On this argument, for the first time, Mr Tombs disagreed.
"I want to see for myself whether I've mastered the first lessons," he said. "If I could get a small part in a play, just to try myself out . . ."
He was distressingly obstinate, and Mr Quarter-stone, either because he convinced himself that it would only be a waste of time, or because another approach to his pupil's remaining nineteen thousand dollars seemed just as simple, finally yielded. He made an excuse to leave the studio for a few minutes, and Simon knew that the next development was on its way.
It arrived in the latter part of the last hour (Declamation with Gestures, Movement and Facial Expression--The Complete Classical Scene).
Mr Quarterstone was demonstrating.
"To be," trumpeted Mr Quarterstone, gazing ceil-ingwards with an ecstatic expression, the chest thrown out, the arms slightly spread, "or not to be." Mr Quarterstone ceased to be. He slumped, the head bowed, the arms hanging listlessly by the sides, the expression doleful. "That--is the question." Mr Quarterstone pondered it, shaking his head. The suspense was awful. He elaborated the idea. "Whether 'tis nobler"--Mr Quarterstone drew himself nobly up, the chin lifted, the right arm turned slightly across the body, the forearm parallel with the ground--"in the mind"--he clutched his brow, where he kept his mind--"to suffer"---he clutched his heart, where he did his suffering--"the slings"--he stretched out his left hand for the slings-- "and arrows"--he flung out his right hand for the arrows--"of outrageous fortune"--Mr Quarterstone rolled the insult lusciously around his mouth and spat it out with defiance--"or to take arms"--he drew himself up again, the shoulders squared, rising slightly on tiptoe---"against a sea of troubles"--his right hand moved over a broad panorama, undulating symbolically --"and by opposing"--the arms rising slightly from the elbow, fists clenched, shoulders thrown back, chin drawn in--"end them!"--the forearms striking down again with a fierce chopping movement, expressive of finality and knocking a calendar off the table.
"Excuse me," said the brassy blonde, with her head poking round the door. "Mr Urlaub is here."
"Tchah!" said Mr Quarterstone, inspiration wounded in mid-flight. "Tell him to wait."
"He said----"
Mr Quarterstone's eyes dilated. His mouth opened. His hands lifted a little from his sides, the fingers tense and parted rather like plump claws, the body rising. He was staring at the Saint.
"Wait!" he cried. "Of course! The very thing! The very man you've got to meet! One of the greatest producers in the world today! Your chance!"
He leapt a short distance off the ground and whirled on the blonde, his arm flung out, pointing quiveringly.
"Send him in!"
Simon looked wildly breathless.
"But--but will he----"
"Of course he will! You've only got to remember what I've taught you. And sit down. We must be calm."
Mr Quarterstone sank into a chair, agitatedly looking calm, as Urlaub bustled in. Urlaub trotted quickly across the room.
"Ah, Homer."
"My dear Waldemar! How is everything?"
"Terrible! I came to ask for your advice . . ."
Mr Urlaub leaned across the desk. He was a smallish, thin, bouncy man with a big nose and sleek black hair. His suit fitted him as tightly as an extra skin, and the stones in his tiepin and in his rings looked enough like diamonds to look like diamonds. He moved as if he were hung on springs, and his voice was thin and spluttery like the exhaust of an anemic motorcycle.
"Niementhal has quit. Let me down at the last minute. He wanted to put some goddam gigolo into the lead. Some ham that his wife's got hold of. I said to him, 'Aaron, your wife is your business and this play is my business.' I said, 'I don't care if it hurts your wife's feelings and I don't care if she gets mad at you, I can't afford to risk my reputation on Broadway and my investment in this play by putting that ham in the lead.' I said, 'Buy her a box of candy or a diamond bracelet or anything or send her to Paris or something, but don't ask me to make her happy by putting that gigolo in this play.' So he quit. And me with everything set, and the rest of the cast ready to start rehearsing next week, and he quits. He said, 'All right, then use your own money.' I said, 'You know I've got fifty thousand dollars in this production already, and all you were going to put in is fifteen thousand, and for that you want me to risk my money and my reputation by hiring that ham. I thought you said you'd got a good actor.' 'Well, you find yourself a good actor and fifteen thousand dollars,' he says, and he quits. Cold. And I can't raise another cent--you know how I just tied up half a million to save those aluminum shares."
"That's tough, Waldemar," said Mr Quarterstone anxiously. "Waldemar, that's tough! . . . Ah--by the way--pardon me--may I introduce a student of mine? Mr Tombs . . ."
Urlaub turned vaguely, apparently becoming aware of the Saint's presence for the first time. He started forward with a courteously extended hand as the Saint rose.
But their hands did not meet at once. Mr Urlaub's approaching movement died slowly away, as if paralysis had gradually overtaken him, so that he finally came to rest just before they met, like a clockwork toy that had run down. His eyes became fixed, staring. His mouth opened.
Then, very slowly, he revived himself. He pushed his hand onwards again and grasped the Saint's as if it were something precious, shaking it slowly and earnestly.
"A pupil of yours, did you say, Homer?" he asked in an awestruck voice.
"That's right. My star pupil, in fact. I might almost say ..."
Mr Urlaub paid no attention to what Quarterstone might almost have said. With his eyes still staring, he darted suddenly closer, peered into the Saint's face, took hold of it, turned it from side to side, just as Quarterstone had once done. Then he stepped back and stared again, prowling round the Saint like a dog prowling round a tree. Then he stopped.
"Mr Tombs," he said vibrantly, "will you walk over to the door, and then walk back towards me?"
Looking dazed, the Saint did so.
Mr Urlaub looked at him and gulped. Then he hauled a wad of typescript out of an inside pocket, fumbled through it and thrust it out with one enamelled fingernail dabbing at a paragraph.
"Read that speech--read it as if you were acting it."
The Saint glanced over the paragraph, drew a deep breath and read with almost uncontrollable emotion.
"No, do not lie to me. You have already given me the answer for which I have been waiting. I am not ungrateful for what you once did for me, but I see now that that kind act was only a part of your scheme to ensnare my better nature in the toils of your unhallowed passions, as though pure love were a thing that could be bought like merchandise. Ah, yes, I loved you, but I did not know that that pretty face was only a mask for the corruption beneath. How you must have laughed at me! Ha, ha. I brought you a rose, but you turned it into a nest of vipers in my bosom. They have stabbed my heart! (Sobs.)"