Said he: "A good woman like you--"
"_Me_?" cried Mary. And she laughed, a wild laugh. "Don't hit me
when you've got me down! I've sold myself for every job I ever got;
I sold myself for every jewel you saw on me this afternoon. You
notice I've got them off now!"
"I don't understand, Mary," he said, gently. "Why does a woman like
you sell herself?"
"What else has she got? I was a rat in a tenement. I could have been
a drudge, but I wasn't made for that. I sold myself for a job in a
store, and then for ribbons to be pretty, and then for a place in
the chorus, and then for a speaking part--so on all the way. Now I
portray other women selling themselves. They get fancy prices, and
so do I, and that makes me a 'star.' I hope you'll never see my
pictures."
I sat watching this scene, marvelling more than ever. That tone in
Mary Magna's voice was a new one to me; perhaps she had not used it
since she played her last "speaking part!" I thought to myself,
there was a crisis impending in the screen industry.
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