“Were you trying to reconstruct the second act?” he asked.
Metcalfe sank down into his chair and removed his wig.
“What are you getting at?” he asked curtly.
“Why, that impromptu scene over the toast,” Klein explained. “It was good as far as it went.”
The juvenile man’s hands were still trembling as he squared himself in his chair preparatory to removing his make-up. “I—I don’t know what—what came over me. My nerves, I guess.”
“You looked as if you’d seen a ghost,” Klein ventured to suggest.
Metcalfe flashed him a quick glance, but Klein, bending over his mirror, pretended not to notice it.
“I—I guess I did see a ghost,” he wavered. “Maybe I am a fool, and all of that, but if——” He hesitated, daubing his cheeks. “Klein,” he began once more, as if determined to relieve his mind of some weight, “I’ve been upset ever since I joined this company. There is something—something I’d like to talk over with you.”
“Fire away,” Klein told him, treating the statement with assumed indifference. “I’m all ears. I suppose one of your mash notes——”
“It is nothing like that, Klein,” Metcalfe interrupted gravely. “I’m serious for once.”