Usually it was next to impossible to persuade Reben to give three consecutive hours of his busy life to an audition; but, once engaged, he listened with amazing analysis. He tried to sit with an imaginary audience. He listened always for the human note. He criticized, as a woman criticizes with reference not to art or logic or truth, but to etiquette, morality, and attractiveness.
The virtuous and scholarly Vickery, as he read his masterwork, was astounded to find his ideals of conduct riddled by a manager, and especially by a Reben. He blushed to be told that his hero was a cad and his heroine a cat. And he could hardly deny the justice of the criticism from Reben’s point of view, which was that of an average audience.
Sheila, feeling that Vickery needed support, gave him only her praise, whatever she felt; little giggles of laughter, little gasps of “Delicious!” and cries of, “Oh, charming!” When with the accidental rarity of a scholar he stumbled into the greatness of a homely sincerity, he was amazed to see that tears were pearling at her eyelids suddenly.
His heart was melted into affection by the collaboration of her sympathy. Without it he would have folded up his manuscript and slunk away, for Reben’s comments were more and more confusingly cynical.
When he finished the ordeal Vickery was exhausted, parched of throat and of heart. Sheila flung him adjectives like flowers and his heart went out toward her, but Reben was silent for a long and cruelly anxious while. Then he spoke harshly:
“A manager’s main business is to avoid producing plays. It’s my business to imagine what faults the public would find and then beat ’em to ’em. There will be plenty of faults left. And don’t forget, Mr. Vickery, that every compliment I pay a playwright costs me a thousand dollars or more. Frankly, Mr. Vickery, I don’t think your play is right. The idea is there, but you haven’t got it.”
Vickery’s heart sickened. Reben revived it a little.
“Maybe you can fix it up. If you can’t I’ll have to get somebody to help you. It’s too late to produce it this season, anyway. Hot weather is coming on. You have all summer to work at it.”
Vickery wondered if he should live so long.
Reben went on: “I—I’ve been thinking, Sheila—Miss Kemble, that it might be a good idea to try this play out in a stock company. Then Mr. Vickery could see its faults.”