Baron regarded her in silence. Then--“but don’t you think everybody ought to want to advance?” he asked. “Oh, well--yes; but think how a production would be if the little parts--even the populace--were done wrong! If I had only one line, I’d want to believe it was as important as anything in the play.” Baron tried to apply that philosophy to his own “part,” but he had to admit that the result was not at all satisfactory. “Anyway,” she added, “if you do things the way your audience wants you to do them, I’ll bet the big parts will come fast enough.” “The audience!” echoed Baron. “I’d want a higher standard than that. I’d want to--to play my part the way I thought it should be done. I wouldn’t be satisfied just with pleasing the audience.” “Oh, but that’s the wrong idea. I’ve seen people like that. They never were what you’d call artists. Believe me, the audience is the best judge.” Baron, seeking for a symbol, believed there was no hope of finding it in this. His mind wandered, and when he brought it back to the child who sat before him she was talking of her own problem in a way which did not touch his at all. “I think it’s the chance of my life,” she was saying, “my being here with you all.” “A chance--for what?” he asked. “Oh, to pick things up. You know I can’t always be a Little Eva. I’ll be too old for that after a while. And then it will be handy for me to have a little--a little class.” “Class!” exclaimed Baron. “Class?” He had been arguing that the one thing wrong with his way of thinking and living was that he and his family had attached a silly importance to the class idea, and that it had prevented him from learning to be active and useful in ways that counted in the world in which he had to live. “It’s a good thing,” defended Bonnie May. “It’s needed in all the best plays. And you can’t get it just by going to the wardrobe mistress, either. It’s something that’s got to be _in_ you. In order to do it right, you’ve pretty near got to have the goods.” She couldn’t understand why Baron had spoken with such emphasis--with such resentment. “Class,” mused Baron to himself. He looked intently at this child who did not know where she had been born--who knew nothing even about her parentage.