And yet, during the rehearsal, he
had not once thought consciously of the understudy; and he had
come away from the theatre occupied--exclusively, he would have
sworn--with the predicament in which he found himself and his
play. Surely that was enough to fill and overflow any new
playwright's mind, but, about half an hour after he had reached
his room and set to work upon the manuscript of the second act,
he discovered that he had retained, unawares, a singularly clear
impression of Miss Malone.
Then, presently, he realized that distinct pictures of her kept
coming between him and his work, and that her voice rang softly
and persistently in his ear. Over and over in that voice's
slender music--plaintive, laughing, reaching everywhere so
clearly--he heard the detested "line": "What are you two good
people conspiring about?" Over and over he saw the slow,
comprehending movement with which she removed her hat and veil
to let Talbot Potter judge her. And as she stood, with that
critic's eye searching her, Canby remembered that through some
untraceable association of ideas he had inexplicably thought of
a drawing of "Florence Dombey" in an old set of Dickens
engravings he had seen at his grandfather's in his boyhood--and
had not seen since.
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