"I don't fade off, dearie. Your own natural skin is no more color-fast.
I handled Elaine Doremus in 'The Snowdrop' for three seasons. Never so
much as a speck or a spot on her. My cream don't fade."
"Of course not, dear! How silly of me! Kiss me again."
That was kind enough of her. Oh yes, they got on. But sometimes Hattie,
seated among her sagging headstones, would ache with the dry sob of the
black crocodile who yearned toward the narcissus....
Quite without precedent, there was a man waiting for her in the wings.
The gloom of back-stage was as high as trees and Hattie had not seen
him in sixteen years. But she knew. With the stunned consciousness of a
stabbed person that glinting instant before the blood begins to flow.
It was Morton Sebree--Marcia's father.
"Morton!"
"Hattie."
"Come up to my dressing room," she said, as matter-of-factly as if her
brain were a clock ticking off the words.
They walked up an iron staircase of unreality. Fantastic stairs. Wisps
of gloom.
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