In this manner she outlined a playful scenario for her next
interview with Arthur Russell; but grew solemn again, thinking of
the impression she had already sought to give him. She had no
twinges for any underminings of her "most intimate friend"--in
fact, she felt that her work on a new portrait of Mildred for Mr.
Russell had been honest and accurate. But why had it been her
instinct to show him an Alice Adams who didn't exist?

Almost everything she had said to him was upon spontaneous
impulse, springing to her lips on the instant; yet it all seemed
to have been founded upon a careful design, as if some hidden
self kept such designs in stock and handed them up to her,
ready-made, to be used for its own purpose. What appeared to be
the desired result was a false-coloured image in Russell's mind;
but if he liked that image he wouldn't be liking Alice Adams; nor
would anything he thought about the image be a thought about her.

Nevertheless, she knew she would go on with her false, fancy
colourings of this nothing as soon as she saw him again; she had
just been practicing them. "What's the idea?" she wondered.
"What makes me tell such lies? Why shouldn't I be just myself?"
And then she thought, "But which one is myself?"

Her eyes dwelt on the solemn eyes in the mirror; and her lips,
disquieted by a deepening wonder, parted to whisper:

"Who in the world are you?"

The apparition before her had obeyed her like an alert slave, but
now, as she subsided to a complete stillness, that aspect changed