“I don’t know,” he said.  “Take it all in all, it was the most extraordinary thing I ever saw.  Apparently she never for one second thought of herself.  She simply ran straight into that hideous danger—­while the rest of us could do nothing but put our hands over our eyes and pray.”

“But she’ll live, Jim?” the actress asked, and as he nodded a thoughtful affirmative, she added:  “That’s something to be thankful for, at least!”

“Don’t be too sure it is,” said Ann.

Ten days later Miss Ives came cheerfully into the sunny, big room where Marian Carter lay.  Bandaged, and strapped, and bound, it was a sorry little Dancing Girl who turned her serious eyes to the actress’s face.  But Julie could be irresistible when she chose, and she chose to be her most fascinating self to-day.  Almost reluctantly at first, later with something of her old gayety, the Dancing Girl’s laugh rang out.  It stirred Julie’s heart curiously to hear it, and made the little patient’s mother, listening in the next room, break silently into tears.

“But this is what I really came to bring you,” said the actress, presently, laying a score or more of newspaper clippings on the bed.  “You see you are famous!  I had my press-agent watch for these, and they’re coming in at a great rate every mail.  You see, here’s a nattering likeness of you in a New York daily, and here you are again, in a Chicago paper!”

“Those aren’t of me,” said Marian, smiling.

“It says they are,” Julie said.  “One says you are petite and dark, and the other that you are a blond Gibson type.  You wouldn’t have believed that your wish could come true so quickly, would you, just the other day?”

“My wish?” stammered the girl.

“Yes.  Don’t you remember saying that you wished you could do something big?” pursued Julie.  “You’ve done a thing that makes the rest of us feel pretty small, you know.  Why, while there was any question of your getting better, there wasn’t a dance given at any of the hotels between here and Surf Point, and all sorts of people came here with inquiries every day.  This place was absolutely hushed.  The maids used to fight for the privilege of carrying your trays up.  None of us thought of anything but ‘How is Miss Carter?’ And you’ll be ’The young lady who saved those children from the fire’ for the rest of your life wherever you go!”

Miss Carter was watching her gravely.

“You say I got my wish,” she said now, her blue eyes brimming with slow tears, and her lips trembling.  “But—­but—­you see how I am, Miss Ives!  Dr. Arbuthnot says I may be able to walk in a month or two, but no swimming or riding or dancing for years—­perhaps never.  And my face—­it’ll always be scarred.”

Julie laid a gentle hand on the little helpless fingers.

“But that’s part of the process, you know, little girl,” said the actress after a little silence.  “I pay one way, perhaps, and you pay another, but we both pay.  Don’t you suppose,” a smile broke through the seriousness of her face, “don’t you suppose I have my scars, too?”