Page:Lippincotts Monthly Magazine-70.djvu/698

690 simple, but served most attractively on delicate china by a noiseless maid.

"Mr. Manning dined at the club to-night," she continued, "and I always forget everything about dinner if he is not here. I really believe if it were not for the maids I would go without. I hope you don't mind being hurried?" she added as she started for the front door. "You know it would be rather serious if the star should be late!"

She sped down the brown-stone steps like a deer, and ran to the comer for a car that was then in sight. Helen followed, breathless. It was all so different to the life of a star as Miss Elison had described it to her. There was no extravagant dressing, no paint, no jewels, no carriage; only a pure-minded, simply dressed, beautiful young woman, as conscientious in fulfilling the duty she had undertaken as any governess might be, and too much in love with her art to care about the petty dissipations of society.

On leaving the car they walked half a block, and arriving at a dark little door set in under the steps of an adjoining house, they pushed it open and passed through two bare, dingy rooms furnished with a bench, a table, and two colored posters of Mrs. Manning.

The star's room was on the right, three steps down. Although a small room like the others, it had been draped by some of her many friends in light-blue cheese-cloth. One entire wall was covered with the congratulatory telegrams received on her opening night, the other with souvenirs of tributes sent her by admiring audiences. Her maid, who generally accompanied her, but had been sent on ahead this evening, came forward to help her. While being undressed the star covered her face and neck with cold cream; then, wiping it off, began to make herself up with rouge and colored pencils. It was all so unlike what Helen had been taught to expect. There was no disagreeable element, no flowers, no men clamoring at the door; everything was quiet, everyone deferential and obliging.

During the performance Helen was taken in front. The play charmed her; the applause of the audience thrilled her as though she herself were the beautiful, daintily garbed maid of the sixteenth century that Constance Belmont impersonated.

She joined in the enthusiastic applause involuntarily, her pulses leaping with a touch of the energy that had left her in that black hour of her awakening in Brooklyn.

"Well, what is your opinion of a star's life, so far?" asked a clear, genial voice at her side. She looked up, and beheld Vincent Haughtly's handsome face smiling upon her.

"Oh, I am captivated," she replied. "I am stage-struck!"

Haughtly's eyes responded to the life in hers; he took the vacant