She was only partly dressed when he came early the next afternoon, but was not long in letting him in. Before any words, he knew that she had won. A man often has to readjust hastily after the night before. It was so with Bellair now. Her eyes were bright with emotions, but a certain hardness was shining there. It was an effort for her to think of him and be kind. He would have seen it all in another’s story. His glance kept turning to her bare arm, upon which a hideous vaccination-scar was revealed. _They_ had not thought of her singing in those days.... She had never spoken of her house or her people. It was enough that those days were finished. Bellair could understand that. Her victory was all through her now, satisfying, completing her. She did not love money for its own sake or she would have treated him differently. All her surplus energy, even her passion, was turned to this open passage of her career. Having that, previous props could be kicked away; at least, Bellair felt this. “Yes, it’s all done. A month of solid rehearsal--then the road. I take the second part, but I hope to come back in the first----” “You were at your best at the trial?” “After the first moment or two.... And no more Brandt’s or _Castle_--no more with the other three--God, how sick I am of them--and of this room!” “Will you lunch with me?” “Yes--I have until three.” It was shortly after one. She talked with animation about her work, her eyes held to a glistening future. She finished her dressing leisurely, with loving touches, abandoning herself completely to the mirror as an old actress might, having conceded the essential importance of attractions. She studied her face and figure as if she were the maid to them. Bessie dressed for the world, not for herself, certainly not for Bellair. Without, in the world--streets, restaurants, theatres--there existed an abstraction which must be satisfied. She had not yet entered upon that perilous adventure of dressing for the eyes of one man. She did not think of Bellair as she lifted her arms to her hair. On no other morning could she have been so far from the sense of him in her room. Empires have fallen because a woman has lifted her naked arms to her hair with a man in the room. An older woman would have rewarded him for being there; an older woman never would have put on her hat for the street without remembering her humanity. There was something in Bessie that reserved the kiss for the last. Possibly after the last song of the day, a kiss remained. She put on the flowers he brought; even that did not remind her, nor the dress he had bought for her--asking him if he approved, not that she cared, but because she was turning before the glass with the thing upon her body and mind. She would have asked a child the same.