"That should be spoken a trifle more slowly, and with the best air of unpremeditatedness you can put into it," Mrs. Farnsworth was saying. "You can work it out better when you've memorized the lines. It's immensely effective having the last scene come back to the big boulder on the mountainside. Let me look at that a minute."
She took up the manuscript—there was no question of the blue cover of my copy of "Lady Larkspur"—and turned to the passage she sought.
"Let me read this over," Mrs. Farnsworth continued: "'I have played, my lord, at hide-and-seek with the stars, and I have run races with the brooks. You alone of all that have sought me are equally fleet of foot and heart! If you but touch my hand, I am lost forever. And this hand—I beg you look at it—is as brown as a berry and as rough as hickory bark. A wild little hand and not lightly to be yielded at any man's behest. Look at me carefully, my lord.' She rises to full height quickly. Let me see you do that, Alice."
Alice's golden head became more distinctively visible as she stood erect upon the boulder.
"Oh, no! You can improve on that; it must be done lightly and quickly, just touching the tips of your fingers to the rock. Ah, splendid! Now stand with one hand dropped upon the hip—let me see how that looks. Very good; now repeat these lines after me. 'This other world, of which you speak?' Shake your head slowly, frowning; every hint of sincere doubt and questioning you can throw into look and gesture. 'Is it a kind world, a place of honest hearts? You have spoken of cities, and crowded avenues, of music and theatres and many things I have read of but never seen. You promise me much, but what should I do in so vast a company? I am very happy here. Spring and summer fill my hands with flowers and in winter I lay my face to the wind that carries sleet and snow. All this is mine.' Arms stretched out. You mustn't make that stiff—very good. 'Earth and sky and forest belong to me. The morning comes down the sky in search of me and the tired day bids me good-night at the western gate. You would change rags for silk.' You turn your body and catch your skirt in your hands, looking down. Yes; you are barefoot in this scene. You'll have to practise that turn. Now—'And yet I should lose my dominion; in that world you boast of I should no more be Lady Larkspur.'"
Alice had repeated these lines, testing and trying different modulations. Sometimes a dozen repetitions hardly sufficed to satisfy Mrs. Farnsworth, who herself recited them and postured for Alice's instruction.
"Please read the whole of the second act again," said Alice, seating herself on the boulder. I waited for a few minutes, enjoying the beautiful flow of Mrs. Farnsworth's voice, then, mystified and awed, I crept down the ladder and stole away. "It's Dick Searles's play," I kept whispering to myself. It was the "Lady Larkspur" that he was holding back until he could find the girl who had so enchanted him in London and for whom he had written this very comedy with its setting in the Virginia hills.
Hurrying to the garage, I snarled at Flynn, who said Torrence had been calling me all morning and had finally left word that he would motor to Barton at eight the next evening to see me on urgent business. I unlocked my trunk and dug out my copy of "Lady Larkspur." Not even the wizardry of Alice and her friend could have extracted the script. The two women had in some way possessed themselves of another copy, an exact duplicate, even to its blue paper cover; and I sat down and began recalling everything Searles had told me about his efforts to find the actress.
The telephone on the table at my elbow rang until Flynn came in timidly to quiet it.
"If it's Mr. Torrence—" I began.