This was her twenty-ninth birthday,
and the world was melting away before her eyes. She tried to think that
it had been the make-up, but her emotions were too profound, too
overwhelming for any consolation that the thought conveyed.
She strained to see until she could feel the flesh on her temples pull
forward. Yes--the cheeks were ever so faintly thin, the corners of the
eyes were lined with tiny wrinkles. The eyes were different. Why, they
were different! ... And then suddenly she knew how tired her eyes were.
"Oh, my pretty face," she whispered, passionately grieving. "Oh, my
pretty face! Oh, I don't want to live without my pretty face! Oh, what's
_happened?_"
Then she slid toward the mirror and, as in the test, sprawled face
downward upon the floor--and lay there sobbing. It was the first awkward
movement she had ever made.
CHAPTER III
NO MATTER!
Within another year Anthony and Gloria had become like players who had
lost their costumes, lacking the pride to continue on the note of
tragedy--so that when Mrs. and Miss Hulme of Kansas City cut them dead
in the Plaza one evening, it was only that Mrs. and Miss Hulme, like
most people, abominated mirrors of their atavistic selves.
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