'Oh!' cried Armorel, interrupting. 'This seems to me a very fine situation.'
'My critic said that some of the situations were fine.'
He went on to the end without further interruption.
'Now, Effie,' said Armorel, 'you will read it aloud while your brother plays it with his dolls. Then I am sure to catch the points.'
Archie sat up, and began to place his dolls while Effie read. He was so expert in manipulating his puppets that he made them actually represent the piece, changing the groups every moment, while Effie, dropping the manuscript, folded her arms and recited the play, watching Armorel's face.
This was quite another kind of critic. It was such a critic as the playwright loves when he sits in his box and watches the people in the house—a face which is easily moved to laughter or to tears, which catches the points and feels the story. There are thousands of such faces in every theatre every night. It is for them that the play is written, and not for the critic, who comes to show his superiority by picking out faults and watching for slips. For two hours, not pausing for the division of the acts, Effie went on, her soft voice rising and falling, the passion indicated but repressed; and Archie watched, and moved his groups, and the audience of one sat motionless but not unmoved.
'What?' she cried, springing to her feet and clasping her hands. It is easy for this fine gesture to become theatrical and unreal, but Armorel was never unreal. 'He dared to call this splendid play—this glorious play—oh, this beautiful, sweet, and noble play!'—here Archie's eyes began to fill, and his lips to quiver: he was but a young dramatist, and of praise he had as yet had none—'he dared to call this worthless?'
'He said it was utterly worthless,' said Effie.
'He said,' Archie added, 'that the language was wholly unfitted for the stage. And then—then—after he'd said that, he offered to give me fifty pounds for it.'
'Fifty pounds for a play quite worthless?'