The truth about Mr. Canby's opinion of Mr. Potter at this moment
was not to the playwright's credit. However, he went only so
far as to say: "I didn't like him much yesterday afternoon."

"Oh, no, no!" she said quickly. "That was every bit my fault. I
was frightened and it made me stupid. And he's just beautiful to
me to-day! But I'd never mind anything from a man that works
with you as he does. It's the most wonderful thing! To a woman
who loves her profession for its own sake--"

"You do, Miss Malone?"

"Love it?" she cried. "Is there anything like it in the world?"

"I might have known you felt that, from your acting," he said,
managing somehow to be coherent, though it was difficult.

"Oh, but we all do!" she protested eagerly. "I believe all
actors love it more than they love life itself. Don't think I
mean those that never grew up out of their 'show-off' time in
childhood. Those don't count, in what I mean, any more than the
'show-girls' and heaven knows what not that the newspapers call
'actresses'. Oh, Mr. Canby, I mean the people with the art and
the fire born in them: those who must come to the stage and who
ought to and who do. It isn't because we want to be 'looked at'
that we go on the stage and starve to stay there! It's because
we want to make pictures--to make pictures of characters in
plays for people in audiences. It's like being a sculptor or
painter; only we paint and model with ourselves--and we're