Standing where he could see her he thought that on this occasion she
threw into her scene, which was the best she had in the play, a
brighter art than ever before, a talent that could play with its
problem. She was perpetually doing things out of rehearsal (she did
two or three to-night, in the other man's piece), that he as often
wished to heaven Nona Vincent might have the benefit of. She
appeared to be able to do them for every one but him--that is for
every one but Nona. He was conscious, in these days, of an odd new
feeling, which mixed (this was a part of its oddity) with a very
natural and comparatively old one and which in its most definite form
was a dull ache of regret that this young lady's unlucky star should
have placed her on the stage. He wished in his worst uneasiness
that, without going further, she would give it up; and yet it soothed
that uneasiness to remind himself that he saw grounds to hope she
would go far enough to make a marked success of Nona. There were
strange and painful moments when, as the interpretress of Nona, he
almost hated her; after which, however, he always assured himself
that he exaggerated, inasmuch as what made this aversion seem great,
when he was nervous, was simply its contrast with the growing sense
that there WERE grounds--totally different--on which she pleased him.
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