Page:Stringer - Wine of Life.djvu/154

144 still again came explanation, expostulation, the lash of mockery, the high-pitched curt commands. And again a voice which did not seem Torrie's voice pleaded and shook with its factitious emotion, rose and fell with its waves of purely imaginary woe, choked in a frantically achieved imitation of a sob.

"You're getting it, girl, you're getting it," cried the excited voice of Krassler. "Now keep on and go through the whole scene. . . . Drop your voice on that, and don't move until you come to the words 'I never knew — I never knew'. . . . Keep your spine stiff. . . . No, no, you can't beat your chest-bone like a baboon. You can't do that on Broadway — they canned that twenty years ago. . . . Look, like this. . . . And freeze on that word 'Forever' — don't move a muscle until Randolph flings the letters in your face!"

Storrow overheard it all with a vague disquiet in his soul. He more and more resented this seeming appropriation of Torrie's personality, even in the name of Art. He resented the thought of her being exploited and swayed and harassed by this professional exploiter of emotion. It seemed to involve the submergence of her own individuality. It tended to translate her into something new, something chillingly remote. And the thought of any such estrangement was already painful to him.

He paced his room, trying to think the thing out, trying to persuade himself that it was something more than sheer physical jealousy. His heart was still a parliament of these silent debating voices when he heard Krassler saying good-night to Torrie. It was not Krassler the impresario but Krassler the man who spoke now, cordially and a little wearily, as he laughingly complained that even on Broadway you have to break your eggs before you can make your omelette. At almost the same moment, in the contentious forum of his own soul, Storrow suddenly perceived that there was only one way out for him.