Priscilla stared.
“Of course she’d mind. She knows her part and has played it once. You couldn’t ask her to learn a new one just because you prefer hers.”
Claire’s air of depression became more marked.
“Priscilla,” she quavered, “I don’t see how I’m going to play that part. I don’t know how I’ll endure it.”
Priscilla’s amazement grew. “Why, what’s wrong with it? I think it’s particularly cute.”
“Why, we’re quarrelling every minute, you and I. And at the end of the second act, you say–” Claire’s voice died away in a dejected whimper. But there was little balm for her grievance in Priscilla’s unfeeling laughter.
“Well, what of it? There’s nothing real about it. A quarrel in a play isn’t anything.”
“It’s something to me,” replied Claire, in tones nicely balanced between despondency and tenderness. “When I think of your glaring at me and saying such cruel, cruel things, it seems as if it would almost kill me.” She found her handkerchief, and actually shed a few tears, while Priscilla choked down her exasperation, and tried to answer with fitting nonchalance.
“Sorry you feel that way. We might ask Dorothea Clarke, the girl who took the part before, to come up for a week, just to play it. Though I must say,” concluded Priscilla, her irritation getting the better of her good resolutions, “that your idea impresses me as too silly for words.”
The suggestion that Claire’s coöperation was not necessary to the success of the undertaking was all that was needed. Claire had no intention of being reduced to the position of an on-looker, while the others enjoyed the fun and reaped the plaudits of the enterprise. Nothing more was heard of Claire’s giving up her part, but in the rehearsals she showed such a total lack of spirit, and played the rôle assigned her with so unmistakable an air of injury, that patient Peggy was driven to the verge of desperation.