Читать книгу The Passionate Quest онлайн

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"Rotten!" he cried. "Absolutely rotten! You both enter as though you were walking on stilts, you both say the wrong thing in the wrong way. You, Eric, look like a poop-stick, and you, Madge, like a hairdresser's dummy. God help the play and all of us, I say! Unless you can put a little more life into it, you'll be booed off the stage on the first night."

Rosina, thoroughly enjoying herself, smiled at a pleasant-faced young man in tweeds, who was standing by her side, smoking a cigarette.

"Are these two really so bad," she enquired, "or is it the play?"

"Well, it's scarcely fair to ask me," he replied, "as I happen to be the author."

Rosina, who was becoming an opportunist, did not hesitate for a moment.

"Are you really the author?" she murmured, raising her eyes and looking at him. "How wonderful!"

The young man changed his position a little. He seemed slightly embarrassed.

"Oh, I don't know about that!" he observed deprecatingly. "This sort of thing isn't really difficult to write."

"I heard the little fat man say something about a chorus," she went on, dropping her voice a little and looking at him confidentially. "Do you think I could possibly find a place in it?"