"It is always the outsider who comes to the great city to show it its own resources," he went on."I knew you were going to do this.Still happy?""Oh, yes."
But he had taken her by surprise.A faint shadow flitted across her face."Not so happy, I see.""You see too much.Won't you lunch with us? We'll have it in about half an hour."He accepted promptly and they went up together.His glance traveled round the drawing-room; and she knew he had noted all the changes she had made on better acquaintance with her surroundings and wider knowledge of interior furnishing.She saw that he approved, and it increased her good humor."Are you hurrying through Paris on your way to somewhere else?" she asked.
"No, I stop here--I think--until I sail for America.""And that will be soon?"
"Perhaps not until July.I have no plans.I've finished a play a woman suggested to me some time ago.And I'm waiting."A gleam of understanding came into her eyes.There was controlled interest in her voice as she inquired:
"When is it to be produced?"
"When the woman who suggested it is ready to act in it.""Do I by any chance know her?"
"You used to know her.You will know her again."She shook her head slowly, a pensive smile hovering about her eyes and lips."No--not again.I have changed.""We do not change," said he."We move, but we do not change.
You are the same character you were when you came into the world.And what you were then, that you will be when the curtain falls on the climax of your last act.Your circumstances will change--and your clothes--and your face, hair, figure--but not _you_.""Do you believe that?"
"I _know_ it."
She nodded slowly, the violet-gray eyes pensive."Birds in the strong wind--that's what we are.Driven this way or that--or quite beaten down.But the wind doesn't change sparrow to eagle--or eagle to gull--does it?"She had removed her coat and was seated on an oval lounge gazing into the open fire.He was standing before it, looking taller and stronger than ever, in a gray lounging suit.Acigarette depended loosely from the corner of his mouth.He said abruptly:
"How are you getting on with your acting?"
She glanced in surprise.
"Gourdain," Brent explained."He had to talk to somebody about how wonderful you are.So he took to writing me--two huge letters a week--all about you.""I'm fond of him.And he's fond of Clelie.She's my----""I know all," he interrupted."The tie between them is their fondness for you.Tell me about the acting.""Oh--Clelie and I have been going to the theater every few days--to help me with French.She is mad about acting, and there's nothing I like better.""Also, _you_ simply have to have occupation."She nodded."I wasn't brought up to fit me for an idler.
When I was a child I was taught to keep busy--not at nothing, but at something.Freddie's a lot better at it than I.""Naturally," said Brent."You had a home, with order and a system--an old-fashioned American home.He--well, he hadn't.""Clelie and I go at our make-believe acting quite seriously.
We have to--if we're to fool ourselves that it's an occupation.""Why this anxiety to prove to me that you're not really serious?"Susan laughed mockingly for answer, and went on:
"You should see us do the two wives in `L'Enigme'--or mother and daughter in that diary scene in `L'Autre Danger'!""I must....When are you going to resume your career?"She rose, strolled toward an open door at one end of the salon, closed it--strolled toward the door into the hall, glanced out, returned without having closed it.She then said:
"Could I study here in Paris?"
Triumph gleamed in his eyes."Yes.Boudrin--a splendid teacher--speaks English.He--and I--can teach you.""Tell me what I'd have to do."
"We would coach you for a small part in some play that's to be produced here.""In French?"
"I'll have an American girl written into a farce.Enough to get you used to the stage--to give you practice in what he'll teach you--the trade side of the art.""And then?"
"And then we shall spend the summer learning your part in my play.Two or three weeks of company rehearsals in New York in September.In October--your name out over the Long Acre Theater in letters of fire.""Could that be done?"
"Even if you had little talent, less intelligence, and no experience.Properly taught, the trade part of every art is easy.Teachers make it hard partly because they're dull, chiefly because there'd be small money for them if they taught quickly, and only the essentials.No, journeyman acting's no harder to learn than bricklaying or carpentering.And in America--everywhere in the world but a few theaters in Paris and Vienna--there is nothing seen but journeyman acting.The art is in its infancy as an art.It even has not yet been emancipated from the swaddling clothes of declamation.Yes, you can do well by the autumn.And if you develop what Ithink you have in you, you can leap with one bound into fame.
In America or England, mind you--because there the acting is all poor to `pretty good'.""You are sure it could be done? No--I don't mean that.
I mean, is there really a chance--any chance--for me to make my own living? A real living?""I guarantee," said Brent.
She changed from seriousness to a mocking kind of gayety--that is, to a seriousness so profound that she would not show it.
And she said:
"You see I simply must banish my old women--and that hunchback and his piano.They get on my nerves."He smiled humorously at her.But behind the smile his gaze--grave, sympathetic--pierced into her soul, seeking the meaning he knew she would never put into words.
At the sound of voices in the hall she said:
"We'll talk of this again."