She had performed sixteen speaking roles in a dozen different productions. The numbers looked funny because she tended to get cast in roles so small that, with a change of costume, she could easily do more than one in the same play. With time and experience she had graduated to sidekick and girlfriend roles in small productions around Oxford. Beyond that, she had no ambitions in the theatrical world. But she had come to understand that the decisions of casting directors reflected the way that people in general, and men in particular, looked at her. New men who swam into her environment ignored her at first. Some then began to gaze curiously at her. Then they either went back to ignoring her or else found some way of letting her know that they thought she was beautiful; that this was by no means obvious; and that they deserved some reward or appreciation for having been so ingenious as to notice it. Different directors had awarded her greater or lesser roles depending on where they fell in the continuum of Olivia-face-appreciation, but starring roles had eluded her for the reason mentioned.