As she looked and listened, Paula saw great meanings in the broad big countenance, a sort of ruffian strength to carry this perfecting instrument of emotion. The great body was needed to support such talents, handicapped by the lack of beauty. Selma Cross fascinated her. Paula's heart went out to the great crude creature she had been--in pity for this woman of furious history. The processes by which her brain and flesh had been refined would have slain the body and mind of an ordinary human. It came to Paula that here was one of Mother Nature's most enthralling experiments--the evolution of an effective instrument from the coarsest and vaguest heredity. "They are all brainless but Vhruebert. You see, unless one is a beauty, you can't get the support of a big manager's name. I mean without money--there are managers who will lend their name to your stardom, if you take the financial risk. Otherwise, you've got to attract them as a possible conquest. All men are like that. If you interest them sexually--they will hear what you have to say----" "Isn't that a reckless talk?" Paula asked, pale from the repulsiveness of the thought. "You say it without a single qualification----" Selma Cross stared at her vacantly for a few seconds, then laughed softly. "You don't actually believe--to the contrary?" "Let's pass it by. I should have to be changed--to believe that!" "I hope the time will never come when you need something terribly from a strange man--one upon whom you have no hold but--yourself.... Ah, but you--the brighter sort would give you what you asked. You----" "Please don't go on!" Paula whispered. "The other part is so interesting." Selma Cross seemed to stir restlessly in her loose, softly-scented garments. "I suppose I'm too rough for you. In ninety-nine women out of a hundred, I'd say your protest was a cheap affectation, but it isn't so with you...." "It's your set, smothery pessimism that hurts so, Selma," Paula declared intensely. "It hurts me most because you seem to have it so locked and immovable inside.... You have been so big and wonderful to win against tremendous obstacles--not against ugliness--I can't grant that. You startled me, when I saw you first. I think women have held you apart because you were uncommon. You show a strange power in your movements and expression. It's not ugliness----" "That's mighty rare of you. I haven't had the pleasure of being defied like that before. But you are not like other people--not like other women." "You will meet many real men and women--wiser and kinder than I am. I think your pessimism cannot endure--when you look for the good in people----"