For an instant Joan stood hesitant, on the verge of refusing. There seemed to be no satisfying this man: he either didn't or wouldn't understand; she tried desperately to please him--and her sole reward was to be held up to the derision of the entire company! It was intolerable! And of a sudden she hated Wilbrow with every atom of her being. But ... if she were to talk back or refuse to go on, Matthias would be forfeited from her life.
She choked down her chagrin, resisted the temptation to wither Wilbrow with a glare, and sulkily resumed her place in the chair beside another chair that was politely presumed to be her typewriter desk.
At once the fat boy whom she detested crossed the indefinite line dividing the scene from "off-stage," and leering insolently, spoke the opening line of the play. Seething with indignation, the girl looked up and in cutting accents shot her reply at him. She was pleased to surprise a look of dumb amazement in his eyes. At all events, she had succeeded in letting _him_ know just how she felt toward him! And this success inspired her to further efforts. She rattled through the remainder of the scene with the manner of a youthful termagant.
When she had finished, Wilbrow said nothing beyond: "Again, please."
The demand served only to deepen her resentment, and the second repetition differed not materially from the first.
Ceasing to speak, she flounced away, but Wilbrow's voice brought her back.
"Very good, Miss Thursday," he said mildly--"very good indeed. But why--in the name of Mike!--if you _could_ do it--why wouldn't you until now?"
But she didn't dare say what she wished to, and checked her tongue in a fit of sulks more eloquent than any words she could have found.
Wilbrow waited an instant, then laughed quite cheerfully.
"The usual reason, eh? I might have guessed you had a sure-'nough one concealed about you.... That's all for today. Tomorrow morning at nine."
Privately pondering this experience, Joan surprised its secret, and drew from it a conclusion that was to have an important influence upon her professional future: in order to act convincingly, she must herself feel the emotions accredited to her part. As applied to her individual temperament, at that stage of its development, this rule had all the inflexibility of an axiom. Others might--as others do--act in obedience to the admonitions of their intelligence: Joan could at that stage act only according to the promptings of her emotional self.