"Whenever I try to feel the emotion myself, it vanishes, and I can only feel myself in white satin, with a long train sweeping to the back of the stage, and all the house in love with me." "This is bad; this is very bad, Molly." "See, here, Dick, I'm telling you all my troubles. I am studying the part of Desdemona--you know, Desdemona who married a black man. How could she?--and of course he was jealous. I've got to show all kinds of emotion before that beast of a husband kills me." "It's a fine part--none finer. Once I saw it played magnificently. She was in a travelling company, and she died of typhoid, poor thing! Yes, I can see her now." He acted as he spoke. "She was full of forebodings; her husband was cold; her distress of mind was shown in the way she took up trifles, and put them down again; she spoke she knew not what, and sang snatches of song; in her eyes stood tears; her voice trembled; she moved about uneasily; she clutched at her dress in agitation. "'The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree, Sing all a green willow.'" "Why," cried the girl, "you make me feel it--you--only with talking about it! And I--alas! Have I any feeling in me at all, Dick?" "Oh yes, it's there--it's there all right. There's tragedy in the most unpromising materials, if you know how to get at it. I think a woman's got to be in love first. It's a very fine thing for an actress to fall in love--the real thing, I mean. Then comes jealousy, of course. And after that, all the real tragedy emotions." "Oh, love!" the girl repeated with scorn. "Try again now; you know the words." Molly began to repeat the lines-- "My mother had a maid called Barbara; She was in love, and he she loved proved mad, And forsook her; she had a song of 'Willow.'" She declaimed these lines with certain gestures which had been taught her. She broke off, leaving the rest unfinished. The effect was wooden. There was no pity, no sorrow, no foreboding in the lines at all. Dick shook his head. "What am I to say to Hilarie?" she asked. Dick passed his fingers through his hair. Then he sat down again, and began to laugh--laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks. "You a tragedy queen!" he said. "Not even if you were over head and ears in love. Now, on the other hand, if I had my fiddle in my hand, and were to play--so--that air which you remember"--he put out his legs straight and sat upright, and pretended the conduct of a fiddle and bow--"could you dance, do you think, as you used to dance two years ago?" She stood before him, seeming to listen. Then she gently moved her head as if touched by the music. Then she raised her arms and began to dance, with such ease and grace and lightness as can only belong to the dancer born. "Thank you, Molly." He stood up as if the music was over. "We shall confer further upon this point--and other points. When may I come again to visit Miss Molly Pennefather?"