Page:Stringer - Wine of Life.djvu/159

Rh it. He makes me feel that I'm only a mask and that it's his spirit stepping inside that mask and doing what I ought to. He holds me up where I'd go down in two minutes."

It discomfited Storrow to find his own inner conclusions thus openly reiterated.

"There seem to be several hundred that Krassler isn't holding up, as you put it."

"But don't you see, Owen, that I'm different? Acting isn't just an instinct; it's an art. It's an art you acquire after years of study. And what chance have I ever had to study it that way? What training do you ever get out of stage dancing and show-girl parts? What good does a few seasons of being a clothes-horse or a front-line jumping- jack ever do you for real art, for real acting? And I hate the very thought of having to go back to that sort of thing."

"But you'll never have to go back to that sort of thing," asserted the man at her side, resenting even this sudden and solemn attitude towards an art which he had never been taught to accept as a serious one.

There was an air of luxuriousness in her slow movement on the bed.

"You'd find me a very expensive luxury," she said, smiling for the first time.

"I'm willing to face that," he retorted.

"But would it be fair for me to ask you to face it?" she asked. "We've both got our work, and we both ought to be free to follow it."

"I'm not asking," he contended, "for any surrender of freedom. What I want you to do it for is really to get our freedom back to us, to get our feet on solid ground so we can use our hands or our heads when we feel the need for it."

She seemed unable to follow his line of thought.

"Then what is it you want?" she asked, once more with a wrinkled brow.