Susan was attending with all her senses. This man was putting into words her own inarticulate instincts.
"A past," he went on in his sharp, dogmatic way, "either breaks or makes. You go into the crucible a mere ore, a possibility. You come out slag or steel." He was standing now, looking down at her with quizzical eyes. "You're about due to leave the pot," said he.
"And I've hopes that you're steel. If not——" He shrugged his shoulders—"You'll have had forty a week for your time, and I'll have gained useful experience."
Susan gazed at him as if she doubted her eyes and ears.
"What do you want me to do?" she presently inquired.
"Learn the art of acting—which consists of two parts. First, you must learn to act—thousands of the profession do that. Second, you must learn not to act—and so far I know there aren't a dozen in the whole world who've got that far along. I've written a play I think well of. I want to have it done properly—it, and several other plays I intend to write. I'm going to give you a chance to become famous—better still, great."
Susan looked at him incredulously. "Do you know who I am?" she asked at last.
"Certainly."
Her eyes lowered, the faintest tinge of red changed the amber-white pallor of her cheeks, her bosom rose and fell quickly.
"I don't mean," he went on, "that I know any of the details of your experience. I only know the results as they are written in your face. The details are unimportant. When I say I know who you are, I mean I know that you are a woman who has suffered, whose heart has been broken by suffering, but not her spirit. Of where you came from or how you've lived, I know nothing. And it's none of my business—no more than it's the public's business where I came from and how I've learned to write plays."