Had not a girl—and not just any girl, but a pretty, well-mannered girl, a girl compared with whom Millicent Maude McGuckin in her heyday seemed clumsy and countrified—addressed him in warm and friendly terms a bare fifteen minutes before? Had she not gone out of her way to do so? Had she not offered to drive him home? Had she not smiled upon him as she spoke? Had he missed something in that smile?

Music was not an interest of Hector’s, but in every mind there linger a few rags and tatters of melody, and particularly of melody heard in impressionable youth. From the deeps of memory there rose a forgotten song, a song which had been played at the Normal School “At Home” on that fateful night:

It was an insinuating tune, a kind of harmonious dig in the ribs. Had there been a meaning in Griselda’s smile which he (old sobersides that he was; he smiled at his stupidity) had overlooked? But the thing was ridiculous! She was a child; eighteen—nineteen, he did not know. He was talking himself into the idea that she was attracted to him. Still, it was not unknown for young women, and particularly young women of unusual character, to be drawn toward older men. And need he suppose that he was without attraction? He was wearing his best suit and his grey Homburg hat with the smart silk binding on the brim. A figure not utterly lacking in distinction, perhaps? Thus reflecting, and a little frightened by his thoughts, Hector arrived at the YMCA and went to bed.

Recurrently during the years his dreams had been plagued by the phantasmata, the hideous succubi, which visit the celibate male. This night, for the first time in his life he dreamed that a beautiful woman, lightly clad, leaned toward him tenderly and spoke his name; her smile was the smile which he had seen the night before. He woke in the night to the knowledge that for the second time in his life he was in love.

To keep pace with her father Pearl Vambrace had to take strides so long that her body was thrown forward, and she held her arms bent at the elbow.

“Don’t slouch, Pearl,” said the Professor.

“You’re going a bit too fast for me, Father.”

“No use walking unless you walk at a brisk pace. Head well up. Breathe deeply through the nose. Deep breathing refreshes the oxygen supply of the blood.”

For another hundred yards nothing was heard except the rhythmical snorting of Professor Vambrace. His nose was large and finely formed, and when he breathed for his health it made a soft whistling sound, like a phantom peanut-roaster.

“Posture is more important now than ever. In this play you will be, so to speak, on display. Acting involves severe physical discipline.”

“Yes, Father.”

“We must train like athletes. The Greeks did so. Of course there were no women on the Greek stage.”

“No, Father.”

“Nor on the Shakespearean stage, for the matter of that.”

“No, Father.”

“All the more reason why you should be in the pink of condition. Plenty of sleep. A light but sufficient diet. Lots of fruit. Keep your bowels open. Avoid draughts.”

“Yes, Father.”

“Don’t suppose that there are no draughts in early summer,” said the Professor, as though Pearl had contumaciously insisted upon this absurdity. “They are just as bad as in the winter. A summer cold is much the most difficult to shake.”

“I suppose so.”

“You may take it from me.”

“Yes, Father.”

Another hundred yards with the peanut-roaster going full blast.

“Some very odd casting done tonight.”

“What didn’t you like, Father?”

“What is the sense of putting that Tompkins girl in as Juno? Where’s your balance going to be with that hoyden lolloping about the stage? Eva Wildfang was the obvious person for the part. It was nothing short of perverse for Miss Rich to overlook her.”

“Maybe she thought Miss Wildfang was too old.”

“What do you mean, too old? Eva Wildfang is a woman of cultivation. She knows who Juno was. I don’t suppose this Tompkins creature ever heard of Juno before tonight. And Mackilwraith! Stiff as a stick. What will become of your plasticity, your fluidity of movement, with him on the stage?”

“Maybe Bonnie-Susan will be fluid enough for two.”

“Who’s Bonnie-Susan?”

“Bonnie-Susan Tompkins.”

“Bonnie-Susan! Pah!”

Another hundred yards, during which the Professor fiercely renewed the oxygen in his bloodstream. Then—

“Pearl?”

“Father?”

“That last remark of yours, about the Tompkins girl being fluid; was that intended as a jest?”

“Only a little one, Father.”

“It is not the sort of pleasantry which I like to hear from a daughter of mine. There was a smack of pertness about it.”

“Sorry, Father.”

“It had an overtone of indelicacy.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean anything like that.”

“I should hope not.”

After the next spurt of walking it was Pearl who began the conversation.

“Father, who is that man who is to play Ferdinand?”

“You were introduced to him, were you not? Of course you were. He is a Lieutenant Roger Tasset.”

“Yes, but do you know anything about him beyond that?”

“He is here to do some special military course. I think that he comes from Halifax. Mrs Forrester picked him up. We lack younger men.”

“Do you think he will be good?”

“I sincerely hope so. He appears chiefly with us. Perhaps I can take him for some special coaching. I mean to give you all the help I can—not merely in the scenes which you play with me. Perhaps we might include him in some of our private rehearsals. We could work for balance.”

“Oh, I think that would be lovely.”

Pearl Vambrace lived a life which, to the casual glance, seemed unendurable. But she had grown up to it, and although she knew that it was not like the life of any other girl of her acquaintance she did not find it actively unpleasant. If the chance had been offered to her, she would not have changed her lot for that of anyone else; she would have asked, instead, that a few changes be made in the life she had.

She would have asked, for instance, that her father should not snub her so often, and so hard. She had never seen him as the casting committee had seen him, anxious and almost humble on her behalf. She saw him only as one who made constant demands on her, and was harshly displeased if those demands were not met. He insisted that she be first in all her classes during her school life, and somehow, with a few lapses from grace, she had managed it. But she was not to be a blue-stocking, he said; she was to be truly womanly, and for that reason she must have general culture, nice manners and a store of agreeable conversation. These attributes he did his best to implant in her himself, sparing no severity of tongue if she fell below the standard he had fixed. She would undoubtedly marry, he said, and she must fit herself to be the wife of the right sort of man. Neither Pearl nor her father recognized the fact, but this really meant being the sort of wife that Walter Vambrace wished he had married.

Mrs Vambrace was a devout Roman Catholic lady, and when she had married the Professor it had been with a strong hope that he would shortly join her in her faith. It had seemed likely enough at the time. The romantic side of Catholicism had appealed to the young Vambrace, and his ravenous intellect had rapidly mastered subtleties of Catholic philosophy which were beyond her understanding. When her parents urged her to wait for his conversion before marrying, she had declined to do so, for the conversion was, in her mind, a certainty. But it had not come about. For a time the Professor stuck where he was, elegantly juggling with coloured balls of belief. But then his enthusiasm had cooled, and without anything definite being said, it became clear that he had lost interest in the project. His wife was free to do as she pleased.