Natalie Winter, who was playing Vittoria Corombona, the distinguished courtesan, was as cool and professional as ever. She spoke little and did perfectly what was required of her, giving a perfect small reproduction of what her eventual performance was to be. She seemed worried, however, about her appearance: at every pause she sat down quietly on the bed, while the others joked and laughed and complained and sucked peppermints, to pull fretfully at the neckline of her tight boned bodice. She was not really an attractive woman at all, though she dressed up well: her body, all built up and hard inside the boned gown, looked wonderful, but her wig had not as yet arrived, and her thin neck and face and wispy hair rose out of the low velvet boundaries in school-mistressly incongruity. Peter Yates was looking splendid in the usual stage style of boots and open white shirts, and David was of course wandering around in his own clothes. He has never liked the idea of dressing up, I will say that much for him.

They were making interminably slow progress. Between eight and nine they went over the same scene change and the ensuing scene about fifteen times. Everyone but Natalie seemed on the verge of revolt. The difficulty was purely technical: it was a question of synchronizing the appearance of a bed and a few bits of scenery with the arrival of a group of actors. There was much talk about cue lights and other things, and finally Wyndham, whose voice I had hardly heard, said:

“Well, you can pack up for ten minutes while I work this one out.”

And they all went off to the green room, while Wyndham walked up and down the aisle smoking. On his tenth return he stopped at the end of the row where I was sitting and said:

“That’s Mrs. Evans, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” I said.

“I’ll sit down for a moment,” he said, and he sat down, leaving one vacant seat between us, over which he leaned to offer me a cigarette. I accepted because I wanted him to light it for me.

“Well,” he said as he put out his lighter, “there’s not very much to see here tonight, is there?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “There seems to be quite a lot going on, in one way and another.”

“You think so?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Are you finding Hereford any more interesting than you were when I last spoke to you? I haven’t forgotten what you said.”

“You haven’t time for what I said. You’re a very busy man,” I said. “What are you going to do about that scene change?”

“Oh, that. That’s perfectly straightforward. They’ll all get it right first time when they get back, they were just not concentrating. They always say things are impossible, they panic.”

“So you’re not thinking about it at all?”