Theatre Page 0,104

seemed to the public exquisitely natural, and sitting well back herself forced Avice to turn her profile to the house. Julia had noticed early in rehearsals that in profile Avice had a sheep-like look. The author had given Avice lines to say that had so much amused the cast at the first rehearsal that they had all burst out laughing. Before the audience had quite realized how funny they were Julia had cut in with her reply, and the audience anxious to hear it suppressed their laughter. The scene which was devised to be extremely amusing took on a sardonic colour, and the character Avice played acquired a certain odiousness. Avice in her inexperience, not getting the laughs she had expected, was rattled; her voice grew hard and her gestures awkward. Julia took the scene away from her and played it with miraculous virtuosity. But her final stroke was accidental. Avice had a long speech to deliver, and Julia nervously screwed her red handkerchief into a ball; the action almost automatically suggested an expression; she looked at Avice with troubled eyes and two heavy tears rolled down her cheeks. You felt the shame with which the girl's flippancy affected her, and you saw her pain because her poor little ideals of uprightness, her hankering for goodness, were so brutally mocked. The episode lasted no more than a minute, but in that minute, by those tears and by the anguish of her look, Julia laid bare the sordid misery of the woman's life. That was the end of Avice.

"And I was such a damned fool, I thought of giving her a contract," said Michael.

"Why don't you?"

"When you've got your knife into her? Not on your life. You're a naughty little thing to be so jealous. You don't really think she means anything to me, do you? You ought to know by now that you're the only woman in the world for me."

Michael thought that Julia had played this trick on account of the rather violent flirtation he had been having with Avice, and though, of course, it was hard luck on Avice he could not help being a trifle flattered.

"You old donkey," smiled Julia, knowing exactly what he was thinking and tickled to death at his mistake. "After all, you are the handsomest man in London."

"All that's as it may be. But I don't know what the author'll say. He's a conceited little ape and it's not a bit the scene he wrote."

"Oh, leave him to me. I'll fix him."

There was a knock at the door and it was the author himself who came in. With a cry of delight, Julia went up to him, threw her arms round his neck and kissed him on both cheeks.

"Are you pleased?"

" It looks like a success," he answered, but a trifle coldly.

"My dear, it'll run for a year." She placed her hands on his shoulders and looked him full in the face. "But you're a wicked, wicked man."

"I?"

"You almost ruined my performance. When I came to that bit in the second act and suddenly saw what it meant I nearly broke down. You knew what was in that scene, you're the author; why did you let us rehearse it all the time as if there was no more in it than appeared on the surface? We're only actors, how can you expect us to - to fathom your subtlety? It's the best scene in your play and I almost bungled it. No one in the world could have written it but you. Your play's brilliant, but in that scene there's more than brilliance, there's genius."

The author flushed. Julia looked at him with veneration. He felt shy and happy and proud.

("In twenty-four hours the mug'll think he really meant the scene to go like that.")

Michael beamed.

"Come along to my dressing-room and have a whisky and soda. I'm sure you need a drink after all that emotion."

They went out as Tom came in. Tom's face was red with excitement.

"My dear, it was grand. You were simply wonderful. Gosh, what a performance."

"Did you like it? Avice was good, wasn't she?"

"No, rotten."

"My dear, what do you mean? I thought she was charming."

"You simply wiped the floor with her. She didn't even look pretty in the second act."

Avice's career!

"I say, what are you doing afterwards?"

"Dolly's giving a party for us."

"Can't you cut it and come along to supper with me? I'm madly in love with you."

"Oh, what nonsense. How can I let Dolly