down her cheeks; but she was careful not to make a sound; for,
even when sobbing bitterly, she did not forget that at any moment
Johanna might enter the adjoining room and overhear her. And then, what
a fuss there would be! For Ephie was one of those fortunate people who
always get what they want, and but rarely have occasion to cry. All her
desires had moved low, near earth, and been easily fulfilled. Did she
break her prettiest doll, a still prettier was forthcoming; did
anything happen to cross wish or scheme of hers, half a dozen brains
were at work to think out a compensation.

But now she wept in earnest, behind closed doors, for she had received
an injury which no one could make good. And the more she thought of it,
the more copiously her tears flowed. The evening had been one long
tragedy of disappointment: her fevered anticipation beforehand, her
early throbs of excitement in the theatre, her growing consternation as
the evening advanced, her mortification at being slighted--a sensation
which she experienced for the first time. Again and again she asked
herself what she had done to be treated in this way. What had happened
to change him?

She was sitting upright on her chair, letting the tears stream
unchecked; her two hands lay upturned on her knee; in one of them was a
diminutive lace handkerchief, rolled to a ball, with which now and then
she dabbed away the hottest tears. The windows of the room were still
open, the blinds undrawn, and the street-lamps threw a flickering mesh
of light on the wall. In the glass that hung over the washstand, she
saw her dim reflection: following an impulse, she dried her eyes, and,
with trembling fingers, lighted two candles, one on each side of the
mirror. By this uncertain light, she leant forward with both hands on
the stand, and peered at herself with a new curiosity.

She was still just as she had come out of the theatre: a many-coloured
silk scarf was twisted round her head, and the brilliant, dangling
fringes, and the stray tendrils of hair that escaped, made a frame for
the rounded oval of her face. And then her skin was so fine, her eyes
were so bright, the straight lashes so black and so long!--she put her
head back, looked at herself through half-closed lids, turned her face
this way and that, even smiling, wet though her cheeks were, in order
that she might see the even line of teeth, with their slightly notched
edges. The smile was still on her lips when the te