“It can’t be right to make half a guinea an hour so easily. And she said a guinea for occasional public performances.” That’s all; they know now. I had made up my mind. I wanted them to see me tempted and refusing for conscience sake.
“Good Lord; you’d be a millionaire in no time; why not take it until you are a millionaire and then if you don’t like it, chuck it?”
“I should like it all right, my part.”
“Well surely that is all that concerns you. You have nothing whatever to do with what goes on on the other side of the curtain. I think if you would like the job you are a fool to hesitate, don’t you Jan?”
“A fool there was and he made his prayer, yes I think it is foolish to refuse such an admirable offer.”
“A rag and a bone and a hank of hair; that just describes Madame Devine.” That’s not true; smooth fat thinness with dark filmy cruel clothes that last; having supper afterwards; but it would be true in a magazine; a weird medium; the grocer’s wife with second sight was fat and ordinary; a simple woman. Peter, the rough fisherman.
“Now you are being unchristian.”
“I’m not. I love the rag and bone and hank of hair type. Sallow. Like Mrs. Pat.... The ingénue. Sitting in a corner dressed in white, reading a book. A fat pink face. You can imagine her at forty.”
“Now you are being both morbid and improper.”
“I’m not morbid. Am I, Jan?”