"Stark, staring mad. You bewail that you are at the foot of the ladder,
and at the same instant you stipulate that I shall lift you at a bound
to the top. Either you are a lunatic, or you are an amateur."

She, too, rose--resigned to her dismissal, it seemed. Then, suddenly,
with a gesture that was a veritable abandonment of despair, she
laughed.

"That's it, I am an amateur!" she rejoined passionately. "I will tell
you the kind of 'amateur' I am, monsieur de Varenne! I was learning my
business in a fit-up when I was six years old--yes, I was playing parts
on the road when happier children were playing games in nurseries. I
was thrust on for lead when I was a gawk of fifteen, and had to wrestle
with half a dozen roles in a week, and was beaten if I failed to make
my points. I have supered to stars, not to earn the few francs I got
by it, for by that time the fit-ups paid me better, but that I might
observe, and improve my method. I have waited in the rain, for hours,
at the doors of the milliners and modistes, that I might note how great
ladies stepped from their carriages and spoke to their footmen--and when
I snatched a lesson from their aristocratic tones I was in heaven, though
my feet ached and the rain soaked my wretched clothes. I have played good
women and bad women, beggars and queens, ingenues and hags. I was born
and bred on the stage, have suffered and starved on it. It is my life and
my destiny." She sobbed. "An 'amateur'!"

I could not let her go like that. She interested me strongly; somehow I
believed in her. I strode to and fro, considering.

"Sit down again," I said. "I will do this for you: I will go to the
country to see your performance. When is your next show?"