whole thing."The doctor approving, the ladies took up their station at a widehall window that commanded the whole scene.Outside the velvet blackness and silence of the night wereshattered. The great mill, ugly tongues of flame bursting from thedoor and windows at its base, was the centre of a talking, shouting,shrill-voiced crowd that was momentarily, in the mysterious fashionof crowds, gathering size."Wonderful sight, isn't it, Ann?""Wonderful. Does this cut off our water supply, Emma?""No, Mrs. Arbuthnot. They're using the little mill for the enginesnow.""What did they use the big mill for, Emma?""The laundry, Miss Ives. And there's a sort of flat on the secondfloor where the laundry woman and her husband--he's the man thatdrives the 'bus--live.""Good heavens!" said Ann. "I hope they got out!""Oh, sure," said the maid, comfortably. "It was all of an hour agothe fire started. They had lots of time."The three watched for a while in silence. Ann's eyes began to droopfrom the bright monotony of the flames."I believe I'll wait until the tank falls, Ju? and then go back tomy comfortable bed--Julie, what is it--!"Her voice rose, keen with terror. The actress, her hand on herheart, shook her head without turning her eyes from the mill.For suddenly above the other clamor there had risen one horriblescream, and now, following it, there was almost a silence."Why--what on earth--" panted Miss Ives, looking to Mrs. Arbuthnotfor explanation after an endless interval in which neither stirred.But again they were interrupted, this time by such an outbreak ofshouting and cries from the watching crowd about the mill as madethe night fairly ring.A moment later the entire top of the mill collapsed, sending a gushof sparks far up into the night. Then at last the faithfully playedhoses began to gain control."Do run down and find out what the shouting was, Emma," said Julie.Emma gladly obeyed."She'd come back, if anything had happened," said Julie, some tenminutes later."Who--Emma?" Mrs. Arbuthnot was not alarmed. "Oh, surely!" sheyawned, and drew her wraps about her."It's all over now. But I suppose it will burn for hours. I thinkI'll turn in again," she said."I've had enough, too!" Julie said, not quite easy herself, but gladto find the other so. "Let's decamp."She wheeled the invalid carefully back to her room, where both womenwere still talking when a bell-boy knocked, bringing a message fromthe doctor. A woman had been hurt; he would be busy with her for anhour."Who was it?" Julie asked him, but the boy, obviously frantic toreturn to the fascinations of the fire, didn't know.It was more than an hour later that the doctor came in. Julie hadbeen reading to Ann. She shut the book."Jim! What on earth has kept you so long?""Frighten you, dear?" The doctor was very pale; he looked, betweenthe dirt and disorder of his clothes, and the anxiety of his face,like an old man."Some one was hurt?" flashed Julie, solicitous at once."Has no one told you about it?" he wondered. "Lord! I should thinkit would be all over the place by this time!"He dropped into an easy chair, and sank his head wearily into hishands."Lord--Lord--Lord!" he muttered. Then he looked up at his wife withthe smile that never failed her."Jim--no one was killed?""Oh, no, dear! No, I'll tell you." He came over and sat beside heron the bed, patting her hand. The two women watched him with tense,absorbed faces."When I got there," said the doctor, slowly, "there was quite acrowd--the lower story of the mill was all aflame--and the firemenwere keeping the people back. They'd a ladder up at the second storyand firemen were pitching things out of the windows as fast as theycould--chairs, rugs, pillows, and so on. Finally the last man cameout, smoke coming after him--it was quick work! Now, remember, dear,no one was killed--"he stopped to pat his wife's hand reassuringly."Well, just then, at the third-story windows--it seems the laundresshas children--""Children!" gasped Miss Ives. "Oh, no!""Yes, four of 'em--the oldest a little fellow of ten, had the babyin his arms--." The doctor stopped."Go on, Jim!""Well, they put the ladder back again, but the sill was aflame then.No use! Just then the mother and father--poor souls--arrived. They'dbeen at a dance in the village. The woman screamed--""We heard.""Ah? The man had to be held, poor fellow! It was--it was--" Againthe doctor stopped, unable to go on. But after a few seconds hebegan more briskly: "Well! The mill was connected with this house,you know, by a little bridge, from the tank floor of the mill to theroof. No one had thought of it, because every one supposed thatthere was no one in the mill. Before the crowd had fairly seen thatthere were children caged up there, they left the window, and not aminute later we saw them come up the trap-door by the tank. Lord,how every one yelled.""They'd thought of it, the darlings!" half sobbed Mrs. Arbuthnot."No, they'd never have thought of it--too terrified, poor littlethings. No. We all saw that there was some one--a woman--with themhurrying them along. I was helping hold the mother or I might havethought it was the mother. They scampered across that bridge likelittle squirrels, the woman with the baby last. By that time themill was roaring like a furnace behind them, and the bridge itselfburst into flames at the mill end. She--the woman--must have felt ittottering, for she flung herself the last few feet--but she couldn'tmake it. She threw the baby, by some lucky accident, for shecouldn't have known what she was doing, safe to the others, andcaught at the rail, but the whole thing gave way and came down.... Igot there about the first--she'd only fallen some dozen feet, youknow, on the flat roof of the kitchen, but she was all smashed up,poor little girl. We carried her into the housekeeper's room--andthen I saw that it was little Miss Carter--your Dancing Girl, Ju!""Jim! Dead?""Oh, no! I don't think she'll die. She's badly burned, of course--face and hands especially--but it's the spine I'm afraid for. We cantell better to-morrow. We made her as comfortable as we could. Igave her something that'll make her sleep. Her mother's with her.But I'm afraid her dancing days are over.""Think of it--little Miss Carter!" Julie's voice sounded dazed."But, Jim," Ann said, "what was she doing in the mill?""Why, that's the point," he said. "She wasn't there when the firestarted. She was simply one of the crowd. But when she heard thatthe children were there, she ran to the back of the mill, wherethere was a straight up-and-down ladder built against the walloutside, so that the tank could be reached that way. She went up itlike a flash--says she never thought of asking any one else to go.She broke a window and climbed in--she says the floor was hot to herfeet then--and she and the kids ran up the inside flight to thetrap-door. They obeyed her like little soldiers! But the bridge sideof the mill was the side the fire was on, and the wood was rotten,you know--almost explosive. Half a minute later and they couldn'thave made it at all.""How do you account for such courage in a girl like that?" marvelledJulie."I don't know," he said. "Take it all in all, it was the mostextraordinary thing I ever saw. Apparently she never for one secondthought of herself. She simply ran straight into that hideousdanger--while the rest of us could do nothing but put our hands overour eyes and pray.""But she'll live, Jim?" the actress asked, and as he nodded athoughtful affirmative, she added: "That's something to be thankfulfor, at least!""Don't be too sure it is," said Ann.Ten days later Miss Ives came cheerfully into the sunny, big roomwhere Marian Carter lay. Bandaged, and strapped, and bound, it was asorry little Dancing Girl who turned her serious eyes to theactress's face. But Julie could be irresistible when she chose, andshe chose to be her most fascinating self to-day. Almost reluctantlyat first, later with something of her old gayety, the Dancing Girl'slaugh rang out. It stirred Julie's heart curiously to hear it, andmade the little patient's mother, listening in the next room, breaksilently into tears."But this is what I really came to bring you," said the actress,presently, laying a score or more of newspaper clippings on the bed."You see you are famous! I had my press-agent watch for these, andthey're coming in at a great rate every mail. You see, here's anattering likeness of you in a New York daily, and here you areagain, in a Chicago paper!""Those aren't of me," said Marian, smiling."It says they are," Julie said. "One says you are petite and dark,and the other that you are a blond Gibson type. You wouldn't havebelieved that your wish could come true so quickly, would you, justthe other day?""My wish?" stammered the girl."Yes. Don't you remember saying that you wished you could dosomething big?" pursued Julie. "You've done a thing that makes therest of us feel pretty small, you know. Why, while there was anyquestion of your getting better, there wasn't a dance given at anyof the hotels between here and Surf Point, and all sorts of peoplecame here with inquiries every day. This place was absolutelyhushed. The maids used to fight for the privilege of carrying yourtrays up. None of us thought of anything but 'How is Miss Carter?'And you'll be 'The young lady who saved those children from thefire' for the rest of your life wherever you go!"Miss Carter was watching her gravely."You say I got my wish," she said now, her blue eyes brimming withslow tears, and her lips trembling. "But--but--you see how I am,Miss Ives! Dr. Arbuthnot says I may be able to walk in a month ortwo, but no swimming or riding or dancing for years--perhaps never.And my face--it'll always be scarred."Julie laid a gentle hand on the little helpless fingers."But that's part of the process, you know, little girl," said theactress after a little silence. "I pay one way, perhaps, and you payanother, but we both pay. Don't you suppose," a smile broke throughthe seriousness of her face, "don't you suppose I have my scars,too?"Marian dried her eyes. "Scars?""When you are pointed out--as you will be, wherever you go--" saidJulie, "you'll think to yourself, 'Ah, yes, this is very lovely andvery flattering, but I'll never dance again--I'll never rush intothe waves again, I'll never spend a whole morning on the tenniscourt,' won't you?"The Dancing Girl nodded, her eyes filling again, her lips trembling."And when people stare after me and follow me," said Julie, "I thinkto myself--'Oh, this is very flattering, very delightful--but theyoung years are gone--the mother who missed me and longed for me isgone--the little sisters are married, and deep in happy familycares--they don't need me any more.' I have what I wanted, but I'vepaid the price! In a life like mine there's no room for the normal,wonderful ties of a home and children. Never--" she put her headback against her chair and shut her eyes--"never that happiness forme!" She finished, her voice lowered and carefully controlled.They were both silent awhile. Then Marian stirred her helplessfingers just enough to deepen their light pressure on Julie's own."Thank you," she said shyly. "I see now. I think I begin tounderstand."
zpostcode
Recruit
weather
mreligion
Yellowpages
sport
constellation
shopping
name
game
directory
literature
Word
tour
furnish
Lottery
tftnews
lyrics
News
digital
car
dir
Edu
Finance
