Ellen turned her head, and Christabel's flowers, cool and smooth, brushed her hot wet cheek.
"Oh, I don't want to hate her!"
"Don't hate her. Be sorry for her. She's gotten to depend on adulation until she's frantic without it, and, like all drugs, the dose has to be increased and increased. Be sorry for her, but, if you want your young man, fight like the devil."
"I'll try." She laughed shakily, putting her forehead down on his thin old hand, exhausted and relieved by confession. Then she went to the mirror, to see eyes as red as if they had been boiled, a nose glowing like a mulberry under the powder she piled on it.
In the mirror she saw that Uncle Johnnie had closed his eyes. I've exhausted him, she thought, remorsefully. There was almost no one there—the bedclothes were nearly flat. The tired old face was as transparently white as if it had been carved from alabaster. She felt
