“You have a very good voice for speaking.” Then, after a pause—“My uncle says so.”
“Thank you!”
“And I’ll say, on my own account, that you don’t make gestures,—trying to get things out of the air, like a prestidigitateur. I haven’t heard many speeches, but most of the orators I have heard have been tiresome.”
“And—?”
“Oh, you weren’t so dreadfully tiresome! I have heard a great many that were far more depressing. But there was one thing that occurred to me—”
“Pray tell me the worst!”
“It seemed to me, as you stood there talking to that theater full of solemn people, that you must be awfully good; and I felt almost sorry for you.”
She said this with her eyes bent upon him seriously, and his face flushed. He replied quickly:
“Of course it was assumed. It was a necessity, a part of the game, as we may say. I had been cast for the part, and had to give the best imitation possible.”
“To be sure. I suppose we all have to play a part sometimes,” she said. Her words carried no sympathy, but seemed to express a conviction about which there was no debating, one way or another.