False Scent by Ngaio Marsh

greetings and drifted astern. They were in the conservatory and for the rest of her life the smell of freesias would carry Anelida back to it.
    “There!” Gantry said, releasing her with a little pat. “Now then.”
    “Richard didn’t tell me. Nobody said you were in front.”
    “Nobody knew, dear. We came in during the first act and left before the curtain. I preferred it.”
    She remembered, dimly, that this kind of behavior was part of his legend.
    “Why are you fussed?” Gantry inquired. “Are you ashamed of your performance?”
    “No,” Anelida said truthfully, and she added in a hurry, “I know it’s very bad in patches.”
    “How old are you?”
    “Nineteen.”
    “What else have you played?”
    “Only bits at the Bonaventure.”
    “No
dra-mat-ic ac-ad-emy
?” he said, venomously spitting out the consonants. “No agonizing in devoted little groups? No
depicting
! No going to bed with Stanislavsky and rising with Method?”
    Anelida, who was getting her second wind, grinned at him.
    “I admire Stanislavsky,” she said. “Intensely.”
    “Very well. Very well. Now, attend to me. I am going to tell you about your performance.”
    He did so at some length and in considerable detail. He was waspish, didactic, devastating and overwhelmingly right. For the most part she listend avidly and in silence, but presently she ventured to ask for elucidation. He answered, and seemed to be pleased.
    “Now,” he said, “those are all the things that were amiss with your performance. You will have concluded that I wouldn’t have told you about them if I didn’t think you were an actress. Most of your mistakes were technical. You will correct them. In the meantime I have a suggestion to make. Just that. No promises. It’s in reference to a play that may never go into production. I believe you have already read it. You will do so again, if you please, and to that end you will come to the Unicorn at ten o’clock next Thursday morning. Hi! Monty!”
    Anelida was getting used to the dreamlike situation in which she found herself. It had, in its own right, a kind of authenticity. When the Management, that bourne to which all unknown actresses aspired, appeared before her in the person of Montague Marchant, she was able to make a reasonable response. How pale was Mr. Marchant, how matt his surface, how immense his aplomb! He talked of the spring weather, of the flowers in the conservatory and, through some imperceptible gradation, of the theatre. She was, he understood, an actress.
    “She’s playing Eliza Doolittle,” Gantry remarked.
    “Of course. Nice notices,” Marchant murmured and tidily smiled at her. She supposed he must have seen them.
    “I’ve been bullying her about her performance,” Gantry continued.
    “What a bad man!” Marchant said lightly. “Isn’t he?”
    “I suggest you take a look at it.”
    “Now, you see, Miss Lee, he’s trying to bully me.”
    “You mustn’t let him,” Anelida said.
    “Oh, I’m well up to his tricks. Are you liking Eliza?”
    “Very much indeed. It’s a great stroke of luck for me to try my hand at her.”
    “How long is your season?”
    “Till Sunday. We change every three weeks.”
    “God, yes. Club policy.”
    “That’s it.”
    “I see no good reason,” Gantry said, “for fiddling about with this conversation. You know the part I told you about in Dicky’s new play? She’s going to read it for me. In the meantime, Monty, my dear, you’re going to look at the piece and then pay a call on the Bonaventure.” He suddenly displayed the cockeyed charm for which he was famous. “No promises made, no bones broken. Just a certain amount of very kind trouble taken because you know I wouldn’t ask it idly. Come, Monty, do say you will.”
    “I seem,” Marchant said, “to be cornered,” and it was impossible to tell whether he really minded.
    Anelida said, “It’s asking altogether too much — please
don’t
be cornered.”
    “I shall tell you