Kneeling before the one small trunk which held her worldly possessions,
she opened it, drew out a flask, and mixed a glass of some ardent
cordial, which she seemed to enjoy extremely as she sat on the carpet,
musing, while her quick eyes examined every corner of the room.
"Not bad! It will be a good field for me to work in, and the harder the
task the better I shall like it. Merci, old friend. You put heart and
courage into me when nothing else will. Come, the curtain is down, so I
may be myself for a few hours, if actresses ever are themselves."
Still sitting on the floor she unbound and removed the long abundant
braids from her head, wiped the pink from her face, took out several
pearly teeth, and slipping off her dress appeared herself indeed, a
haggard, worn, and moody woman of thirty at least. The metamorphosis was
wonderful, but the disguise was more in the expression she assumed than
in any art of costume or false adornment. Now she was alone, and her
mobile features settled into their natural expression, weary, hard,
bitter. She had been lovely once, happy, innocent, and tender; but
nothing of all this remained to the gloomy woman who leaned there
brooding over some wrong, or loss, or disappointment which had darkened
all her life. For an hour she sat so, sometimes playing absently with
the scanty locks that hung about her face, sometimes lifting the glass
to her lips as if the fiery draught warmed her cold blood; and once she
half uncovered her breast to eye with a terrible glance the scar of a
newly healed wound. At last she rose and crept to bed, like one worn out
with weariness and mental pain.