“Oh, yes—in a way.”
She pulled a chair to the window, close to him, and climbed into it. “There’s really something funny about it,” she added with a reminiscent manner.
“Funny?”
“I mean about people and their parts. You know, mostly people aren’t thinking at all about how to do their own parts better. They’re imagining themselves in some rôle way beyond them. When they think they are ambitious they’re mostly just sore because somebody is doing better than they are. It’s jealousy—not ambition. My goodness, the little parts are important enough!”
Baron regarded her in silence. Then—“but don’t you think everybody ought to want to advance?” he asked.
“Oh, well—yes; but think how a production would be if the little parts—even the populace—were done wrong! If I had only one line, I’d want to believe it was as important as anything in the play.”
Baron tried to apply that philosophy to his own “part,” but he had to admit that the result was not at all satisfactory.
“Anyway,” she added, “if you do things the way your audience wants you to do them, I’ll bet the big parts will come fast enough.”
“The audience!” echoed Baron. “I’d want a higher standard than that. I’d want to—to play my part the way I thought it should be done. I wouldn’t be satisfied just with pleasing the audience.”
“Oh, but that’s the wrong idea. I’ve seen people like that. They never were what you’d call artists. Believe me, the audience is the best judge.”