They were all on the stage.They weren’t only the audience,not only looking on;they were acting.
Even she had a part and came every Sunday.No doubt somebody would have noticed if she hadn’t been there;she was part of the performance after all.How strange she’d never thought of it like that before!And yet it explained why she made such a point of starting from home at just the same time each week—so as not to be late for the performance—and it also explained why she had quite a queer,shy feeling at telling her English pupils how she spent her Sunday afternoons.No wonder!She nearly laughed out loud.
She was on the stage.She thought of the old invalid gentleman to whom she read the newspaper four afternoons a week while he slept in the garden.She had got quite used to the frail head on the cotton pillow,the hollowed eyes,the open mouth and the high pinched nose.If he’d been dead she mightn’t have noticed for weeks;she wouldn’t have minded.But suddenly he knew he was having the paper read to him by an actress!