Mornice was taken back.
“I know I am not up to the mark yet,” she replied, “but I’ll let myself go to-morrow.” Then, quite satisfied that her own case was established, she turned to vital matters. “Pummy! you’ll have to get your hair cut, you know. You can’t possibly play a smart doctor, and keep it long.”
“I have realised it, my child.” He looked at her with a queer smile, and said, “Are you Delilah, I wonder?”
It is to be regretted that Mornice had little knowledge of the Old Testament. She asked for particulars.
“A lady who cut off Samson’s hair. Shorn of his locks, his power departed.” Then his mind came from east to west with a vengeance. “I am glad I took you from the Cinema before it was too late.”
“Too late?”
“H’m. You are cinema-acting very alarmingly in ‘A Man’s Way.’ Coding, my dear, coding; I will show you to-morrow.”
On the morrow he was ready for her in earnest, and realising this, Mornice flung herself into the part with startling energy. He did not allow her to go far before holding up his hand.
“My dear,” he said, “try to remember you are playing the part of a married woman who is at variance with her elderly husband. Do not therefore swing an imaginary sun-bonnet, or smile and blink your eyes at the audience, as though each one was a potential lover. You have three acts in which to gain their affections—not thirty feet of film.”
“Oh, you are horrid,” said she.