"You were very amusing," he answered unenthusiastically. "But it's possible to be amusing even when you're making rather a nuisance of yourself to several very busy men."
A sigh fluttered wistfully through the darkness, and he felt her drawing closer to him.
"Aren't you a little bit brutal, Eric?"
"Don't you find every one brutal who doesn't fetch and carry and wait out in the snow for you all night—and give you material for new stories? … Stand still while I find the handle."
He led her through a studded iron door into the twilit auditorium. The stalls were swathed in holland covers, and there was a brooding warm desolation which invited undertones. Barbara looked with growing interest at a sprawling group of two men and three women on the stage. Without make-up they were white and featureless in the glare of the foot-lights; they were jaded and a little impatient, too, but Manders, who seemed to make his personality unyielding and metallic on entering a theatre, galvanized them into alertness. A wooden platform had been built over the middle of the orchestra; and, as soon as he had disposed of Barbara in the stalls, Eric mounted it and seated himself in an arm-chair. Manders cautiously squeezed past him, script in hand, to the stage; there was a preliminary cough, a cry of "Beginners, please!" and the rehearsal opened.
Eric allowed the first act to be played without interruption; at the end he jumped up and entered into whispered conversation with Manders, turning the leaves of the manuscript and tapping them impressively with his pencil. One player after another emerged from the wings and stood listening, nodding and discussing as each point was thrashed out. A few minutes later Manders came down into the stalls and sat by Barbara.
"Just a breather," he explained. "No good nagging your people, particularly when they've been at the job for years and you're a new-comer.… Some of my spoiled darlings find that a little Eric goes a long way. You're sure you're not bored, my dear?"
"I can't see very well," Barbara answered. "If I had a chair on the little platform——"
Manders wasted an unseen wink on her.
"Well, you mustn't talk to Eric, that's all. And, if you see you're making him nervous, you must run away."