Full Tide by Celine Conway Page B

would have laughed, sharing his joke. But he was so obviously in earnest that a jest now might prove fatal. No, her attitude at the moment had to be as casual as she could make it. “Johannesburg is a big city, isn’t it? I suppose the prospect is rather glittering, but she may be wrong. It would be ghastly if you failed to go over with the audience. ”
    “Astra says I won’t. The plays she’s chosen for the season have the orthodox sort of hero. She herself is the star of them. ”
    “Naturally. ”
    He bent forward, determined to convince. “Don’t you see, it’s best for me that my first parts should be on one pattern. That way I shall have a chance to learn stagecraft and improve my technique before tackling anything really big. ”
    Lisa hated hurting people, but she was anxious that Jeremy should avoid deeper wounds later. She drank some tea before making her next observation, a nd smiled to soften its impact.
    “Do you honestly believe you’ll ever be good enough to tackle something really big?”
    ‘ His mouth compressed, and he did not hide the fact that he was stung. “You might encourage a chap! This opportunity has dropped straight out of the blue, and I refuse to pass it up. If Astra Carmichael considers I have the talent to make a living on the stage, I don’t see that you have any cause to question it.” He broke off, and tacked on quickly, lightly, “I’m sorry. If I hadn’t muddled the telling of it you’d have understood. I want to do this thing, Lee. It may sound crazy, but I think it’s my line.”
    “But your mother is so proud of you now. She’d feel terribly let down if all the sacrifices she’s made turned out to be superfluous. Think about it awfully hard,”' she pleaded. “You actually have your technical degree, but you’d be starting at the bottom with Astra. I know she promises you fairly important parts, but only for six months. After that you’d probably have to go on alone, without her influence. And I can’t help thinking it’s all too sudde n and overwhelming.”
    “My dear girl, that’s how the best things come about!”
    “Some of them,” she said slowly, “but not those which map one’s whole career.” Her forehead puckered with an earnestness which matched his. “Before this, you’ve never had the smallest urge to act, have you?”
    “No,” h e acknowledged flatly, “I haven’t. But I was raised in a country where few actors reach more than amateur status.”
    “You’ve been in England since then.”
    He breathed , a long sigh of exasperation and chagrin. “All right, I’m not a born actor. I know, it. But Astra Carmichael, who you’ll admit has some experience of the theatre, is certain I’d make a popular leading man in her plays. Leading man, mind you, not just an extra.”
    Lisa had not the heart to voice the suspicion in her mind: that Astra, secure in her own reputation and determined not to be outshone, had picked on Jeremy Carne chiefly for his good looks and the pleasure of playing with a younger man who would do as he was told. She would teach him enough to ensure that her own effect was by no whit diminished, and would generously allow him his modicum of applause, but once her season was over he could slide back into the bushveld for all she would care.
    Lisa could see that he was anything but gay about his good fortune. The knowledge that his mother and father would suffer shook him more than he cared to admit, yet the vision of himself in the most glamorous of professions was one he could not relinquish.
    And who was she, thought Lisa, to judge his capabilities when she had not even seen him display them? If at the first trial he could put on a show which appealed to the expert Astra, he would probably turn out to be a satisfactory stage lover. Stranger things had occurred. He was as conscious of all the drawbacks as she; she had no right at all to dissuade him.
    Yet she felt compelled to point out: “The way I see it, leaving