--perfectly.
How stupid of me! I'll want all your time. So it's to be
forty dollars a week. When can you begin?"

Susan reflected. "I can't go into anything that'll mean a
long time," she said. "I'm waiting for a man--a friend of
mine to get well. Then we're going to do something together."

Brent made an impatient gesture. "An actor? Well, I suppose
I can get him something to do. But I don't want you to be
under the influence of any of these absurd creatures who think
they know what acting is--when they merely know how to dress
themselves in different suits of clothes, and strut themselves
about the stage. They'd rather die than give up their own
feeble, foolish little identities. I'll see that your actor
friend is taken care of, but you must keep away from him--for
the time at least."

"He's all I've got. He's an old friend."

"You--care for him?"

"I used to. And lately I found him again--after we had been
separated a long time. We're going to help each other up."

"Oh--he's down and out oh? Why?"

"Drink--and hard luck."

"Not hard luck. That helps a man. It has helped you. It has
made you what you are."

"What am I?" asked Susan.

Brent smiled mysteriously. "That's what we're going to find
out," said he. "There's no human being who has ever had a
future unless he or she had a past--and the severer the past
the more splendid the future."

Susan was attending with all her senses. This man was putting
into words her own inarticulate instincts.

"A past," he went on in his sharp, dogmatic way, "either
breaks or makes. You go into the crucible a mere ore, a
possibility. You come out slag or steel." He was standing
now, looking down at her with quizzical eyes. "You're about
due to leave the pot," said he.

"And I've hopes that you're steel. If not----" He shrugged
his shoulders--"You'll have had forty a week for your time,
and I'll have gained useful experience."

Susan gazed at him as if she doubted her eyes and ears.

"What do you want me to do?" she presently inquired.

"Learn the art of acting--which consists of two parts. First,
you must learn to act--thousands of the profession do that.
Second, you must learn not to act--and so far I know there
aren't a dozen in the whole world who've got that far along.
I've written a play I think well of. I want to have it done
properly--it, and several other plays I intend to write. I'm
going to give you a chance to become f