(proba'ly at least forty or sixty or something) indicated that he might
have sense enough to be interested in other interesting persons.

An extraordinary change took place upon the surface of Florence Atwater:
all superciliousness and derision of the world vanished; her eyes opened
wide, and into them came a look at once far-away and intently fixed.
Also, a frown of concentration appeared upon her brow, and her lips
moved silently, but with rapidity, as if she repeated to herself
something of almost tragic import. Florence had recently read a
newspaper account of the earlier struggles of a now successful actress:
As a girl, this determined genius went about the streets repeating the
lines of various roles to herself--constantly rehearsing, in fact, upon
the public thoroughfares, so carried away was she by her intended
profession and so set upon becoming famous. This was what Florence was
doing now, except that she rehearsed no rôle in particular, and the
words formed by her lips were neither sequential nor consequential,
being, in fact, the following: "Oh, the darkness ... never, never,
never! ... you couldn't ... he wouldn't ... Ah, mother! ... Where the
river swings so slowly ... Ah, _no_!" Nevertheless, she was doing all
she could for the elderly stranger, and as they came closer,
encountered, and passed on, she had the definite impression that he did
indeed take her to be a struggling young actress who would some day be
famous--and then he might see her on a night of triumph and recognize
her as the girl he had passed on the street, that day, so long ago! But
by this time, the episode was concluded; the footsteps of him for whom
she was performing had become inaudible behind her, and she began to
forget him; which was as well, since he went out of her life then, and
the two never met again. The struggling young actress disappeared, and
the previous superiority was resumed. It became elaborately emphasized
as a boy of her own age emerged from the "side yard" of a house at the