Her love of admiration grew by what it fed on, till the sound of applause became the sweetest music to her ear.  She rose with this hope, lay down with this satisfaction, and month after month passed in this feverish life, with no wish to change it, but a growing appetite for its unsatisfactory delights, an ever-increasing forgetfulness of any higher aspiration than dramatic fame.

“Give me joy, Lucy, I’m to have a benefit next week!  Everybody else has had one, and I’ve played for them all, so no one seemed to begrudge me my turn when dear old Kent proposed it,” said Christie, coming in one night still flushed and excited with the good news.

“What shall you have?” asked Lucy, trying to look pleased, and failing decidedly.

“‘Masks and Faces.’  I’ve always wanted to play Peg. and it has good parts for you and Kent, and St. George I chose it for that reason, for I shall need all the help I can get to pull me through, I dare say.”

The smile vanished entirely at this speech, and Christie was suddenly seized with a suspicion that Lucy was not only jealous of her as an actress, but as a woman.  St. George was a comely young actor who usually played lovers’ parts with Christie, and played them very well, too, being possessed of much talent, and a gentleman.  They had never thought of falling in love with each other, though St. George wooed and won Christie night after night in vaudeville and farce.  But it was very easy to imagine that so much mock passion had a basis of truth, and Lucy evidently tormented herself with this belief.

“Why didn’t you choose Juliet:  St. George would do Romeo so well?” said Lucy, with a sneer.

“No, that is beyond me.  Kent says Shakespeare will never be my line, and I believe him.  I should think you’d be satisfied with ’Masks and Faces,’ for you know Mabel gets her husband safely back in the end,” answered Christie, watching the effect of her words.

“As if I wanted the man!  No, thank you, other people’s leavings won’t suit me,” cried Lucy, tossing her head, though her face belied her words.

“Not even though he has ‘heavenly eyes,’ ‘distracting legs,’ and ’a melting voice?’” asked Christie maliciously, quoting Lucy’s own rapturous speeches when the new actor came.

“Come, come, girls, don’t quarrel.  I won’t ’ave it in me room.  Lucy’s tired to death, and it’s not nice of you, Kitty, to come and crow over her this way,” said Mamma Black, coming to the rescue, for Lucy was in tears, and Christie looking dangerous.

“It’s impossible to please you, so I’ll say good-night,” and Christie went to her room with resentment burning hotly in her heart.