"Mr. Winton will inform you that those amateur theatricals were not greatly below the standard of any professional representations you have seen. Apart from that--this is strictly between ourselves--I may mention that once upon a time I was professionally connected with the stage." She did not think it necessary to mention with what branch of it. "Your heroine, Lady Glover----"
"Lady Glover is hardly my heroine."
"She is the leading feminine character--the pivotal character; the one about whom the whole thing turns. To my mind the one creature of real flesh and blood."
"I had hoped that Agnes Eliot was a character of some importance."
"Agnes Eliot?--pooh!--namby-pamby, bread-and-butter miss! She's not bad in her way, and, I suppose, in a pit-and-gallery sense, she's the heroine--and not an ineffective one either; but I assure you I have not the slightest wish to play Agnes Eliot. Susan Stone, who becomes Lady Glover, is a woman who, in the face of all obstacles, achieves success; continually confronted by difficulties, she treats them as so many Gordian knots; she cuts them and walks straight on. Quite indifferent as to the means she employs, she always gets there. Considering the present craze among actresses for what they are pleased to call sympathetic parts, I think you will agree that that is not a character which would appeal to every one."
"Certainly. Winton is of opinion that in casting the play the chief difficulty would be to find an adequate representative. As you say, many actresses don't like to act wicked women."
"I don't know about an adequate representative, but I'm quite willing to act Lady Glover, and, although I say it myself, I think you'll find that I shall be equal to the occasion. Indeed, I am ready to make a sporting bet with you that, in my hands, Lady Glover will take the town by storm. There's a popular fallacy that people don't like wicked women--it is a fallacy. When they're of the right brand, they love 'em--especially men. Give me a chance, and I'll prove it. I'll guarantee that seventy-five per cent, of masculine playgoers shall fall in love with Lady Glover--if I play her. What do you say?"
"I don't understand why you should wish to play her."
"How's that?"
"The answer seems so obvious. You--a lady of position, of fortune, with troops of friends!"