“You’re talking about the public. They’re your bosses, too, aren’t they?”
“Oh, I’m only a woman. It doesn’t matter. Besides, they’re not. I lead em by the ear—the big, red, floppy ear. Poor dears! They think I love em all.”
“Whereas what you really love is the power within yourself to please them. You call it art, I suppose.”
“Ban! What a repulsive way to put it. You’re revenging yourself for what I said about the newspapers.”
“Not exactly. I’m drawing the deadly parallel.”
She drew down her pretty brows in thought. “I see. But, at worst, I’m interpreting in my own way. Not somebody else’s.”
“Not your author’s?”
“Certainly not,” she returned mutinously. “I know how to put a line over better than he possibly could. That’s my business.”
“I’d hate to write a play for you, Bettina.”
“Try it,” she challenged. “But don’t try to teach me how to play it after it’s written.”