"I do!" said Clarence, coming out of his muse and turning into his ordinary self. "We will sit down on the next stump or stone we see, and go into the matter thoroughly."
It was a large flat stone, with a tree for Joy to lean against. They sat down on it, and Clarence pulled the libretto book out of his pocket, and they went to work.
Joy knew the Gilbert and Sullivan operas from a copy of the words that had always been around the house. So there was no delay while she read the book through, as Clarence seemed to have expected.
"To my mind it lies between 'Patience' and 'Iolanthe,'" said Clarence. "The 'Mikado' has been done to death, and so has 'Trial by Jury.' And 'Princess Ida' is too full of blank verse, and the men's solos are too hard."
So far as Joy was concerned nothing had been done to death. She would quite willingly have been the humblest chorus-girl in "Pinafore," if Clarence had willed to have that much-done classic. But he seemed determined to have her play a large part in whatever it was, and to have whatever it was Iolanthe. He wanted to be Strephon, it seemed; in fact, he had been. And he wanted Joy for the Phyllis or Iolanthe.
Joy had a faint feeling that Phyllis Harrington ought to have the part with her own name, but Clarence explained that names had nothing whatever to do with it unless you were a movie star, when you used your first name in order to make the public more interested in your personality.
"We will give Gail the part you don't want," he told her, "as a punishment for not letting you cook your eight-course dinner tonight. By the way, we must time ourselves to get back and eat it. I wonder whether Gail can cook. On second thoughts, why not stay out till it's over?"
"The play!" said Joy imperatively.
"Well," he said, yielding, "would you rather be a fairy princess or a shepherdess from Arcady? I'd prefer to have you the shepherdess, for personal reasons. I wish to be the shepherd."
"Whatever you say," said Joy absently. "It's getting colder. Hadn't we better walk a little?"