The Camp Fire Girls’ Careers
CHAPTER I—Success or Failure
The entire theater was in darkness but for a single light burning at one corner of the bare stage, where stood a man and girl.
“Now once more, Miss Polly, please,” the man said encouragingly. “That last try had a bit more life in it. Only do remember that you are supposed to be amusing, and don’t wear such a tragic expression.”
Then a stiff figure, very young, very thin, and with a tense white face, moved backward half a dozen steps, only to stumble awkwardly forward the next instant with both hands pressed tight together.
“I can’t—I can’t find it,” she began uncertainly, “I have searched——”
Lifting her eyes at this moment to her companion’s, Polly O’Neill burst into tears.
“I am a hopeless, abject failure, Mr. Hunt, and I shall never, never learn to act in a thousand years. There is no use in your trying to teach me, for if we remain at the theater for the rest of the day I shall make exactly the same mistakes tonight. Oh, how can I possibly play a funny character when my teeth are positively chattering with fright even at a rehearsal? It is sheer madness, my daring to appear with you and Margaret Adams before a first-night New York audience and in a new play. Even if I have only a tiny part, I can manage to make just as great a mess of it. Why, why did I ever dream I wished to have a career, I wonder. I only want to go back home this minute to Woodford and never stir a step away from that blessed village as long as I live.”
“Heigho, says Mistress Polly,” quoted her companion and then waited without smiling while the girl dried her tears.
“But you felt very differently from this several years ago when you acted with me in The Castle of Life,” he argued in a reassuring tone. “Besides, you were then very young and had not had two years of dramatic training. I was amazed at your self-confidence, and now I don’t understand why you should feel so much more nervous.”