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Carston Galloway was giving a superb performance as Ralph Greatheart: warm, crusty, independent, salty. This was light-years away from the elegant, youngish man, cigarette holder in one hand, White Lady in the other, which was how the theatergoing public had hitherto seen him. Galloway was making the transition to being a good character actor. And like most actors, he knew his worth. Peter heard him one day when he took Jason Thark aside.
    â€œOh, Jason, that understudy to little Soames—is that still going begging?”
    â€œYes, we haven’t got anybody.”
    â€œThen give it to Susan, will you? Susan Fanshaw. She’s not really stretched by all these fiddling stage-management jobs.”
    Jason paused only for a second. “All right, Carston—gladly. Will you tell her?”
    â€œIf you like,” said Carston, winking.
    Whether Clarissa would ever make the transition to successful character actress could only be a matter for guesswork. What was sure was that she was not willing to make it yet. That really was the trouble: Melinda Purefoy was young love, she was romantic interest, she was dewy-fresh virgin. The actor playing Sir James Cotterel, with whom she was in love, was a public-school smoothie of twenty-six. Whereas Clarissa was—what? The reference books differed, or rather most of them kept silent, having no wish to give currency to Clarissa’s blatant untruths.But the record of her career was public knowledge: She had made her West End debut in an H. M. Tennent revival of Present Laughter in 1962. Put her beside her supposed lover in the cruel light of day—which, after all, was what they would be acting under, with some blessed softening of evening light—and the gulf between them was brutally apparent. Put her, on the other hand, beside Constance Geary, a gin-ridden old bag whom everybody loved, who was giving a great performance as Old Lady Sneer, and you saw at once what Clarissa would become. Both were mature ladies at different stages of maturity. They were sisters under the gin.
    Why she wanted to play the part was obvious—to prove she could still convincingly manage young women. It was as unwise an ambition as could be conceived, and how she had got the part was far from obvious. Gillian and Peter never saw any great evidence that her bedding with Jason Thark brought her tangible rewards in the way of added prominence or any shielding from his wrath. Could it be, then, that she had got the part because they wanted Carston for Ralph? Quite the reverse, in fact, of how she wanted people to see the situation.
    Clarissa, however, was not to be underestimated, and she retained her unrivaled power of fuss making, which was legendary in theaters the length and breadth of the country. On Gillian’s fifth day of rehearsals, during the midmorning break when everybody was in the little private dining room drinking coffee or something stronger, Clarissa burst in on them in a manner that certainly did not suggest she was going to ask whether anyone was for tennis. She used, in fact, her standard stage manner for delivering disastrous news or staggering developments.
    â€œReally! It’s too bad! Jason, you’ll have to do something.”
    Jason was going over business with Ronnie Wimsett. He merely turned and raised a coolly inquiring eyebrow.
    â€œIt’s that appalling Capper person. I’ve just been up to my bedroom—”
    â€œWhich one, darling?” inquired Carston languidly. “Ours or Jason’s?”
    â€œOurs, pig. And I found this . . . antipodean monstrosity poking around in my drawers.”
    â€œUnderwear fetishist, would you say?”
    Clarissa drew her hand across her brow. “God! Don’t trot out all those ancient jokes, Carston. In the drawers of my dressing table. Actually poking and prying in them.”
    â€œDid you catch him in the act?” inquired Jason.
    â€œWell, not quite,”