Dramatists -- Fiction; Greenwich Village (New York, N.Y.) -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction
She had seated herself on an arm of the Morris chair, taken off her tarn
o'shanter and was running her fingers through her rumpled short hair.
She did not look at him. After a moment she put the tam o'shanter on
again, but did not instantly get up; instead, reached out and drew the
manuscript toward her.
Peter stood over the fire.
“Is it any good saying I'm sorry,” he began... “Please don't talk about
it,” said she.
There was a long silence. Peter, helpless, tried and tried to think....
hy had brought him to this. In his heart he cursed Hy.
“I've been thinking,” said Sue, fingering the manuscript; then suddenly
turning and facing him--“you and I can't do this sort of thing.”
“Oh, of course not,” he cried eagerly.
“If there's going to be emotional tension between us, why---it's going
to Be hard to do the work.” She took the manuscript up now and looked
thoughtfully from page to page. “As I see the situation--if I see it at
all--it's like this: You have solved our problem. Splendidly. There's
our play. Like the rest of us, you are giving all you have. We've got to
work hard. More, we've got to cooperate, very finely and earnestly. But
we've got to be IMpersonal, businesslike. We've simply _got_ to.”
“I know it,” said he ruefully.
“So, if our wires--yours and mine--are going to get crossed like--like
this, well, you and I just mustn't see each other, that's all.”
“Of course,” said he.
“It's too bad. When you were reading the scenario, and I saw what
power and life you have put into it, I thought it would be particularly
interesting to have you coach me. You could help me so. But it is
something, at least--” she threw out her arms again with the gesture
that he was sure he would associate with her as long as he lived--as
he would remember the picture she made, seated there on an arm of the
Morris chair, in his rooms....
His rooms! How often in his plays had he based his big scene on Her
visit to His Rooms! And how very, very different all those scenes had
been from this. He was bewildered, trying to follow her extraordinarily
calm survey of the situation.
She was talking on. “--it is something at least to know that you have
been able to do this for us.”
She slipped off the arm of the chair now and stood before him--flushed,
but calm enough--and extended her hand.
“The best way, I think,” she said, “is for you not to see much of me
just now. That won't interfere with work at rehearsals, of course. If
there's something you want to tell me about the part, you can drop me a
line or call me up.”
Peter took her hand, clasped it for a moment, let it fall.
She moved deliberately to the door. He followed her.
“But--” said Peter huskily--“but, wouldn't I better walk home with you?”
“No,” said she, momentarily compressing her lips. “No! Better not! The
time to start being businesslike is right now. Don't you see?”
“Yes,” he murmured. “You are right, of course.” The telephone bell rang.
“Just a moment,” said Peter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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