“It wouldn’t be honest not to do our best, would it? Can’t you understand?”
“I can understand that my wife was in the arms of a man that loves her, and that even if you don’t love him, you pretended to, and he took advantage of it to—to—to kiss you!”
“Why, he didn’t kiss me, honey.”
“I saw him.”
“No, you didn’t. We just pretended to kiss each other. Not that a stage kiss makes any difference with rouge pressing on grease-paint—but, anyway, he didn’t.”
“You’ll be telling me he didn’t make love to you next.”
“Of course he didn’t, honey. We’d be fined for it if Reben or Batterson had noticed it; but the fact is we were trying to break each other up. Actors are always doing that when they’re sure of a success. We’ve been under a heavy strain, you know, and now we let down a little.”
Bret could hardly believe what he wanted so to believe—that while the audience was sobbing the actors were juggling with emotions, the mere properties of their trade. He asked, grimly, “If he wasn’t making love to you, what was he saying?”
“It was nothing very clever. He’s not witty, Eldon; he’s rather heavy when he tries to write his own stuff. He accused me of letting the scene lag, and he was whispering to me that I was ‘asleep at the switch, and the switch was falling off,’ and I answered him back that Dulcie Ormerod would please him better.”
“Dulcie Ormerod? Who’s Dulcie Ormerod?”