to
himself indulgently. "Let the kiddie enjoy herself," thought he.
"She needs the self-confidence now to give her a good foundation
to stand on. Then when she finds out what a false alarm this jay
excitement was, she'll not be swept clean away into despair."

The chief element in her happiness, he of course knew nothing
about. Until this success--which she, having no basis for
comparison, could not but exaggerate--she had been crushed and
abused more deeply than she had dared admit to herself by her
birth which made all the world scorn her and by the series of
calamities climaxing in that afternoon and night of horror at
Ferguson's. This success--it seemed to her to give her the right
to have been born, the right to live on and hold up her head
without effort after Ferguson. "I'll show them all, before I get
through," she said to herself over and over again. "They'll be
proud of me. Ruth will be boasting to everyone that I'm her
cousin. And Sam Wright--he'll wonder that he ever dared touch
such a famous, great woman." She only half believed this
herself, for she had much common sense and small
self-confidence. But pretending that she believed it all gave
her the most delicious pleasure.

Burlingham took such frank joy in her innocent vanity--so far as
he understood it and so far as she exhibited it--that the others
were good-humored about it too--all the others except Tempest,
whom conceit and defeat had long since soured through and
through. A tithe of Susan's success would have made him
unbearable, for like most human beings he had a vanity that was
Atlantosaurian on starvation rations and would have filled the
whole earth if it had been fed a few crumbs. Small wonder that
we are ever eagerly on the alert for signs of vanity in others;
we are seeking the curious comfort there is in the feeling that
others have our own weakness to a more ridiculous degree.
Tempest twitched to jeer openly at Susan, whose exhibition was
really timid and modest and not merely excusable but
justifiable. But he dared go no further than holding haughtily
aloof and casting vaguely into the air ever and anon a tragic
sneer. Susan would not have understood if she had seen, and did
not see. She was treading the heights, her eyes upon the sky.
She held grave consultation with Burlingham, with Violet, with
Mabel, about improving her part. She took it all very, very
seriously--and Burlingham was glad of that. "Yes, she does t