'Why, you look as if you was going to a funeral, and not to a play. Why
don't ye laugh?'

In truth, Hubert and Rose were a little silent. Rose was thinking how she
could say certain lines. She had said them right once at rehearsal, but had
not since been able to reproduce to her satisfaction a certain effect of
voice. Hubert was too nervous to talk. There was nothing in his mind but
'Will the piece succeed? What shall I do if it fails?' He could give heed
to nothing but himself, all the world seemed blotted out, and he suffered
the pain of excessive self-concentration. Rose, on the other hand, had lost
sight of herself, and existed almost unconsciously in the soul of another
being. She was sometimes like a hypnotised spectator watching with foolish,
involuntary curiosity the actions of one whom she had been bidden to watch.
Then a little cloud would gather over her eyes, and then this other being
would rise as if out of her very entrails and recreate her, fashioning her
to its own image and likeness.

She did not answer when she was spoken to, and when the question was
repeated, she awoke with a little start. Dinner was eaten in morbid
silence, with painful and fitful efforts to appear interested in each
other. Walking to the theatre, they once took the wrong turning and had to
ask the way. At the stage door they smiled painfully, nodded, glad to part.
Hubert went up to Montague Ford's room. He found the comedian on a low
stool, seated before a low table covered with brushes and cosmetics, in
front of a triple glass.

'My dear friend, do not trouble me now. I am thinking of my part.'

Hubert turned to go.