"It's impossible to please you, so I'll say good-night," and
Christie went to her room with resentment burning hotly in her
heart.

As she crossed the chamber her eye fell on her own figure reflected
in the long glass, and with a sudden impulse she tinned up the gas,
wiped the rouge from her cheeks, pushed back her hair, and studied
her own face intently for several moments. It was pale and jaded
now, and all its freshness seemed gone; hard lines had come about
the mouth, a feverish disquiet filled the eyes, and on the forehead
seemed to lie the shadow of a discontent that saddened the whole
face. If one could believe the testimony of that countenance things
were not going well with Christie, and she owned it with a regretful
sigh, as she asked herself, "Am I what I hoped I should be? No, and
it is my fault. If three years of this life have made me this, what
shall I be in ten? A fine actress perhaps, but how good a woman?"

With gloomy eyes fixed on her altered face she stood a moment
struggling with herself. Then the hard look returned, and she spoke
out defiantly, as if in answer to some warning voice within herself.
"No one cares what I am, so why care myself? Why not go on and get
as much fame as I can? Success gives me power if it cannot give me
happiness, and I must have some reward for my hard work. Yes! a gay
life and a short one, then out with the lights and down with the
curtain!"

But in spite of her reckless words Christie sobbed herself to sleep
that night like a child who knows it is astray, yet cannot see the
right path or hear its mother's voice calling it home.