Page:Held to Answer (1916).pdf/128

 of the company. Hampstead's portion was more and less, a look and a nod. The nod said: "I know you, puppet." The look warned: "But do not presume. Stand."

John stood, wondering. As rehearsals progressed, his wonder grew into bewilderment. Miss Dounay treated the whole company cavalierly, but she treated him disdainfully. Her feeling for the others was simply negative; for him it appeared to be positive.

As an actress, it developed that she was "up" in the part of Isabel, having played it many times. She had, moreover, ideas of how every other part should be played and was pleased to express them. Nobody protested, Halson least of all. She was a "find" for the People's. As a director, too, Miss Dounay was masterful. A languid glance, a single word, a very slight intonation, had more force than one of Halson's ranting commands. And she was instinctively competent.

Hampstead, despite his own sad experience, watched her open-mouthed. This young woman, it appeared, was an intellectual force as well as a magnetic one. She cut speeches or interpolated them, altered business, and in one instance rearranged an entire scene, while in another she boldly reconstructed the conclusion of an act. The storm center round which much of this cutting, slicing, and fattening took place was Hampstead. She heckled him unmercifully about the reading of his lines, ridiculed his gestures, and badgered him to madness.

On the fourth day of this, John moped out of the theater, head down, reflecting bitterly upon the illusory character of woman, of which he knew so little,—moped so slowly that Parks overtook him on the first corner.

"This woman is a friend of yours," Parks proposed tentatively.

"I thought she was," sighed Hampstead weakly, "but