The manager turned to her with some excitement.
"If only he can keep it up!" he said. "Delacour puts life into the love-making. He makes love well, don't you think?"
"Admirably."
"If only he can keep it up!" repeated the manager.
Through the two acts which followed, the understudy kept it up. He did more. He acted with an intensity that made the rest of the play somewhat colourless. At the end of the scene at the Savoy, just before the curtain fell, he added a sentence of his own.
In a second, before she knew what she had done, Marion had sprung to her feet, and had said in a harsh, loud voice:
"That last sentence is not in the part."
The play stopped. The hurrying waiters with dishes stood stock still and gaped, as astonished as if the interruption had been in real life. Some of the supers at the little tables in the background got up to see what was happening.
Delacour, wineglass in hand, came forward to the footlights, and their eyes met.
"I beg your pardon," he said. "You say it is not in the part. I thought it was. I will omit it in future."