She struggled, poor victim, and only increased
her terrors. Not until the clock showed her that in twenty minutes she
must make her first entrance did she succumb. But Sir Lucien's gold
snuff-box lay upon her dressing-table--and she was trembling. When at
last she heard the sustained note of the oboe in the orchestra giving
the pitch to the answering violins, she raised the jewelled lid of the
box.
So she entered upon the path which leads down to destruction, and
since to conjure with the drug which pharmacists know as methylbenzoyl
ecgonine is to raise the demon Insomnia, ere long she found herself
exploring strange by-paths in quest of sleep.
By the time that she was entrusted with the leading part in The Maid
of the Masque, she herself did not recognize how tenacious was the
hold which this fatal habit had secured upon her. In the company of
Sir Lucien Pyne she met other devotees, and for a time came to regard
her unnatural mode of existence as something inseparable from the
Bohemian life. To the horrible side of it she was blind.
It was her meeting with Monte Irvin during the run of this successful
play which first awakened a dawning comprehension; not because she
ascribed his admiration to her artificial vivacity, but because she
realized the strength of the link subsisting between herself and Sir
Lucien.
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