Stella Joyce, as unruffled as though she had just begun to read, carried on the script.
“Pretty.” The wild Mr. Wylie was actually jovial. “But—not quite. A little more hokum. Just a little, Stella.”
Stella gave the script a shade more heart throb. Wylie closed his eyes and became beatific. Joe waited for his cue. He began to read:
Dick: We’re in this fight together, Mother. We’re partners. At least we’re supposed to be. But we can’t be partners when you carry all the load and I just ride along. I—
“Please!” Wylie wailed. “Don’t you get this scene at all? Your mother’s fighting the world to keep her little home together and you want to help. Do you have to read it as though you’re arguing to put one more pickle in the picnic lunch?” A beaming face was transformed to fury. “Do you have to insult me with such a performance?”
Joe laid down the script “I can’t read to-day, Mr. Wylie.”
“What?” Wylie seemed to freeze with horror.
“I’m not in the humor.”
Wylie’s moan was that of a man whose soul was in agony. “He’s not in the humor! An actor, and he must be in the humor. Do you think an actor is somebody who can read his lines only when the wind’s in the east? Suppose Munson were listening and this was an audition? Suppose this script were on the air? Suppose—”
“Vic,” said Stella.