Take Twelfth Night—”

He wondered if the notion that a Shakespeare play could be called bad would shock her, and he had used the example chiefly to find out. But she seemed unconcerned. Or perhaps she had read Shaw. Or more likely still, her mind was anchored to the main issue, for she went on: “So you didn’t like Moon of the Galtees? Ach, nor did anybody. They’re taking it off… And I don’t suppose you liked me in it either.”

“It wasn’t much of a part for you, was it?”

She grimaced. “As good as I generally get. I try to believe it’s because they think I’m too young.”

“How old are you?”

“Seventeen. Nearly eighteen.”

“I’d have guessed you nearer twenty.”

“I FEEL like twenty. And I dress to look older, but none of it seems to work. There’s a fourteen-year-old part in a new play they’re considering —I’ll bet they offer it to me.”

“Juliet was fourteen.”

“Ah, now, if only I could have a chance like that!”

“Would you take it?”

“Who wouldn’t? Or is it absurd of me to be so ambitious? Maybe I should stick to leprechauns?”

“Leprechauns or Juliet—it’s all acting.”

“I know. And you haven’t yet told me how—if—you LIKED my acting.”

“You really want me to?”

“Sure. I can bear it.”

He said judicially after a pause: “I don’t think you know HOW to act, but I think you have SOMETHING—I don’t quite know what—but it’s something you’d be lucky to have as well, even if you did know how to act.”

“All I have to do, then, is to learn?”

“Yes. And UN-learn.”

“Ah, I see.”

The inflection he caught in her voice made him continue quickly: “Remember, that’s only my opinion.” The words didn’t sound like his, and he wondered how far the impulse to speak them could be identified as humility, truculence, or a simple desire to spare her feelings.

“It’s what I asked for. Thank you.”

“Yes, but—but—”

“But what?”

“Well, what I mean is, don’t let ANYBODY’S opinion worry you. Because worrying wouldn’t help. And unless the person who criticizes has something constructive to say—” He checked himself, aware of immense pitfalls.

She said musingly after a pause: “I expect you’re right—that I’ve everything to learn and unlearn.”

“I didn’t say EVERYTHING. You weren’t at a dramatic school?”

“No. Is that what I need?”

“On the contrary, I rather thought you HAD been to some school.” He laughed. “They teach a lot of the wrong things.”

“Ah, now, Mr. Saffron, am I as bad as that?”

“My name’s Paul, by the way. I wish you’d call me Paul.”

“All right. PAUL. And I don’t know how to act, according to you. Maybe you think you could teach me?”

“Heavens, no. I’m not a teacher. I can’t act myself—I haven’t the vaguest idea how it’s done.” Again he knew that this was an attitude-cliché, with just enough truth in it for guile. “All I do —all I hope to do—is to… if I had to put it into a sentence… to… to communicate a sort of excitement.” Well, that was true —fairly true, anyhow. “If you challenge me to say I could do that with you, then I’ll say it—I’d try to, anyhow… I mean, if I were directing a play you were in.”

“Excitement?”

“Of course there’s much more to it than just that—there’s style and technique and a hundred other things. But the essential thing is the kindling of emotion in the actor—in his mind, in his voice, in his movements.”

“Emotional excitement?”

“Call it anything you like. Perhaps it’s what Oscar Wilde meant when he said he felt in a mood to pick his teeth with the spire of a cathedral.”

“HE said that?”

He nodded, amused at what he guessed—that to her Catholic mind the name was necessarily a symbol of wickedness.