He didn't wish to see the actress so directly, or
even so simply as that; and it had been very fatiguing, the effort to
focus Nona both through the performer and through the "Legitimate."
Before he went to bed that night he posted three words to Mrs.
Alsager--"She's not a bit like it, but I dare say I can make her do."
He was pleased with the way the actress listened, the next day, at
the reading; he was pleased indeed with many things, at the reading,
and most of all with the reading itself. The whole affair loomed
large to him and he magnified it and mapped it out. He enjoyed his
occupation of the big, dim, hollow theatre, full of the echoes of
"effect" and of a queer smell of gas and success--it all seemed such
a passive canvas for his picture. For the first time in his life he
was in command of resources; he was acquainted with the phrase, but
had never thought he should know the feeling. He was surprised at
what Loder appeared ready to do, though he reminded himself that he
must never show it. He foresaw that there would be two distinct
concomitants to the artistic effort of producing a play, one
consisting of a great deal of anguish and the other of a great deal
of amusement.
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