She came to a sudden pause, perceiving in the frank gray eyes scanning her animated face a look which caused her own to droop.  Then her lips set in firmer resolution, and she continued as though in utter indifference to his presence.

“You may not comprehend all this, but I do.  It was the turning-point in my life.  And I began right where I was.  I endeavored to make the utmost possible out of that miserable melodramatic part which had been assigned to me.  I elected to play it quietly, with an intensity to be felt and not heard, the very opposite from the interpretation given by Miss Lyle last season, and I felt assured my efforts were appreciated by the audiences.  It encouraged me to discover them so responsive; but Albrecht, Lane, and Mooney merely laughed and winked at each other, and thus hurt me cruelly, although I had little respect for their criticisms.  Still, they were professional actors of experience, and I was not yet certain that my judgment might not be wrong.  Miss Head, the ingenue, a girl of sweet disposition but little education, praised my efforts warmly, but otherwise your evident appreciation is my only real reward.  I spoke to you that evening in the wings not so much to scold you for being in the way, as from a hungry, despairing hope that you might speak some word of encouragement.  I was not disappointed, and I have felt stronger ever since.”

“I should never have suspected any such purpose.  We have never so much as exchanged speech since, until to-day, and then I forced it.”

She shook her head, a vagrant tress of her black hair loosening.

“You must be a very young and inexperienced man to expect to comprehend all that any woman feels merely by what she says or does.”

“No,” smilingly, “I have advanced beyond that stage of development, although the mystery of some womanly natures may always remain beyond me.  But can I ask you a somewhat personal question, also?”

“Most assuredly, yet I expressly reserve the privilege of refusing a direct reply.”

“Is Beth Norvell your real, or merely your stage name?”

“Why do you ask?  That is a secret which, I believe, an actress is privileged to keep inviolate.”

“For one particular reason—­because I cannot escape a vague impression that somewhere we have met before.”

She did not respond immediately, her gloved fingers perceptibly tightening about the prayer-book, her eyes carefully avoiding his own.

“You are mistaken in that, for we have never met,” she said slowly, and with emphasis.  “Moreover, Beth Norvell is my stage name, but in part it is my true name also.”  Suddenly she paused and glanced aside at him.  “I have spoken with unusual frankness to you this morning, Mr. Winston.  Most people, I imagine, find me diffident and uncommunicative—­perhaps I appear according to my varying moods.  But I have been lonely, and in some way you have inspired my confidence and unlocked my life.  I believe you to be a man worthy of trust, and because I thus believe I am now going to request you not to ask me any more.  My past life has not been so bright that I enjoy dwelling upon it.  I have chosen rather to forget it entirely, and live merely for the future.”