“Oh, Holy Moses,” the director mourned, “look at him!—Slower, please, Mr. Rand!—It’ll be awkward if I get Mr. Walling to squash him, Bernamer. You never can tell how these walking egoisms will break out. He may run about town saying that Mr. Walling’s oppressing him cruelly.—My God, he’ll be crawling up the scene in a minute!”
On the stage, Rand had excited himself to a circular movement about a large divan in the centre. He had somehow the look of a single racer coming home ahead of the other runners. The men and women standing still suggested a sparse audience for this athletic feat. It was ludicrous. Worse, Mark would never scold Cora Boyle’s husband. Gurdy took a resolve. Margot had made Mark waste time with this silly play. She had proposed Rand for the part. She should help. He hurried to the station and reached the cottage in mid afternoon. A warm October wind made the fir trees whistle. He found Margot in a silk sweater of dull rose putting a tennis ball about the dry lawn. She smiled, tilting the golfstick across a shoulder, and swayed her slim body back to look up at Gurdy.
“Dad just telephoned from the farm, old son. Wanted to know if you were here. It was something about ‘Captain Salvador’.”
“Oh, yes. I was hunting a tom tom for the Voodoo scene. He doesn’t like the one they’re using. Doesn’t thud loudly enough.—Can I talk to you about ‘Todgers Intrudes’ without having a fight?”
“Of course you can.”
“All right. It’s going very badly. Mr. Russell, the director, has a free for all row with Mr. Rand every day. Rand acts like the last of a ballet. He’s putting everything back. He’s out of the picture all the time. Word of honour, Margot, the play hasn’t nine lives. It’s thin. It’ll take a lot of work to make it go. Russell’s one of the best directors going and he knows what he’s doing. Rand simply runs all over the stage like that clown at the Hippodrome.”
“That’s rather the way it was played in London. Of course, that’s no excuse. Have dad scold Rand.”
“Be pretty awkward for Mark—scolding Cora Boyle’s husband.”
Margot said, “What utter tosh!”
“No, it’s not. Mark’s old fashioned—sensitive about things like that. And Rand might take it as spite. Cora Boyle’s back from California, Russell tells me. She’s a fearful liar. If she hears that Mark jumped on her husband she’ll tell all her friends that Mark’s simply a swine. You don’t know how gossip travels and gets—distorted. Once last May Mark said that he didn’t like a gown that some woman was wearing in a play we’d been to the night before. He said that at lunch in the Claridge. Next day the woman’s husband came into the office and wanted to thrash Mark. By the time the story got to him it had swelled up like a balloon. This fellow had got it that Mark said his wife looked like a streetwalker and acted like one.—It’s all very awkward. Couldn’t you—”