on't know," replied the other. "There are plenty who do not. In
fact, Mary Anderson is the exception. When the conquering one comes
along you'll marry him and make him your leading man, the way so many
others do."

"When 'the conquering one' comes along I shall despise the stage,"
retorted Helen, with laughing eyes--"at least I'm told I will."

"Pish! You'd give a dozen husbands for the joy of facing a big
first-night audience. I tell Horace that if it comes to a matter of
choice for me he'll have to go. Gracious goodness! I could no more live
without the applause of the stage--"

"How about the children?"

"The children! Oh, that's different. The dear tots! Well, luckily,
they're not absolutely barred. It's hard to leave the darlings behind.
When I go on the road I miss their sweet little caresses; but I have to
earn their bread, you see, and what better career is open to me."

Helen grew grave also. "I don't like to think of myself as an _old_
actress. I want to have a fixed abiding-place when I am forty-five. Gray
hairs should shine in the light of a fireside."

"There's always peroxide," put in the other, and their little mood of
seriousness vanished.

It was, indeed, a very unusual situation for a young and charming
actress. The Hotel Embric stood just where three great streams of wealth
and power and fashion met and mingled. Its halls rustled with the spread
silks of pride and glittered with the jewels of spendthrift vanity, and
yet few knew that high in the building one of the most admired women of
the city lived in almost monastic seclusion. The few men who recognized
her in the elevator or in the hall bowed with deferential admiration.
She was never seen in the dining-rooms, and it was known that she
denied herself to all callers except a very few intimate friends.

This seclusion--this close adherence to her work--added to her mystery,
and her allurement in the eyes of her suitors increased as they sought
vainly for an introduction. It was reported that this way of life was
"all a matter of business, a cold, managerial proposition," a method of
advertising; but so far as Helen herself was implicated, it was a method
of protection.

She had an instinctive dislike, almost a fear, of those who sought her
acquaintance, and when Westervelt, with blundering tactlessness or
impudent design, brought round some friends, she froze them both with a
single glance.

Furthermore, by denying herself to one she wa