He turned a bleary eye on them. "I think they are rehearsing _Julius
Caesar_ in Latin." He shrugged. "It begins the oration of Antony."
"But why?" I asked. Sid does like to put every moment to use when the
performance-fire is in people, but this project seemed pretty far
afield--hyper-pedantic. Yet at the same time I felt my scalp shivering
as if my mind were jumping with speculations just below the surface.
Doc shook his head and shrugged again.
Sid shoved a palm at Martin and roared softly, "'Sdeath, boy, thou'rt
not playing a Roman statua but a Roman! Loosen your knees and try
again."
Then he saw me. Signing Martin to stop, he called, "Come hither,
sweetling." I obeyed quickly. He gave me a fiendish grin and said,
"Thou'st heard our proposal from Martin. What sayest thou, wench?"
* * * * *
This time the shiver was in my back. It felt good. I realized I was
grinning back at him, and I knew what I'd been getting ready for the
last twenty minutes.
"I'm on," I said. "Count me in the company."
Sid jumped up and grabbed me by the shoulders and hair and bussed me
on both cheeks. It was a little like being bombed.
"Prodigious!" he cried. "Thou'lt play the Gentlewoman in the
Sleepwalking Scene tonight. Martin, her costume! Now sweet wench, mark
me well." His voice grew grave and old. "When was it she last walked?"
The new courage went out of me like water down a chute. "But Siddy, I
can't start _tonight_," I protested, half pleading, half outraged.
"Tonight or never! 'Tis an emergency--we're short-handed." Again his
voice changed. "When was it she last walked?"
"But Siddy, I don't _know_ the part."
"You must. You've heard the play twenty times this year past. When was
it she last walked?"
Martin was back and yanking down a blonde wig on my head and shoving
my arms into a light gray robe.
"I've never studied _the lines_," I squeaked at Sidney.
"Liar! I've watched your lips move a dozen nights when you watched the
scene from the wings. Close your eyes, girl! Martin, unhand her. Close
your eyes, girl, empty your mind, and listen, listen only. When was it
she last walked?"
In the blackness I heard myself replying to that cue, first in a
whisper, then more loudly, then full-throated but grave, "Since his
majesty went into the field, I have seen her rise from her bed, throw
her nightgown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth--"
"Bravissimo!" Siddy cried and bombed me again. Martin hugged his arm
around my shoulders too, then quickly stooped to start hooking up my
robe from the bottom.
"But that's only the first lines, Siddy," I protested.
"They're enough!"
"But Siddy, what if I blow up?" I asked.
"Keep your mind empty. You won't. Further, I'll be at your side,
doubling the Doctor, to prompt you if you pause."
_That ought to take care of two of me_, I thought. Then something else
struck me. "But Siddy," I quavered, "how do I play the Gentlewoman as
a boy?"
"Boy?" he demanded wonderingly. "Play her without falling down flat on
your face and I'll be past measure happy!" And he smacked me hard on
the fanny.
Martin's fingers were darting at the next to the last hook. I stopped
him and shoved my hand down the neck of my sweater and got hold of the
subway token and the chain it was on and yanked. It burned my neck
but the gold links parted. I started to throw it across the room, but
instead I smiled at Siddy and dropped it in his palm.
"The Sleepwalking Scene!" Maud hissed insistently to us from the door.