“Yes,” she answered.

“Well,” he said, with the same deliberation of tone, “I suppose you have not come to me for advice, since you have, acted so far for yourself.  If I were to give you advice, however, it would be to break your promise as soon as you decently can, both for his sake and for your own.”

“I thought you would say so,” she said, with a sort of desperate mirth.  “I came to have all my wretchedness heaped on me at once.  It is a very pleasing sensation.  I wonder if I could express it on the stage.  That would be making use of my new experiences—­as you have taught me—­”

But here she burst into tears; and then got up and walked impatiently about the room; and finally dried her eyes, with shame and mortification visible on her face.

“What have you to say to me, papa?  I am a fool to mind what a schoolgirl says.”

“I don’t know that I have anything to say,” he observed, calmly.  “You know your own feelings best.”

And then he regarded her attentively.

“I suppose when you marry you will give up the stage.”

“I suppose so,” she said, in a low voice.

“I should doubt,” he said, with quite a dispassionate air, “your being able to play one part for a lifetime.  You might get tired—­and that would be awkward for your husband and yourself.  I don’t say anything about your giving up all your prospects, although I had great pride in you and a still greater hope.  That is for your own consideration.  If you think you will be happier—­if you are sure you will have no regret—­if, as I say, you think you can play the one part for a lifetime—­well and good.”

“And you are right,” she said, bitterly, “to speak of me as an actress, and not as a human being.  I must be playing a part to the end, I suppose.  Perhaps so.  Well, I hope I shall please my smaller audience as well as I seem to have pleased the bigger one.”

Then she altered her tone.

“I told you, papa, the other day of my having seen that child run over and brought back to the woman who was standing on the pavement.”

“Yes,” said he; but wondering why this incident should be referred to at such a moment.

“I did not tell you the truth—­at least the whole truth.  When I walked away, what was I thinking of?  I caught myself trying to recall the way in which the woman threw her arms up when she saw the dead body of her child, and I was wondering whether I could repeat it.  And then I began to wonder whether I was a devil—­or a woman.”

“Bah!” said he.  “That is a craze you have at present.  You have had fifty others before.  What I am afraid of is that, at the instigation of some such temporary fad, you will take a step that you will find irrevocable.  Just think it over, Gerty.  If you leave the stage, you will destroy many a hope I had formed; but that doesn’t matter.  Whatever is most for your happiness—­that is the only point.”