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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/20225-8.txt b/20225-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..761a000 --- /dev/null +++ b/20225-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7478 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Story of a Play, by W. D. Howells + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Story of a Play + A Novel + +Author: W. D. Howells + +Release Date: December 30, 2006 [EBook #20225] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF A PLAY *** + + + + +Produced by David Edwards, Janet Blenkinship and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + + + + + THE STORY OF A PLAY + + A Novel + + + BY + + W. D. HOWELLS + + AUTHOR OF "THE LANDLORD AT LION'S HEAD" "AN OPEN-EYED CONSPIRACY" ETC. + + + [Illustration] + + NEW YORK AND LONDON + + HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS + + 1898 + + W. D. HOWELLS'S WORKS. + + _IN CLOTH BINDING._ + + Copyright, 1898, BY W. D. HOWELLS. + + _Electrotyped by J. A. Howells & Co., Jefferson, Ohio._ + + + + +THE STORY OF A PLAY. + + + + +I. + + +The young actor who thought he saw his part in Maxwell's play had so far +made his way upward on the Pacific Coast that he felt justified in +taking the road with a combination of his own. He met the author at a +dinner of the Papyrus Club in Boston, where they were introduced with a +facile flourish of praise from the journalist who brought them together, +as the very men who were looking for each other, and who ought to be +able to give the American public a real American drama. The actor, who +believed he had an ideal of this drama, professed an immediate interest +in the kind of thing Maxwell told him he was trying to do, and asked him +to come the next day, if he did not mind its being Sunday, and talk the +play over with him. + +He was at breakfast when Maxwell came, at about the hour people were +getting home from church, and he asked the author to join him. But +Maxwell had already breakfasted, and he hid his impatience of the +actor's politeness as well as he could, and began at the first moment +possible: "The idea of my play is biblical; we're still a very biblical +people." He had thought of the fact in seeing so many worshippers +swarming out of the churches. + +"That is true," said the actor. + +"It's the old idea of the wages of sin. I should like to call it that." + +"The name has been used, hasn't it?" + +"I shouldn't mind; for I want to get a new effect from the old notion, +and it would be all the stronger from familiar association with the +name. I want to show that the wages of sin is more sinning, which is the +very body of death." + +"Well?" + +"Well, I take a successful man at the acme of his success, and study him +in a succession of scenes that bring out the fact of his prosperity in a +way to strike the imagination of the audience, even the groundlings; +and, of course, I have to deal with success of the most appreciable +sort--a material success that is gross and palpable. I have to use a +large canvas, as big as Shakespeare's, in fact, and I put in a great +many figures." + +"That's right," said the actor. "You want to keep the stage full, with +people coming and going." + +"There's a lot of coming and going, and a lot of incidents, to keep the +spectator interested, and on the lookout for what's to happen next. The +whole of the first act is working up to something that I've wanted to +see put on the stage for a good while, or ever since I've thought of +writing for the stage, and that is a large dinner, one of the public +kind." + +"Capital!" said the actor. + +"I've seen a good deal of that sort of thing as a reporter; you know +they put us at a table off to one side, and we see the whole thing, a +great deal better than the diners themselves do. It's a banquet, given +by a certain number of my man's friends, in honor of his fiftieth +birthday, and you see the men gathering in the hotel parlor--well, you +can imagine it in almost any hotel--and Haxard is in the foreground. +Haxard is the hero's name, you know." + +"It's a good name," the actor mused aloud. "It has a strong sound." + +"Do you like it? Well, Haxard," Maxwell continued, "is there in the +foreground, from the first moment the curtain rises, receiving his +friends, and shaking hands right and left, and joking and laughing with +everybody--a very small joke makes a very large laugh on occasions like +that, and I shall try to give some notion of the comparative size of the +joke and the laugh--and receiving congratulations, that give a notion of +what the dinner is for, and the kind of man he is, and how universally +respected and all that, till everybody has come; and then the doors +between the parlor and the dining-room are rolled back, and every man +goes out with his own wife, or his sister, or his cousin, or his aunt, +if he hasn't got a wife; I saw them do that once, at a big commercial +dinner I reported." + +"Ah, I was afraid it was to be exclusively a man's dinner!" the actor +interrupted. + +"Oh, no," Maxwell answered, with a shade of vexation. "That wouldn't do. +You couldn't have a scene, or, at least, not a whole act, without women. +Of course I understand that. Even if you could keep the attention of the +audience without them, through the importance of the intrigue, still you +would have to have them for the sake of the stage-picture. The drama is +literature that makes a double appeal; it appeals to the sense as well +as the intellect, and the stage is half the time merely a picture-frame. +I had to think that out pretty early." + +The actor nodded. "You couldn't too soon." + +"It wouldn't do to have nothing but a crowd of black coats and white +shirt-fronts on the stage through a whole act. You want color, and a lot +of it, and you can only get it, in our day, with the women's costumes. +Besides, they give movement and life. After the dinner begins they're +supposed to sparkle all through. I've imagined the table set down the +depth of the stage, with Haxard and the nominal host at the head, +fronting the audience, and the people talking back and forth on each +side, and I let the ladies do most of the talking, of course. I mean to +have the dinner served through all the courses, and the waiters coming +and going; the events will have to be hurried, and the eating merely +sketched, at times; but I should keep the thing in pretty perfect form, +till it came to the speaking. I shall have to cut that a good deal, but +I think I can give a pretty fair notion of how they butter the object of +their hospitality on such occasions; I've seen it and heard it done +often enough. I think, perhaps, I shall have the dinner an act by +itself. There are only four acts in the play now, and I'll have to make +five. I want to give Haxard's speech as fully as possible, for that's +what I study the man in, and make my confidences to the audience about +him. I shall make him butter himself, but all with the utmost humility, +and brag of everything that he disclaims the merit of." + +The actor rose and reached across the table for the sugar. "That's a +capital notion. That's new. That would make a hit--the speech would." + +"Do you think so?" returned the author. "_I_ thought so. I believe that +in the hands of a good actor the speech could be made tremendously +telling. I wouldn't have a word to give away his character, his nature, +except the words of his own mouth, but I would have them do it so +effectually that when he gets through the audience will be fairly 'onto +him,' don't you know." + +"Magnificent!" said the actor, pouring himself some more cocoa. + +Maxwell continued: "In the third act--for I see that I shall have to +make it the third now--the scene will be in Haxard's library, after he +gets home from the complimentary dinner, at midnight, and he finds a man +waiting for him there--a man that the butler tells him has called +several times, and was so anxious to see him that Mrs. Haxard has given +orders to let him wait. Oh, I ought to go back a little, and explain--" + +"Yes, do!" The actor stirred his cocoa with mounting interest. "Yes, +don't leave anything out." + +"I merely meant to say that in the talk in the scene, or the act, before +the dinner--I shall have two acts, but with no wait between them; just +let down the curtain and raise it again--it will come out that Haxard is +not a Bostonian by birth, but has come here since the war from the +Southwest, where he went, from Maine, to grow up with the country, and +is understood to have been a sort of quiescent Union man there; it's +thought to be rather a fine thing the way he's taken on Boston, and +shown so much local patriotism and public spirit and philanthropy, in +the way he's brought himself forward here. People don't know a great +deal about his past, but it's understood to have been very creditable. I +shall have to recast that part a little, and lengthen the delay before +he comes on, and let the guests, or the hosts--for _they're_ giving +_him_ the dinner--have time to talk about him, and free their minds in +honor of him behind his back, before they begin to his face." + +"Never bring your principal character on at once," the actor +interjected. + +"No," Maxwell consented. "I see that wouldn't have done." He went on: +"Well, as soon as Haxard turns up the light in his library, the man +rises from the lounge where he has been sitting, and Haxard sees who it +is. He sees that it is a man whom he used to be in partnership with in +Texas, where they were engaged in some very shady transactions. They get +caught in one of them--I haven't decided yet just what sort of +transaction it was, and I shall have to look that point up; I'll get +some law-student to help me--and Haxard, who wasn't Haxard then, pulls +out and leaves his partner to suffer the penalty. Haxard comes North, +and after trying it in various places, he settles here, and marries, and +starts in business and prospers on, while the other fellow takes their +joint punishment in the penitentiary. By the way, it just occurs to me! +I think I'll have it that Haxard has killed a man, a man whom he has +injured; he doesn't mean to kill him, but he has to; and this fellow is +knowing to the homicide, but has been prevented from getting onto +Haxard's trail by the consequences of his own misdemeanors; that will +probably be the best way out. Of course it all has to transpire, all +these facts, in the course of the dialogue which the two men have with +each other in Haxard's library, after a good deal of fighting away from +the inevitable identification on Haxard's part. After the first few +preliminary words with the butler at the door before he goes in to find +the other man--his name is Greenshaw--" + +"That's a good name, too," said the actor. + +"Yes, isn't it? It has a sort of probable sound, and yet it's a made-up +name. Well, I was going to say--" + +"And I'm glad you have it a homicide that Haxard is guilty of, instead +of a business crime of some sort. That sort of crime never tells with an +audience," the actor observed. + +"No," said Maxwell. "Homicide is decidedly better. It's more +melodramatic, and I don't like that, but it will be more appreciable, as +a real sin, to most of the audience; we steal and cheat so much, and we +kill comparatively so little in the North. Well, I was going to say that +I shall have this whole act to consist entirely of the passage between +the two men. I shall let it begin with a kind of shiver creeping over +the spectator, when he recognizes the relation between them, and I hope +I shall be able to make it end with a shudder, for Haxard must see from +the first moment, and he must let the audience see at last, that the +only way for him to save himself from his old crime is to commit a new +one. He must kill the man who saw him kill a man." + +"That's good," the actor thoughtfully murmured, as if tasting a pleasant +morsel to try its flavor. "Excellent." + +Maxwell laughed for pleasure, and went on: "He arranges to meet the man +again at a certain time and place, and that is the last of Greenshaw. He +leaves the house alone; and the body of an unknown man is found floating +up and down with the tide under the Long Bridge. There are no marks of +violence; he must have fallen off the bridge in the dark, and been +drowned; it could very easily happen. Well, then comes the most +difficult part of the whole thing; I have got to connect the casualty +with Haxard in the most unmistakable way, unmistakable to the audience, +that is; and I have got to have it brought home to him in a supreme +moment of his life. I don't want to have him feel remorse for it; that +isn't the modern theory of the criminal; but I do want him to be anxious +to hide his connection with it, and to escape the consequences. I don't +know but I shall try another dinner-scene, though I am afraid it would +be a risk." + +The actor said, "I don't know. It might be the very thing. The audience +likes a recurrence to a distinctive feature. It's like going back to an +effective strain in music." + +"Yes," Maxwell resumed, "slightly varied. I might have a private dinner +this time; perhaps a dinner that Haxard himself is giving. Towards the +end the talk might turn on the case of the unknown man, and the guests +might discuss it philosophically together; Haxard would combat the +notion of a murder, and even of a suicide; he would contend for an +accident, pure and simple. All the fellows would take a turn at the +theory, but the summing-up opinion I shall leave to a legal mind, +perhaps the man who had made the great complimentary speech at the +public dinner to Haxard in the first act. I should have him warm to his +work, and lay it down to Haxard in good round fashion, against his +theory of accident. He could prove to the satisfaction of everybody that +the man who was last seen with the drowned man--or was supposed to have +been seen with him--according to some very sketchy evidence at the +inquest, which never amounted to anything--was the man who pushed him +off the bridge. He could gradually work up his case, and end the +argument with a semi-jocular, semi-serious appeal to Haxard himself, +like, 'Why, suppose it was your own case,' and so forth, and so forth, +and so forth, and then suddenly stop at something he notices queer in +Haxard, who is trying to get to his feet. The rest applaud: 'That's +right! Haxard has the floor,' and so on, and then Haxard slips back into +his chair, and his head falls forward---- I don't like death-scenes on +the stage. They're usually failures. But if this was managed simply, I +think it would be effective." + +The actor left the table and began to walk about the room. "I shall want +that play. I can see my part in Haxard. I know just how I could make up +for him. And the play is so native, so American, that it will go like +wildfire." + +The author heard these words with a swelling heart. He did not speak, +for he could not. He sat still, watching the actor as he paced to and +fro, histrionically rapt in his representation of an actor who had just +taken a piece from a young dramatist. "If you can realize that part as +you've sketched it to me," he said, finally, "I will play it +exclusively, as Jefferson does Rip Van Winkle. There are immense +capabilities in the piece. Yes, sir; that thing will run for years!" + +"Of course," Maxwell found voice to say, "there is one great defect in +it, from the conventional point of view." The actor stopped and looked +at him. "There's no love-business." + +"We must have that. But you can easily bring it in." + +"By the head and shoulders, yes. But I hate love-making on the stage, +almost as much as I do dying. I never see a pair of lovers beyond the +footlights without wanting to kill them." The actor remained looking at +him over his folded arms, and Maxwell continued, with something like a +personal rancor against love-making, while he gave a little, bitter +laugh, "I might have it somehow that Haxard had killed a pair of +stage-lovers, and this was what Greenshaw had seen him do. But that +would have been justifiable homicide." + +The actor's gaze darkened into a frowning stare, as if he did not quite +make out this kind of fooling. "All the world loves a lover," he said, +tentatively. + +"I don't believe it does," said Maxwell, "except as it's stupid, and +loves anything that makes it laugh. It loves a comic lover, and in the +same way it loves a droll drunkard or an amusing madman." + +"We shall have to have some sort of love-business," the actor returned, +with an effect of leaving the right interpretation of Maxwell's peculiar +humor for some other time. "The public wants it. No play would go +without it. You can have it subordinate if you like, but you have got +to have it. How old did you say Haxard was?" + +"About fifty. Too old for a lover, unless you could make him in love +with some one else's wife, as he has one of his own already. But that +wouldn't do." + +The actor looked as if he did not know why it would not do, but he said, +"He could have a daughter." + +"Yes, and his daughter could have a lover. I had thought of something of +that kind, and of bringing in their ill-fated passion as an element of +the tragedy. We could have his disgrace break their hearts, and kill two +birds with one stone, and avenge a long-suffering race of playwrights +upon stage-lovers." + +The actor laughed like a man of small humor, mellowly, but hollowly. +"No, no! We must have the love-affair end happily. You can manage that +somehow. Have you got the play roughed out at all?" + +"Not in manuscript. I've only got it roughed out in my mind." + +"Well, I want that play. That's settled. I can't do anything with it +this winter, but I should like to open with it next fall. Do you think +you could have it ready by the end of July?" + + + + +II. + + +They sat down and began to talk times and terms. They parted with a +perfect understanding, and Maxwell was almost as much deceived as the +actor himself. He went home full of gay hopes to begin work on the play +at once, and to realize the character of Haxard with the personality of +the actor in his eye. He heard nothing from him till the following +spring, when the actor wrote with all the ardor of their parting moment, +to say that he was coming East for the summer, and meant to settle down +in the region of Boston somewhere, so that they could meet constantly +and make the play what they both wanted. He said nothing to account for +his long silence, and he seemed so little aware of it that Maxwell might +very well have taken it for a simple fidelity to the understanding +between them, too unconscious to protest itself. He answered discreetly, +and said that he expected to pass the summer on the coast somewhere, but +was not yet quite certain where he should be; that he had not forgotten +their interview, and should still be glad to let him have the play if he +fancied it. Between this time and the time when the actor appeared in +person, he sent Maxwell several short notes, and two or three telegrams, +sufficiently relevant but not very necessary, and when his engagement +ended in the West, a fortnight after Maxwell was married, he telegraphed +again and then came through without a stop from Denver, where the +combination broke up, to Manchester-by-the-Sea. He joined the little +colony of actors which summers there, and began to play tennis and golf, +and to fish and to sail, almost without a moment's delay. He was not +very fond of any of these things, and in fact he was fond only of one +thing in the world, which was the stage; but he had a theory that they +were recreation, and that if he went in for them he was building himself +up for the season, which began early in September; he had appropriate +costumes for all of them, and no one dressed the part more perfectly in +tennis or golf or sailing or fishing. He believed that he ought to read +up in the summer, too, and he had the very best of the recent books, in +fiction and criticism, and the new drama. He had all of the translations +of Ibsen, and several of Męterlinck's plays in French; he read a good +deal in his books, and he lent them about in the hotel even more. Among +the ladies there he had the repute of a very modern intellect, and of a +person you would never take for an actor, from his tastes. What his +tastes would have been if you had taken him for an actor, they could not +have said, perhaps, but probably something vicious, and he had not a +vice. He did not smoke, and he did not so much as drink tea or coffee; +he had cocoa for breakfast, and at lunch a glass of milk, with water at +dinner. He had a tint like the rose, and when he smiled or laughed, +which was often, from a constitutional amiability and a perfect +digestion, his teeth showed white and regular, and an innocent dimple +punctured either cheek. His name was Godolphin, for he had instinctively +felt that in choosing a name he might as well take a handsome one while +he was about it, and that if he became Godolphin there was no reason why +he should not become Launcelot, too. He did not put on these splendors +from any foible, but from a professional sense of their value in the +bills; and he was not personally characterized by them. As Launcelot +Godolphin he was simpler than he would have been with a simpler name, +and it was his ideal to be modest in everything that personally belonged +to him. He studied an unprofessional walk, and a very colloquial tone +in speaking. He was of course clean-shaven, but during the summer he let +his mustache grow, though he was aware that he looked better without it. +He was tall, and he carried himself with the vigor of his perfect +health; but on the stage he looked less than his real size, like a +perfectly proportioned edifice. + +Godolphin wanted the Maxwells to come to his hotel in Manchester, but +there were several reasons for their not doing this; the one Maxwell +alleged was that they could not afford it. They had settled for the +summer, when they got home after their brief wedding journey, at a much +cheaper house in Magnolia, and the actor and the author were then only +three miles apart, which Mrs. Maxwell thought was quite near enough. "As +it is," she said, "I'm only afraid he'll be with you every moment with +his suggestions, and won't let you have any chance to work out your own +conceptions." + +Godolphin had not failed to notify the public through the press that Mr. +Brice Maxwell had severed his connection with the Boston _Abstract_, for +the purpose of devoting himself to a new play for Mr. Launcelot +Godolphin, and he thought it would have been an effective touch if it +could have been truthfully reported that Mr. Godolphin and Mr. Maxwell +might be seen almost any day swinging over the roads together in the +neighborhood of Manchester, blind and deaf to all the passing, in their +discussion of the play, which they might almost be said to be +collaborating. But failing Maxwell's consent to anything of the sort, +Godolphin did the swinging over the roads himself, so far as the roads +lay between Manchester and Magnolia. He began by coming in the forenoon, +when he broke Maxwell up fearfully, but he was retarded by a waning of +his own ideal in the matter, and finally got to arriving at that hour in +the afternoon when Maxwell could be found revising his morning's work, +or lying at his wife's feet on the rocks, and now and then irrelevantly +bringing up a knotty point in the character or action for her criticism. +For these excursions Godolphin had equipped himself with a gray corduroy +sack and knickerbockers, and a stick which he cut from the alder +thicket; he wore russet shoes of ample tread, and very thick-ribbed +stockings, which became his stalwart calves. + +Nothing could be handsomer than the whole effect he made in this +costume, and his honest face was a pleasure to look at, though its +intelligence was of a kind so wholly different from the intelligence of +Maxwell's face, that Mrs. Maxwell always had a struggle with herself +before she could allow that it was intelligence at all. He was very +polite to her; he always brought her flowers, and he opened doors, and +put down windows, and leaped to his feet for every imaginable occasion +of hers, in a way that Maxwell never did, and somehow a way that the +polite men of her world did not, either. She had to school herself to +believe him a gentleman, and she would not accept a certain vivid +cleanliness he had as at all aristocratic; she said it was too fresh, +and he ought to have carried a warning placard of "Paint." She found +that Godolphin had one great and constant merit: he believed in +Maxwell's genius as devoutly as she did herself. This did not prevent +him from coming every day with proposals for changes in the play, more +or less structural. At one time he wished the action laid in some other +country and epoch, so as to bring in more costume and give the carpenter +something to do; he feared that the severity of the _mise en scčne_ +would ruin the piece. At another time he wanted lines taken out of the +speeches of the inferior characters and put into his own, to fatten the +part, as he explained. At other times he wished to have paraphrases of +passages that he had brought down the house with in other plays written +into this; or scenes transposed, so that he would make a more effective +entrance here or there. There was no end to his inventions for spoiling +the simplicity and truthfulness of Maxwell's piece, which he yet +respected for the virtues in it, and hoped the greatest things from. + +One afternoon he arrived with a scheme for a very up-to-date scene in +the last act; have it a supper instead of a dinner, and then have a +skirt-dancer introduced, as society people had been having Carmencita. +"When Haxard dies, you know," he explained, "it would be tremendously +effective to have the woman catch him in her arms, and she would be a +splendid piece of color in the picture, with Haxard's head lying in her +lap, as the curtain comes down with a run." + +At this suggestion Mrs. Maxwell was too indignant to speak; her husband +merely said, with his cold smile, "Yes; but I don't see what it would +have to do with the rest of the play." + +"You could have it," said Godolphin, "that he was married to a Mexican +during his Texas episode, and this girl was their daughter." Maxwell +still smiled, and Godolphin deferred to his wife: "But perhaps Mrs. +Maxwell would object to the skirt-dance?" + +"Oh, no," she answered, ironically, "I shouldn't mind having it, with +Carmencita in society for a precedent. But," she added, "the incident +seems so out of keeping with the action and the temperament of the play, +and everything. If I were to see such a thing on the stage, merely as an +impartial spectator, I should feel insulted." + +Godolphin flushed. "I don't see where the insult would come in. You +mightn't like it, but it would be like anything else in a play that you +were not personally concerned in." + +"No, excuse me, Mr. Godolphin. I think the audience is as much concerned +in the play as the actor or the author, and if either of these fails in +the ideal, or does a bit of clap-trap when they have wrought the +audience up in expectation of something noble, then they insult the +audience--or all the better part of it." + +"The better part of the audience never fills the house," said the actor. + +"Very well. I hope my husband will never write for the worse part." + +"And I hope I shall never play to it," Godolphin returned, and he looked +hurt at the insinuation of her words. + +"It isn't a question of all that," Maxwell interposed, with a worried +glance at his wife. "Mr. Godolphin has merely suggested something that +can be taken into the general account; we needn't decide it now. By the +way," he said to the actor, "have you thought over that point about +changing Haxard's crime, or the quality of it? I think it had better not +be an intentional murder; that would kill the audience's sympathy with +him from the start, don't you think? We had better have it what they +call a rencontre down there, where two gentlemen propose to kill each +other on sight. Greenshaw's hold on him would be that he was the only +witness of the fight, and that he could testify to a wilful murder if he +chose. Haxard's real crime must be the killing of Greenshaw." + +"Yes," said Godolphin, and he entered into the discussion of the effect +this point would have with the play. Mrs. Maxwell was too much vexed to +forgive him for making the suggestion which he had already dropped, and +she left the room for fear she should not be able to govern herself at +the sight of her husband condescending to temporize with him. She +thought that Maxwell's willingness to temporize, even when it involved +no insincerity, was a defect in his character; she had always thought +that, and it was one of the things that she meant to guard him against +with all the strength of her zeal for his better self. When Godolphin +was gone at last, she lost no time in coming back to Maxwell, where he +sat with the manuscript of his play before him, apparently lost in some +tangle of it. She told him abruptly that she did not understand how, if +he respected himself, if he respected his own genius, he could consider +such an idea as Godolphin's skirt-dance for an instant. + +"Did I consider it?" he asked. + +"You made him think so." + +"Well," returned Maxwell, and at her reproachful look he added, +"Godolphin never thought I was considering it. He has too much sense, +and he would be astonished and disgusted if I took him in earnest and +did what he wanted. A lot of actors get round him over there, and they +fill him up with all sorts of stage notions, and what he wants of me is +that I shall empty him of them and yet not put him to shame about them. +But if you keep on in that way you took with him he'll throw me over." + +"Well, let him!" cried Mrs. Maxwell. "There are twenty other actors who +would jump at the chance to get such a play." + +"Don't you believe it, my dear. Actors don't jump at plays, and +Godolphin is the one man for me. He's young, and has the friendly +regard from the public that a young artist has, and yet he isn't +identified with any part in particular, and he will throw all his force +into creating this, as he calls it." + +"I can't bear to have him use that word, Brice. _You_ created it." + +"The word doesn't matter. It's merely a technical phrase. I shouldn't +know where to turn if he gave it up." + +"Pshaw! You could go to a manager." + +"Thank you; I prefer an actor. Now, Louise, you must not be so abrupt +with Godolphin when he comes out with those things." + +"I can't help it, dearest. They are insulting to you, and insulting to +common-sense. It's a kindness to let him know how they would strike the +public. I don't pretend to be more than the average public." + +"He doesn't feel it a kindness the way you put it." + +"Then you don't like me to be sincere with him! Perhaps you don't like +me to be sincere with _you_ about your play?" + +"Be as sincere with me as you like. But this--this is a matter of +business, and I'd rather you wouldn't." + +"Rather I wouldn't say anything at all?" demanded Louise. + +"I didn't say so, and you know I didn't; but if you can't get on without +ruffling Godolphin, why, perhaps--" + +"Very well, then, I'll leave the room the next time he comes. That will +be perfectly simple; and it will be perfectly simple to do as most other +people would--not concern myself with the play in any way from this out. +I dare say you would prefer that, too, though I didn't quite expect it +to come to that before our honeymoon was out." + +"Oh, now, my dear!" + +"You know it's so. But I can do it! I might have expected it from a man +who was so perfectly self-centred and absorbed. But I was such a fool--" +Her tears came and her words stopped. + +Maxwell leaned forward with his thin face between his hands. This made +him miserable, personally, but he was not so miserable but his artistic +consciousness could take note of the situation as a very good one, and +one that might be used effectively on the stage. He analyzed it +perfectly in that unhappy moment. She was jealous of his work, which she +had tolerated only while she could share it, and if she could not share +it, while some other was suffered to do so, it would be cruel for her. +But he knew that he could not offer any open concession now without +making bad worse, and he must wait till the right time for it came. He +had so far divined her, without formulating her, that he knew she would +be humiliated by anything immediate or explicit, but would later accept +a tacit repentance from him; and he instinctively forebore. + + + + +III. + + +For the present in her resentment of his willingness to abase his genius +before Godolphin, or even to hold it in abeyance, Mrs. Maxwell would not +walk to supper with her husband in the usual way, touching his shoulder +with hers from time to time, and making herself seem a little lower in +stature by taking the downward slope of the path leading from their +cottage to the hotel. But the necessity of appearing before the people +at their table on as perfect terms with him as ever had the effect that +conduct often has on feeling, and she took his arm in going back to +their cottage, and leaned tenderly upon him. + +Their cottage was one of the farthest from the hotel, and the smallest +and quietest. In fact there was yet no one in it but themselves, and +they dwelt there in an image of home, with the sole use of the veranda +and the parlor, where Maxwell had his manuscripts spread about on the +table as if he owned the place. A chambermaid came over from the hotel +in the morning to put the cottage in order, and then they could be quite +alone there for the rest of the day. + +"Shall I light the lamp for you, Brice?" his wife asked, as they mounted +the veranda steps. + +"No," he said, "let us sit out here," and they took the arm-chairs that +stood on the porch, and swung to and fro in silence for a little while. +The sea came and went among the rocks below, marking its course in the +deepening twilight with a white rope of foam, and raving huskily to +itself, with now and then the long plunge of some heavier surge against +the bowlders, and a hoarse shout. The Portland boat swam by in the +offing, a glitter of irregular lights, and the lamps on the different +points of the Cape blinked as they revolved in their towers. "This is +the kind of thing you can get only in a novel," said Maxwell, musingly. +"You couldn't possibly give the feeling of it in a play." + +"Couldn't you give the feeling of the people looking at it?" suggested +his wife, and she put out her hand to lay it on his. + +"Yes, you could do that," he assented, with pleasure in her notion; "and +that would be better. I suppose that is what would be aimed at in a +description of the scene, which would be tiresome if it didn't give the +feeling of the spectator." + +"And Godolphin would say that if you let the carpenter have something to +do he would give the scene itself, and you could have the effect of it +at first hand." + +Maxwell laughed. "I wonder how much they believe in those contrivances +of the carpenter themselves. They have really so little to do with the +dramatic intention; but they have been multiplied so since the stage +began to make the plays that the actors are always wanting them in. I +believe the time will come when the dramatist will avoid the occasion or +the pretext for them." + +"That will be after Godolphin's time," said Mrs. Maxwell. + +"Well, I don't know," returned Maxwell. "If Godolphin should happen to +imagine doing without them he would go all lengths." + +"Or if you imagined it and let him suppose he had. He never imagines +anything of himself." + +"No, he doesn't. And yet how perfectly he grasps the notion of the thing +when it is done! It is very different from literature, acting is. And +yet literature is only the representation of life." + +"Well, acting is the representation of life at second-hand, then, and it +ought to be willing to subordinate itself. What I can't bear in +Godolphin is his setting himself up to be your artistic equal. He is no +more an artist than the canvas is that the artist paints a picture on." + +Maxwell laughed. "Don't tell him so; he won't like it." + +"I will tell him so some day, whether he likes it or not." + +"No, you mustn't; for it isn't true. He's just as much an artist in his +way as I am in mine, and, so far as the public is concerned, he has +given more proofs." + +"Oh, _his_ public!" + +"It won't do to despise any public, even the theatre-going public." +Maxwell added the last words with a faint sigh. + +"It's always second-rate," said his wife, passionately. "Third-rate, +fourth-rate! Godolphin was quite right about that. I wish you were +writing a novel, Brice, instead of a play. Then you would be really +addressing refined people." + +"It kills me to have you say that, Louise." + +"Well, I won't. But don't you see, then, that you must stand up for art +all the more unflinchingly if you intend to write plays that will +refine the theatre-going public, or create a new one? That is why I +can't endure to have you even seem to give way to Godolphin." + +"You must stand it so long as I only seem to do it. He's far more +manageable than I expected him to be. It's quite pathetic how docile he +is, how perfectly ductile! But it won't do to browbeat him when he comes +over here a little out of shape. He's a curious creature," Maxwell went +on with a relish in Godolphin, as material, which his wife suffered with +difficulty. "I wonder if he could ever be got into a play. If he could +he would like nothing better than to play himself, and he would do it to +perfection; only it would be a comic part, and Godolphin's mind is for +the serious drama." Maxwell laughed. "All his artistic instincts are in +solution, and it needs something like a chemical agent to precipitate +them, or to give them any positive character. He's like a woman!" + +"Thank you," said Mrs. Maxwell. + +"Oh, I mean all sorts of good things by that. He has the sensitiveness +of a woman." + +"Is that a good thing? Then I suppose he was so piqued by what I said +about his skirt-dance that he will renounce you." + +"Oh, I don't believe he will. I managed to smooth him up after you went +out." + +Mrs. Maxwell sighed. "Yes, you are very patient, and if you are patient, +you are good. You are better than I am." + +"I don't see the sequence exactly," said Maxwell. + +They were both silent, and she seemed to have followed his devious +thought in the same muse, for when he spoke again she did not reproach +him with an equal inconsequence. "I don't know whether I could write a +novel, and, besides, I think the drama is the supreme literary form. It +stands on its own feet. It doesn't have to be pushed along, or pulled +along, as the novel does." + +"Yes, of course, it's grand. That's the reason I can't bear to have you +do anything unworthy of it." + +"I know, Louise," he said, tenderly, and then again they did not speak +for a little while. + +He emerged from their silence, at a point apparently very remote, with a +sigh. "If I could only know just what the feelings of a murderer really +were for five minutes, I could out-Shakespeare Shakespeare in that play. +But I shall have to trust to the fall of man, and the general depravity +of human nature, I suppose. After all, there's the potentiality of every +kind of man in every man. If you've known what it is to hate, you've +known what it is to kill." + +"I felt once as if I had killed _you_," she said, and then he knew that +she was thinking of a phase of their love which had a perpetual +fascination for them both. "But I never hated you." + +"No; I did the hating," he returned, lightly. + +"Ah, don't say so, dear," she entreated, half in earnest. + +"Well, have it all to yourself, then," he said; and he rose and went +indoors, and lighted the lamp, and she saw him get out the manuscript of +his play, while she sat still, recalling the time when she had tried to +dismiss him from her thoughts upon a theory of his unworthiness. He had +not yet spoken of love to her then, but she felt as if she had refused +to listen to him, and her remorse kept his image before her in an +attitude of pathetic entreaty for at least a hearing. She knew that she +had given him reason, if she had not given him courage, to believe that +she cared for him; but he was too proud to renew the tacit approaches +from which she had so abruptly retreated, and she had to invite them +from him. + +When she began to do this with the arts so imperceptible to the +single-mindedness of a man, she was not yet sure whether she could +endure to live with him or not; she was merely sure that she could not +live without him, or, to be more specific, without his genius, which she +believed no one else appreciated as she did. She believed that she +understood his character better than any one else, and would know how to +supplement it with her own. She had no ambition herself, but she could +lend him a more telescopic vision in his, and keep his aims high, if his +self-concentration ever made him short-sighted. He would write plays +because he could not help it, but she would inspire him to write them +with the lofty sense of duty she would have felt in writing them if she +had his gifts. + +She was as happy in their engagement and as unhappy as girls usually are +during their courtship. It is the convention to regard those days as +very joyous, but probably no woman who was honest about the fact would +say that they were so from her own experience. Louise found them full of +excitement and an interest from which she relaxed at times with such a +sense of having strained forward to their end that she had a cold +reluctance from Maxwell, and though she never dreamed of giving him up +again, she sometimes wished she had never seen him. She was eager to +have it all over, and be married and out of the way, for one thing +because she knew that Maxwell could never be assimilated to her +circumstance, and she should have no rest till she was assimilated to +his. When it came to the dinners and lunches, which the Hilary kinship +and friendship made in honor of her engagement, she found that Maxwell +actually thought she could make excuse of his work to go without him, +and she had to be painfully explicit before she could persuade him that +this would not do at all. He was not timid about meeting her friends, as +he might very well have been; but, in comparison with his work, he +apparently held them of little moment, and at last he yielded to her +wishes rather than her reasons. He made no pretence of liking those +people, but he gave them no more offence than might have been expected. +Among the Hilary cousins there were several clever women, who enjoyed +the quality of Maxwell's somewhat cold, sarcastic humor, and there were +several men who recognized his ability, though none of them liked him +any better than he liked them. He had a way of regarding them all at +first as of no interest, and then, if something kindled his imagination +from them, of showing a sudden technical curiosity, which made the +ladies, at least, feel as if he were dealing with them as so much +material. They professed to think that it was only a question of time +when they should all reappear in dramatic form, unless Louise should +detect them in the manuscript before they were put upon the stage and +forbid his using them. If it were to be done before marriage they were +not sure that she would do it, or could do it, for it was plain to be +seen that she was perfectly infatuated with him. The faults they found +in him were those of manner mostly, and they perceived that these were +such as passion might forgive to his other qualities. There were some +who said that they envied her for being so much in love with him, but +these were not many; and some did not find him good-looking, or see what +could have taken her with him. + +Maxwell showed himself ignorant of the observances in every way, and if +Louise had not rather loved him the more for what he made her suffer +because of them, she must certainly have given him up at times. He had +never, to her thinking, known how to put a note properly on paper; his +letters were perfectly fascinating, but they lacked a final charm in +being often written on one side of half-sheets, and numbered in the +upper right-hand corner, like printer's copy. She had to tell him that +he must bring his mother to call upon her; and then he was so long +doing it that Louise imagined a timidity in his mother which he was too +proud to own, and made her own mother go with her to see Mrs. Maxwell in +the house which she partly let out in lodgings on a very modest street. +It really did not matter about any of those things though, and she and +Maxwell's mother got on very well after the first plunge, though the +country doctor's widow was distinctly a country person, with the narrow +social horizons of a villager whose knowledge of the city was confined +to the compass of her courageous ventures in it. + +To her own mother Louise feigned to see nothing repulsive in the +humility of these. She had been rather fastidiously worldly, she had +been even aggressively worldly, in her preference for a luxurious and +tasteful setting, and her mother now found it hard to bear her contented +acceptance of the pervading commonness of things at Mrs. Maxwell's. +Either her senses were holden by her fondness for Maxwell, or else she +was trying to hoodwink her mother by an effect of indifference; but Mrs. +Hilary herself was certainly not obtuse to that commonness. If she did +not rub it into Louise, which would have done no good, she did rub it +into Louise's father, though that could hardly have been said to do any +good either. Her report of the whole affair made him writhe, but when +she had made him writhe enough she began to admit some extenuating +circumstances. If Mrs. Maxwell was a country person, she was not +foolish. She did not chant, in a vain attempt to be genteel in her +speech; she did not expand unduly under Mrs. Hilary's graciousness, and +she did not resent it. In fact, the graciousness had been very skilfully +managed, and Mrs. Maxwell had not been allowed to feel that there was +any condescension to her. She got on with Louise very well; if Mrs. +Maxwell had any overweening pride in her son, she kept it as wholly to +herself as any overweening pride she might have had in her son's choice. + +Mrs. Hilary did not like her daughter's choice, but she had at last +reached such resignation concerning it as the friends of a hopeless +invalid may feel when the worst comes. She had tried to stop the affair +when there was some hope or some use in trying, and now she determined +to make the best of it. The worst was that Maxwell was undoubtedly of +different origin and breeding, and he would always, in society, subject +Louise to a consciousness of his difference if he did nothing more. But +when you had said this, you seemed to have said all there was to say +against him. The more the Hilarys learned about the young fellow the +more reason they had to respect him. His life, on its level, was +blameless. Every one who knew him spoke well of him, and those who knew +him best spoke enthusiastically; he had believers in his talent and in +his character. In a society so barometrical as ours, even in a city +where it was the least barometrical, the obstacles to the acceptance of +Maxwell were mainly subjective. They were formed not so much of what +people would say as of what Mrs. Hilary felt they had a right to say, +and, in view of the necessities of the case, she found herself realizing +that if they did not say anything to her it would be much as if they had +not said anything at all. She dealt with the fact before her frankly, +and in the duties which it laid upon her she began to like Maxwell +before Hilary did. Not that Hilary disliked him, but there was something +in the young fellow taking his daughter away from him, in that cool +matter-of-fact way, as if it were quite in the course of nature that he +should, instead of being abashed and overwhelmed by his good fortune, +which left Hilary with a misgiving lest he might realize it less and +less as time went on. + +Hilary had no definite ambition for her in marriage, but his vague +dreams for her were not of a young man who meant to leave off being a +newspaper writer to become a writer of plays. He instinctively wished +her to be of his own order of things; and it had pleased him when he +heard from his wife's report that Louise had seen the folly of her fancy +for the young journalist whom a series of accidents had involved with +their lives, and had decided to give him up. When the girl decided +again, more tacitly, that she could not give him up, Hilary submitted, +as he would have submitted to anything she wished. To his simple +idolatry of her she was too good for anything on earth, and if he were +to lose her, he found that after all he had no great choice in the +matter. As soon as her marriage appeared inevitable, he agreed with his +wife that their daughter must never have any unhappiness of their +making; and they let her reverse without a word the purpose of going to +spend the winter abroad which they had formed at her wish when she +renounced Maxwell. + +All this was still recent in point of time, and though marriage had +remanded it to an infinite distance apparently with the young people, it +had not yet taken away the importance or the charm of the facts and the +feelings that had seemed the whole of life before marriage. When Louise +turned from her retrospect she went in through the window that opened on +the veranda and stood beside her husband, where he sat with his +manuscript before him, frowning at it in the lamplight that made her +blink a little after the dark outside. She put her hand on his head, and +carried it down his cheek over his mouth, so that he might kiss its +palm. + +"Going to work much longer, little man?" she asked, and she kissed the +top of his head in her turn. It always amused her to find how smooth and +soft his hair was. He flung his pen away and threw himself back in his +chair. "Oh, it's that infernal love business!" he said. + +She sat down and let her hands fall on her lap. "Why, what makes it so +hard?" + +"Oh, I don't know. But it seems as if I were _fighting_ it, as the +actors say, all the way. It doesn't go of itself at all. It's forced, +from the beginning." + +"Why do you have it in, then?" + +"I have to have it in. It has to be in every picture of life, as it has +to be in every life. Godolphin is perfectly right. I talked with him +about leaving it out to-day, but I had to acknowledge that it wouldn't +do. In fact, I was the first to suggest that there must be some sort of +love business when I first talked the play over with him. But I wish +there hadn't. It makes me sick every time I touch it. The confounded +fools don't know what to do with their love." + +"They might get married with it," Louise suggested. + +"I don't believe they have sense enough to think of that," said her +husband. "The curse of their origin is on them, I suppose. I tried to +imagine them when I was only fit to imagine a man hating a woman with +all his might." + +Louise laughed out her secure delight. "If the public could only know +why your lovers were such feeble folk it would make the fortune of the +play." + +Maxwell laughed, too. "Yes, fancy Pinney getting hold of a fact like +that and working it up with all his native delicacy in the Sunday +edition of the _Events_!" + +Pinney was a reporter of Maxwell's acquaintance, who stood to Louise for +all that was most terrible in journalistic enterprise. "Don't!" she +shrieked. + +Maxwell went on. "He would have both our portraits in, and your father's +and mother's, and my mother's; and your house on Commonwealth Avenue, +and our meek mansion on Pinckney Street. He would make it a work of +art, Pinney would, and he would believe that we were all secretly +gratified with it, no matter how we pretended to writhe under it." He +laughed and laughed, and then suddenly he stopped and was very grave. + +"I know what you're thinking of now," said his wife. + +"What?" + +"Whether you couldn't use _our_ affair in the play?" + +"You're a witch! Yes, I was! I was thinking it wouldn't do." + +"Stuff! It _will_ do, and you must use it. Who would ever know it? And I +shall not care how blackly you show me up. I deserve it. If I was the +cause of your hating love so much that you failed with your lovers on +the old lines, I certainly ought to be willing to be the means of your +succeeding on lines that had never been tried before." + +"Generous girl!" He bent over--he had not to bend far--and kissed her. +Then he rose excitedly and began to walk the floor, with his hands in +his pockets, and his head dropped forward. He broke into speech: "I +could disguise it so that nobody would ever dream of it. I'll just take +a hint from ourselves. How would it do to have had the girl actually +reject him? It never came to that with us; and instead of his being a +howling outside swell that was rather condescending to her, suppose I +have him some sort of subordinate in her father's business? It doesn't +matter much what; it's easy to arrange such a detail. She could be in +love with him all the time, without even knowing it herself, or, at +least, not knowing it when he offers himself; and she could always be +vaguely hoping or expecting that he would come to time again." + +"That's what I did," said his wife, "and you hadn't offered yourself +either." + +Maxwell stopped, with an air of discomfiture and disappointment. "You +wouldn't like me to use that point, then?" + +"What a simpleton! Of course I should! I shouldn't care if all the world +knew it." + +"Ah, well, we won't give it to Pinney, anyway; but I really think it +could be done without involving our own facts. I should naturally work +farther and farther away from them when the thing got to spinning. Just +take a little color from them now and then. I might have him hating her +all the way through, or, supposing he hated her, and yet doing all sorts +of nice little things, and noble big things for her, till it came out +about her father's crime, and then--" He stopped again with a certain +air of distaste. + +"That would be rather romantic, wouldn't it?" his wife asked. + +"That was what I was thinking," he answered. "It would be confoundedly +romantic." + +"Well, I'll tell you," said Louise; "you could have them squabbling all +the way through, and doing hateful things to one another." + +"That would give it the cast of comedy." + +"Well?" + +"And that wouldn't do either." + +"Not if it led up to the pathos and prettiness of their reconciliation +in the end? Shakespeare mixes the comic and the tragic all through!" + +"Oh yes, I know that--" + +"And it would be very effective to leave the impression of their +happiness with the audience, so that they might have strength to get on +their rubbers and wraps after the tremendous ordeal of your Haxard +death-scene." + +"Godolphin wouldn't stand that. He wants the gloom of Haxard's death to +remain in unrelieved inkiness at the end. He wants the people to go +away thinking of Godolphin, and how well he did the last gasp. He +wouldn't stand any love business there. He would rather not have any in +the play." + +"Very well, if you're going to be a slave to Godolphin--" + +"I'm not going to be a slave to Godolphin, and if I can see my way to +make the right use of such a passage at the close I'll do it even if it +kills the play or Godolphin." + +"Now you're shouting," said Louise. She liked to use a bit of slang when +it was perfectly safe--as in very good company, or among those she +loved; at other times she scrupulously shunned it. + +"But I can do it somehow," Maxwell mused aloud. "Now I have the right +idea, I can make it take any shape or color I want. It's magnificent!" + +"And who thought of it?" she demanded. + +"Who? Why, _I_ thought of it myself." + +"Oh, you little wretch!" she cried, in utter fondness, and she ran at +him and drove him into a corner. "Now, say that again and I'll tickle +you." + +"No, no, no!" he laughed, and he fought away the pokes and thrusts she +was aiming at him. "We both thought of it together. It was mind +transference!" + +She dropped her hands with an instant interest in the psychological +phenomena. "Wasn't it strange? Or, no, it wasn't, either! If our lives +are so united in everything, the wonder is that we don't think more +things and say more things together. But now I want you to own, Brice, +that I was the first to speak about your using our situation!" + +"Yes, you were, and I was the first to think of it. But that's perfectly +natural. You always speak of things before you think, and I always think +of things before I speak." + +"Well, I don't care," said Louise, by no means displeased with the +formulation. "I shall always say it was perfectly miraculous. And I want +you to give me credit for letting you have the idea after you had +thought of it." + +"Yes, there's nothing mean about you, Louise, as Pinney would say. By +Jove, I'll bring Pinney in! I'll have Pinney interview Haxard concerning +Greenshaw's disappearance." + +"Very well, then, if you bring Pinney in, you will leave me out," said +Louise. "I won't be in the same play with Pinney." + +"Well, I won't bring Pinney in, then," said Maxwell. "I prefer you to +Pinney--in a play. But I have got to have in an interviewer. It will be +splendid on the stage, and I'll be the first to have him." He went and +sat down at his table. + +"You're not going to work any more to-night!" his wife protested. + +"No, just jot down a note or two, to clinch that idea of ours in the +right shape." He dashed off a few lines with pencil in his play at +several points, and then he said: "There! I guess I shall get some bones +into those two flabby idiots to-morrow. I see just how I can do it." He +looked up and met his wife's adoring eyes. + +"You're wonderful, Brice!" she said. + +"Well, don't tell me so," he returned, "or it might spoil me. Now I +wouldn't tell you how good you were, on any account." + +"Oh yes, do, dearest!" she entreated, and a mist came into her eyes. "I +don't think you praise me enough." + +"How much ought I to praise you?" + +"You ought to say that you think I'll never be a hinderance to you." + +"Let me see," he said, and he pretended to reflect. "How would it do to +say that if I ever come to anything worth while, it'll be because you +made me?" + +"Oh, Brice! But would it be true?" She dropped on her knees at his side. + +"Well, I don't know. Let's hope it would," and with these words he +laughed again and put his arms round her. Presently she felt his arm +relax, and she knew that he had ceased to think about her and was +thinking about his play again. + +She pulled away, and "Well?" she asked. + +He laughed at being found out so instantly. "That was a mighty good +thing your father said when you went to tell him of our engagement." + +"It was _very_ good. But if you think I'm going to let you use _that_ +you're very much mistaken. No, Brice! Don't you touch papa. He wouldn't +like it; he wouldn't understand it. Why, what a perfect cormorant you +are!" + +They laughed over his voracity, and he promised it should be held in +check as to the point which he had thought for a moment might be worked +so effectively into the play. + +The next morning Louise said to her husband: "I can see, Brice, that you +are full of the notion of changing that love business, and if I stay +round I shall simply bother. I'm going down to lunch with papa and +mamma, and get back here in the afternoon, just in time to madden +Godolphin with my meddling." + +She caught the first train after breakfast, and in fifteen minutes she +was at Beverly Farms. She walked over to her father's cottage, where she +found him smoking his cigar on the veranda. + +He was alone; he said her mother had gone to Boston for the day; and he +asked: "Did you walk from the station? Why didn't you come back in the +carriage? It had just been there with your mother." + +"I didn't see it. Besides, I might not have taken it if I had. As the +wife of a struggling young playwright, I should have probably thought it +unbecoming to drive. But the struggle is practically over, you'll be +happy to know." + +"What? Has he given it up?" asked her father. + +"Given it up! He's just got a new light on his love business!" + +"I thought his love business had gone pretty well with him," said +Hilary, with a lingering grudge in his humor. + +"This is another love business!" Louise exclaimed. "The love business in +the play. Brice has always been so disgusted with it that he hasn't +known what to do. But last night we thought it out together, and I've +left him this morning getting his hero and heroine to stand on their +legs without being held up. Do you want to know about it?" + +"I think I can get on without," said Hilary. + +Louise laughed joyously. "Well, you wouldn't understand what a triumph +it was if I told you. I suppose, papa, you've no idea how Philistine you +are. But you're nothing to mamma!" + +"I dare say," said Hilary, sulkily. But she looked at him with eyes +beaming with gayety, and he could see that she was happy, and he was +glad at heart. "When does Maxwell expect to have his play done?" he +relented so far as to ask. + +"Why, it's done now, and has been for a month, in one sense, and it +isn't done at all in another. He has to keep working it over, and he has +to keep fighting Godolphin's inspirations. He comes over from Manchester +with a fresh lot every afternoon." + +"I dare say Maxwell will be able to hold his own," said Hilary, but not +so much proudly as dolefully. + +She knew he was braving it out about the theatre, and that secretly he +thought it undignified, and even disreputable, to be connected with it, +or to be in such close relations with an actor as Maxwell seemed to be +with this fellow who talked of taking his play. Hilary could go back +very easily to the time in Boston when the theatres were not allowed +open on Saturday night, lest they should profane the approaching +Sabbath, and when you would no more have seen an actor in society than +an elephant. He had not yet got used to meeting them, and he always felt +his difference, though he considered himself a very liberal man, and was +fond of the theatre--from the front. + +He asked now, "What sort of chap is he, really?" meaning Godolphin, and +Louise did her best to reassure him. She told him Godolphin was young +and enthusiastic; and he had an ideal of the drama; and he believed in +Brice; and he had been two seasons with Booth and Barrett; and now he +had made his way on the Pacific Coast, and wanted a play that he could +take the road with. She parroted those phrases, which made her father's +flesh creep, and she laughed when she saw it creeping, for sympathy; her +own had crept first. + +"Well," he said, at last, "he won't expect you and Maxwell to take the +road too with it?" + +"Oh no, we shall only be with him in New York. He won't put the play on +there first; they usually try a new play in the country." + +"Oh, do they?" said Hilary, with a sense that his daughter's knowledge +of the fact was disgraceful to her. + +"Yes. Shall I tell you what they call that? Trying it on a dog!" she +shrieked, and Hilary had to laugh, too. "It's dreadful," she went on. +"Then, if it doesn't kill the dog, Godolphin will bring it to New York, +and put it on for a run--a week or a month--as long as his money holds +out. If he believes in it, he'll fight it." Her father looked at her for +explanation, and she said, with a gleeful perception of his suffering, +"He'll keep it on if he has to play to paper every night. That is, to +free tickets." + +"Oh!" said Hilary. "And are you to be there the whole time with him?" + +"Why, not necessarily. But Brice will have to be there for the +rehearsals; and if we are going to live in New York--" + +Hilary sighed. "I wish Maxwell was going on with his newspaper work; I +might be of use to him in that line, if he were looking forward to an +interest in a newspaper; but I couldn't buy him a theatre, you know." + +Louise laughed. "He wouldn't let you buy him anything, papa; Brice is +awfully proud. Now, I'll tell you, if you want to know, just how we +expect to manage in New York; Brice and I have been talking it all +over; and it's all going to be done on that thousand dollars he saved up +from his newspaper work, and we're not going to touch a cent of my money +till that is gone. Don't you call that pretty business-like?" + +"Very," said Hilary, and he listened with apparent acquiescence to the +details of a life which he divined that Maxwell had planned from his own +simple experience. He did not like the notion of it for his daughter, +but he could not help himself, and it was a consolation to see that she +was in love with it. + +She went back from it to the play itself, and told her father that now +Maxwell had got the greatest love business for it that there ever was. +She would not explain just what it was, she said, because her father +would get a wrong notion of it if she did. "But I have a great mind to +tell you something else," she said, "if you think you can behave +sensibly about it, papa. Do you suppose you can?" + +Hilary said he would try, and she went on: "It's part of the happiness +of having got hold of the right kind of love business now, and I don't +know but it unconsciously suggested it to both of us, for we both +thought of the right thing at the same time; but in the beginning you +couldn't have told it from a quarrel." Her father started, and Louise +began to laugh. "Yes, we had quite a little tiff, just like _real_ +married people, about my satirizing one of Godolphin's inspirations to +his face, and wounding his feelings. Brice is so cautious and so +gingerly with him; and he was vexed with me, and told me he wished I +wouldn't do it; and that vexed me, and I said I wouldn't have anything +to do with his play after this; and I didn't speak to him again till +after supper. I said he was self-centred, and he _is_. He's always +thinking about his play and its chances; and I suppose I would rather +have had him think more about me now and then. But I've discovered a way +now, and I believe it will serve the same purpose. I'm going to enter so +fully into his work that I shall be part of it; and when he is thinking +of that he will be thinking of me without knowing it. Now, you wouldn't +say there was anything in that to cry about, would you? and yet you see +I'm at it!" and with this she suddenly dropped her face on her father's +shoulder. + +Hilary groaned in his despair of being able to imagine an injury +sufficiently atrocious to inflict on Maxwell for having brought this +grief upon his girl. At the sound of his groan, as if she perfectly +interpreted his meaning in it, she broke from a sob into a laugh. "Will +you never," she said, dashing away the tears, "learn to let me cry, +simply because I am a goose, papa, and a goose must weep without reason, +because she feels like it? I won't have you thinking that I am not the +happiest person in the world; and I was, even when I was suffering so +because I had to punish Brice for telling me I had done wrong. And if +you think I'm not, I will never tell you anything more, for I see you +can't be trusted. Will you?" + +He said no to her rather complicated question, and he was glad to +believe that she was really as happy as she declared, for if he could +not have believed it, he would have had to fume away an intolerable deal +of exasperation. This always made him very hot and uncomfortable, and he +shrank from it, but he would have done it if it had been necessary. As +it was, he got back to his newspaper again with a sufficiently light +heart, when Louise gave him a final kiss, and went indoors and put +herself in authority for the day, and ordered what she liked for +luncheon. The maids were delighted to have her, and she had a welcome +from them all, which was full of worship for her as a bride whose +honeymoon was not yet over. + +She went away before her mother got home, and she made her father own, +before she left him, that he had never had such a lovely day since he +could remember. He wanted to drive over to Magnolia with her; but she +accused him of wanting to go so that he could spy round a little, and +satisfy himself of the misery of her married life; and then he would not +insist. + + + + +IV. + + +Louise kept wondering, the whole way back, how Maxwell had managed the +recasting of the love-business, and she wished she had stayed with him, +so that he could have appealed to her at any moment on the points that +must have come up all the time. She ought to have coached him more fully +about it, and told him the woman's side of such a situation, as he never +could have imagined how many advances a woman can make with a man in +such an affair and the man never find it out. She had not made any +advances herself when she wished to get him back, but she had wanted to +make them; and she knew he would not have noticed it if she had done the +boldest sort of things to encourage him, to let him know that she liked +him; he was so simple, in his straightforward egotism, beside her +sinuous unselfishness. + +She began to think how she was always contriving little sacrifices to +his vanity, his modesty, and he was always accepting them with a serene +ignorance of the fact that they were offered; and at this she strayed +off on a little by-way in her revery, and thought how it was his mind, +always, that charmed her; it was no ignoble fondness she felt; no poor, +grovelling pleasure in his good looks, though she had always seen that +in a refined sort he had a great deal of manly beauty. But she had held +her soul aloof from all that, and could truly say that what she adored +in him was the beauty of his talent, which he seemed no more conscious +of than of his dreamy eyes, the scornful sweetness of his mouth, the +purity of his forehead, his sensitive nostrils, his pretty, ineffective +little chin. She had studied her own looks with reference to his, and +was glad to own them in no wise comparable, though she knew she was more +graceful, and she could not help seeing that she was a little taller; +she kept this fact from herself as much as possible. Her features were +not regular, like his, but she could perceive that they had charm in +their irregularity; she could only wonder whether he thought that line +going under her chin, and suggesting a future double chin in the little +fold it made, was so very ugly. He seemed never to have thought of her +looks, and if he cared for her, it was for some other reason, just as +she cared for him. She did not know what the reason could be, but +perhaps it was her sympathy, her appreciation, her cheerfulness; Louise +believed that she had at least these small merits. + +The thought of them brought her back to the play again, and to the +love-business, and she wondered how she could have failed to tell him, +when they were talking about what should bring the lovers together, +after their prefatory quarrel, that simply willing it would do it. She +knew that after she began to wish Maxwell back, she was in such a frenzy +that she believed her volition brought him back; and now she really +believed that you could hypnotize fate in some such way, and that your +longings would fulfil themselves if they were intense enough. If he +could not use that idea in this play, then he ought to use it in some +other, something psychological, symbolistic, Maeterlinckish. + +She was full of it when she dismounted from the barge at the hotel and +hurried over to their cottage, and she was intolerably disappointed when +she did not find him at work in the parlor. + +"Brice! Brice!" she shouted, in the security of having the whole cottage +to herself. She got no answer, and ran up to their room, overhead. He +was not there, either, and now it seemed but too probable that he had +profited by her absence to go out for a walk alone, after his writing, +and fallen from the rocks, and been killed--he was so absent-minded. She +offered a vow to Heaven that if he were restored to her she would never +leave him again, even for a half-day, as long as either of them lived. +In reward for this she saw him coming from the direction of the beach, +where nothing worse could have befallen him than a chill from the water, +if the wind was off shore and he had been taking a bath. + +She had not put off her hat yet, and she went out to meet him; she could +not kiss him at once, if she went to meet him, but she could wait till +she got back to the cottage, and then kiss him. It would be a trial to +wait, but it would be a trial to wait for him to come in, and he might +stroll off somewhere else, unless she went to him. As they approached +each other she studied his face for some sign of satisfaction with his +morning's work. It lighted up at sight of her, but there remained an +inner dark in it to her eye. + +"What is the matter?" she asked, as she put her hand through his arm, +and hung forward upon it so that she could look up into his face. "How +did you get on with the love-business?" + +"Oh, I think I've got that all right," he answered, with a certain +reservation. "I've merely blocked it out, of course." + +"So that you can show it to Godolphin?" + +"I guess so." + +"I see that you're not sure of it. We must go over it before he comes. +He hasn't been here yet?" + +"Not yet." + +"Why are you so quiet, Brice? Is anything the matter? You look tired." + +"I'm not particularly tired." + +"Then you are worried. What is it?" + +"Oh, you would have to know, sooner or later." He took a letter from his +pocket and gave it to her. "It came just after I had finished my +morning's work." + +She pulled it out of the envelope and read: + + + "MANCHESTER-BY-THE-SEA, Friday. + +"DEAR SIR: I beg leave to relinquish any claim that you may +feel I have established to the play you have in hand. As it now stands, +I do not see my part in it, and I can imagine why you should be +reluctant to make further changes in it, in order to meet my +requirements. + +"If I can be of any service to you in placing the piece, I shall be glad +to have you make use of me. + + "Yours truly, + "LAUNCELOT GODOLPHIN." + + +"You blame _me_!" she said, after a blinding moment, in which the letter +darkened before her eyes, and she tottered in her walk. She gave it back +to him as she spoke. + +"What a passion you have for blaming!" he answered, coldly. "If I fixed +the blame on you it wouldn't help." + +"No," Louise meekly assented, and they walked along towards their +cottage. They hardly spoke again before they reached it and went in. +Then she asked, "Did you expect anything like this from the way he +parted with you yesterday?" + +Maxwell gave a bitter laugh. "From the way we parted yesterday I was +expecting him early this afternoon, with the world in the palm of his +hand, to lay it at my feet. He all but fell upon my neck when he left +me. I suppose his not actually doing it was an actor's intimation that +we were to see each other no more." + +"I wish you had nothing to do with actors!" said Louise. + +"_They_ appear to have nothing to do with me," said Maxwell. "It comes +to the same thing." + +They reached the cottage, and sat down in the little parlor where she +had left him so hopefully at work in the morning, where they had talked +his play over so jubilantly the night before. + +"What are you going to do?" she asked, after an abysmal interval. + +"Nothing. What is there to do?" + +"You have a right to an explanation; you ought to demand it." + +"I don't need any explanation. The case is perfectly clear. Godolphin +doesn't want my play. That is all." + +"Oh, Brice!" she lamented. "I am so dreadfully sorry, and I know it was +my fault. Why don't you let me write to him, and explain--" + +Maxwell shook his head. "He doesn't want any explanation. He doesn't +want the play, even. We must make up our minds to that, and let him go. +Now we can try it with your managers." + +Louise felt keenly the unkindness of his calling them her managers, but +she was glad to have him unkind to her; deep within her Unitarianism she +had the Puritan joy in suffering for a sin; her treatment of +Godolphin's suggestion of a skirt-dance, while very righteous in itself, +was a sin against her husband's interest, and she would rather he were +unkind to her than not. The sooner she was punished for it and done with +it, the better; in her unscientific conception of life, the consequences +of a sin ended with its punishment. If Maxwell had upbraided her with +the bitterness she merited, it would have been to her as if it were all +right again with Godolphin. His failure to do so left the injury +unrepaired, and she would have to do something. "I suppose you don't +care to let me see what you've written to-day?" + +"No, not now," said Maxwell, in a tone that said, "I haven't the heart +for it." + +They sat awhile without speaking, and then she ventured, "Brice, I have +an idea, but I don't know what you will think of it. Why not take +Godolphin's letter on the face of it, and say that you are very sorry he +must give up the play, and that you will be greatly obliged to him if he +can suggest some other actor? That would be frank, at least." + +Maxwell broke into a laugh that had some joy in it. "Do you think so? It +isn't my idea of frankness exactly." + +"No, of course not. You always say what you mean, and you don't change. +That is what is so beautiful in you. You can't understand a nature that +is one thing to-day and another thing to-morrow." + +"Oh, I think I can," said Maxwell, with a satirical glance. + +"Brice!" she softly murmured; and then she said, "Well, I don't care. He +_is_ just like a woman." + +"You didn't like my saying so last night." + +"That was a different thing. At any rate, it's I that say so now, and I +want you to write that to him. It will bring him back flying. Will you?" + +"I'll think about it," said Maxwell; "I'm not sure that I want Godolphin +back, or not at once. It's a great relief to be rid of him, in a certain +way, though a manager might be worse slavery. Still, I think I would +like to try a manager. I have never shown this play to one, and I know +the Odeon people in Boston, and, perhaps--" + +"You are saying that to comfort me." + +"I wouldn't comfort you for worlds, my dear. I am saying this to +distress you. But since I have worked that love-business over, it seems +to me much less a one-part play, and if I could get a manager to take a +fancy to it I could have my own way with it much better; at least, he +wouldn't want me to take all the good things out of the other +characters' mouths and stuff them into Haxard's." + +"Do you really think so?" + +"I really thought so before I got Godolphin's letter. That made him seem +the one and only man for me." + +"Yes," Louise assented, with a sad intelligence. + +Maxwell seemed to have got some strength from confronting his calamity. +At any rate, he said, almost cheerfully, "I'll read you what I wrote +this morning," and she had to let him, though she felt that it was +taking her at a moment when her wish to console him was so great that +she would not be able to criticise him. But she found that he had done +it so well there was no need of criticism. + +"You are wonderful, Brice!" she said, in a transport of adoration, which +she indulged as simply his due. "You are miraculous! Well, this is the +greatest triumph yet, even of _your_ genius. How you have seized the +whole idea! And so subtly, so delicately! And so completely disguised! +The girl acts just as a girl _would_ have acted. How could you know it?" + +"Perhaps I've seen it," he suggested, demurely. + +"No, no, you _didn't_ see it! That is the amusing part of it. You were +as blind as a bat all the time, and you never had the least suspicion; +you've told me so." + +"Well, then, I've seen it retrospectively." + +"Perhaps that way. But I don't believe you've seen it at all. You've +divined it; and that's where your genius is worth all the experience in +the world. The girl is twice as good as the man, and you never +experienced a girl's feelings or motives. You divined them. It's pure +inspiration. It's the prophet in you!" + +"You'll be stoning me next," said Maxwell. "I don't think the man is so +very bad, even if I didn't divine him." + +"Yes, for a poor creature of experience and knowledge, he will do very +well. But he doesn't compare with the girl." + +"I hadn't so good a model." + +She hugged him for saying that. "You pay the prettiest compliments in +the world, even if you don't pick up handkerchiefs." + +Their joy in the triumph of his art was unalloyed by the hope of +anything outside of it, of any sort of honor or profit from it, though +they could not keep the thought of these out very long. + +"Yes," she said, after one of the delicious silences that divided their +moments of exaltation. "There won't be any trouble about getting your +play taken, _now_." + +After supper they strolled down for the sunset and twilight on the +rocks. There, as the dusk deepened, she put her wrap over his shoulders +as well as her own, and pulled it together in front of them both. "I am +not going to have you taking cold, now, when you need all your health +for your work more than ever. That love-business seems to me perfect +just as it is, but I know you won't be satisfied till you have put the +very last touch on it." + +"Yes, I see all sorts of things I can do to it. Louise!" + +"Well, what?" + +"Don't you see that the love-business is the play now? I have got to +throw away all the sin-interest, all the Haxard situation, or keep them +together as they are, and write a new play altogether, with the light, +semi-comic motive of the love-business for the motive of the whole. It's +out of tone with Haxard's tragedy, and it can't be brought into keeping +with it. The sin-interest will kill the love-business, or the +love-business will kill the sin-interest. Don't you see?" + +"Why, of course! You must make this light affair now, and when it's +opened the way for you with the public you can bring out the old play," +she assented, and it instantly became the old play in both their minds; +it became almost the superannuated play. They talked it over in this new +aspect, and then they went back to the cottage, to look at the new play +as it shadowed itself forth in the sketch Maxwell had made. He read the +sketch to her again, and they saw how it could be easily expanded to +three or four acts, and made to fill the stage and the evening. + +"And it will be the most original thing that ever was!" she exulted. + +"I don't think there's been anything exactly like it before," he +allowed. + +From time to time they spoke to each other in the night, and she asked +if he were asleep, and he if she were asleep, and then they began to +talk of the play again. Towards morning they drowsed a little, but at +their time of life the loss of a night's sleep means nothing, and they +rose as glad as they had lain down. + +"I'll tell you, Brice," she said, the first thing, "you must have it +that they have been engaged, and you can call the play 'The Second +Chapter,' or something more alliterative. Don't you think that would be +a good name?" + +"It would make the fortune of any play," he answered, "let alone a play +of such merit as this." + +"Well, then, sha'n't you always say that I did something towards it?" + +"I shall say you did everything towards it. You originated the idea, and +named it, and I simply acted as your amanuensis, as it were, and wrote +it out mostly from your dictation. It shall go on the bills, 'The Second +Chapter,' a demi-semi-serious comedy by Mrs. Louise Hilary Maxwell--in +letters half a foot high--and by B. Maxwell--in very small lower case, +that can't be read without the aid of a microscope." + +"Oh, Brice! If you make him talk that way to her, it will be perfectly +killing." + +"I dare say the audience will find it so." + +They were so late at breakfast, and sat there so long talking, for +Maxwell said he did not feel like going to work quite so promptly as +usual, that it was quite ten o'clock when they came out of the +dining-room, and then they stayed awhile gossiping with people on the +piazza of the hotel before they went back to their cottage. When they +came round the corner in sight of it they saw the figure of a man pacing +back and forth on the veranda, with his head dropped forward, and +swinging a stick thoughtfully behind him. Louise pulled Maxwell +convulsively to a halt, for the man was Godolphin. + +"What do you suppose it means?" she gasped. + +"I suppose he will tell us," said Maxwell, dryly. "Don't stop and stare +at him. He has got eyes all over him, and he's clothed with +self-consciousness as with a garment, and I don't choose to let him +think that his being here is the least important or surprising." + +"No, of course not. That would be ridiculous," and she would have liked +to pause for a moment's worship of her husband's sense, which appeared +to her almost as great as his genius. But it seemed to her an +inordinately long time before they reached the cottage-gate, and +Godolphin came half-way down the walk to meet them. + +He bowed seriously to her, and then said, with dignity, to her husband, +"Mr. Maxwell, I feel that I owe you an apology--or an explanation, +rather--for the abrupt note I sent you yesterday. I wish to assure you +that I had no feeling in the matter, and that I am quite sincere in my +offer of my services." + +"Why, you're very good, Mr. Godolphin," said Maxwell. "I knew that I +could fully rely on your kind offer. Won't you come in?" He offered the +actor his hand, and they moved together towards the cottage; Louise had +at once gone before, but not so far as to be out of hearing. + +"Why, thank you, I _will_ sit down a moment. I found the walk over +rather fatiguing. It's going to be a hot day." He passed his +handkerchief across his forehead, and insisted upon placing a chair for +Mrs. Maxwell before he could be made to sit down, though she said that +she was going indoors, and would not sit. "You understand, of course, +Mr. Maxwell, that I should still like to have your play, if it could be +made what I want?" + +Maxwell would not meet his wife's eye in answering. "Oh, yes; the only +question with me is, whether I can make it what you want. That has been +the trouble all along. I know that the love-business in the play, as it +stood, was inadequate. But yesterday, just before I got your note, I had +been working it over in a perfectly new shape. I wish, if you have a +quarter of an hour to throw away, you'd let me show you what I've +written. Perhaps you can advise me." + +"Why, I shall be delighted to be of any sort of use, Mr. Maxwell," said +Godolphin, with softened state; and he threw himself back in his chair +with an air of eager readiness. + +"I will get your manuscript, Brice," said Louise, at a motion her +husband made to rise. She ran in and brought it out, and then went away +again. She wished to remain somewhere within earshot, but, upon the +whole, she decided against it, and went upstairs, where she kept herself +from eavesdropping by talking with the chambermaid, who had come over +from the hotel. + + + + +V. + + +Louise did not come down till she heard Godolphin walking away on the +plank. She said to herself that she had shipwrecked her husband once by +putting in her oar, and she was not going to do it again. When the +actor's footfalls died out in the distance she descended to the parlor, +where she found Maxwell over his manuscript at the table. + +She had to call to him, "Well?" before he seemed aware of her presence. + +Even then he did not look round, but he said, "Godolphin wants to play +Atland." + +"The lover?" + +"Yes. He thinks he sees his part in it." + +"And do you?" + +"How do I know?" + +"Well, I am glad I let him get safely away before I came back, for I +certainly couldn't have held in when he proposed that, if I had been +here. I don't understand you, Brice! Why do you have anything more to +do with him? Why do you let him touch the new play? Was he ever of the +least use with the old one?" + +Maxwell lay back in his chair with a laugh. "Not the least in the +world." The realization of the fact amused him more and more. "I was +just thinking how everything he ever got me to do to it," he looked down +at the manuscript, "was false and wrong. They talk about a knowledge of +the stage as if the stage were a difficult science, instead of a very +simple piece of mechanism whose limitations and possibilities any one +can seize at a glance. All that their knowledge of it comes to is +clap-trap, pure and simple. They brag of its resources, and tell you the +carpenter can do anything you want nowadays, but if you attempt anything +outside of their tradition they are frightened. They think that their +exits and their entrances are great matters, and that they must come on +with such a speech, and go off with such another; but it is not of the +least consequence how they come or go if they have something interesting +to say or do." + +"Why don't you say these things to Godolphin?" + +"I do, and worse. He admits their truth with a candor and an +intelligence that are dismaying. He has a perfect conception of +Atland's part, and he probably will play it in a way to set your teeth +on edge." + +"Why do you let him? Why don't you keep your play and offer it to a +manager or some actor who will know how to do it?" demanded Louise, with +sorrowful submission. + +"Godolphin will know how to do it, even if he isn't able to. And, +besides, I should be a fool to fling him away for any sort of promising +uncertainty." + +"He was willing to fling you away!" + +"Yes, but I'm not so important to him as he is to me. He's the best I +can do for the present. It's a compromise all the way through--a cursed +spite from beginning to end. Your own words don't represent your ideas, +and the more conscience you put into the work the further you get from +what you thought it would be. Then comes the actor with the infernal +chemistry of his personality. He imagines the thing perfectly, not as +you imagined it, but as you wrote it, and then he is no more able to +play it as he imagined it than you were to write it as you imagined it. +What the public finally gets is something three times removed from the +truth that was first in the dramatist's mind. But I'm very lucky to have +Godolphin back again." + +"I hope you're not going to let him see that you think so." + +"Oh, no! I'm going to keep him in a suppliant attitude throughout, and +I'm going to let you come in and tame his spirit, if he--kicks." + +"Don't be vulgar, Brice," said Louise, and she laughed rather forlornly. +"I don't see how you have the heart to joke, if you think it's so bad as +you say." + +"I haven't. I'm joking without any heart." He stood up. "Let us go and +take a bath." + +She glanced at him with a swift inventory of his fagged looks, and said, +"Indeed, you shall not take a bath this morning. You couldn't react +against it. You won't, will you?" + +"No, I'll only lie on the sand, if you can pick me out a good warm spot, +and watch you." + +"I shall not bathe, either." + +"Well, then, I'll watch the other women." He put out his hand and took +hers. + +She felt his touch very cold. "You are excited I can see. I wish--" + +"What? That I was not an intending dramatist?" + +"That you didn't have such excitements in your life. They will kill +you." + +"They are all that will keep me alive." + +They went down to the beach, and walked back and forth on its curve +several times before they dropped in the sand at a discreet distance +from several groups of hotel acquaintance. People were coming and going +from the line of bath-houses that backed upon the low sand-bank behind +them, with its tufts of coarse silvery-green grasses. The Maxwells bowed +to some of the ladies who tripped gayly past them in their airy costumes +to the surf, or came up from it sobered and shivering. Four or five +young fellows, with sun-blackened arms and legs, were passing ball near +them. A pony-carriage drove by on the wet sand; a horseman on a +crop-tailed roan thumped after it at a hard trot. Dogs ran barking +vaguely about, and children with wooden shovels screamed at their play. +Far off shimmered the sea, of one pale blue with the sky. The rooks were +black at either end of the beach; a line of sail-boats and dories swung +across its crescent beyond the bathers, who bobbed up and down in the +surf, or showed a head here and there outside of it. + +"What a singular spectacle," said Maxwell. "The casting off of the +conventional in sea-bathing always seems to me like the effect of those +dreams where we appear in society insufficiently dressed, and wonder +whether we can make it go." + +"Yes, isn't it?" His wife tried to cover all the propositions with one +loosely fitting assent. + +"I'm surprised," Maxwell went on, "that some realistic wretch hasn't put +this sort of thing on the stage. It would be tremendously effective; if +he made it realistic enough it would be attacked by the press as +improper and would fill the house. Couldn't we work a sea-bathing scene +into the 'Second Chapter'? It would make the fortune of the play, and it +would give Godolphin a chance to show his noble frame in something like +the majesty of nature. Godolphin would like nothing better. We could +have Atland rescue Salome, and Godolphin could flop round among the +canvas breakers for ten minutes, and come on for a recall with the +heroine, both dripping real water all over the stage." + +"Don't be disgusting, Brice," said his wife, absently. She had her head +half turned from him, watching a lady who had just come out of her +bath-house and was passing very near them on her way to the water. +Maxwell felt the inattention in his wife's tone and looked up. + +The bather returned their joint gaze steadily from eyes that seemed, as +Maxwell said, to smoulder under their long lashes, and to question her +effect upon them in a way that he was some time finding a phrase for. +He was tormented to make out whether she were a large person or not; +without her draperies he could not tell. But she moved with splendid +freedom, and her beauty expressed a maturity of experience beyond her +years; she looked young, and yet she looked as if she had been taking +care of herself a good while. She was certainly very handsome, Louise +owned to herself, as the lady quickened her pace, and finally ran down +to the water and plunged into a breaker that rolled in at the right +moment in uncommon volume. + +"Well?" she asked her husband, whose eyes had gone with hers. + +"We ought to have clapped." + +"Do you think she is an actress?" + +"I don't know. I never saw her before. She seemed to turn the sunshine +into lime-light as she passed. Why! that's rather pretty, isn't it? And +it's a verse. I wonder what it is about these people. The best of them +have nothing of the stage in them--at least, the men haven't. I'm not +sure, though, that the women haven't. There are lots of women off the +stage who are actresses, but they don't seem so. They're personal; this +one was impersonal. She didn't seem to regard me as a man; she regarded +me as a house. Did you feel that?" + +"Yes, that was it, I suppose. But she regarded you more than she did me, +I think." + +"Why, of course. You were only a matinée." + +They sat half an hour longer in the sand, and then he complained that +the wind blew all the warmth out of him as fast as the sun shone it into +him. She felt his hand next her and found it still cold; after a glance +round she furtively felt his forehead. + +"You're still thinking," she sighed. "Come! We must go back." + +"Yes. That girl won't be out of the water for half an hour yet; and we +couldn't wait to see her clothed and in her right mind afterwards." + +"What makes you think she's a girl?" asked his wife, as they moved +slowly off. + +He did not seem to have heard her question. He said, "I don't believe I +can make the new play go, Louise; I haven't the strength for it. There's +too much good stuff in Haxard; I can't throw away what I've done on it." + +"That is just what I was thinking, Brice! It would be too bad to lose +that. The love-business as you've remodeled it is all very well. But it +_is_ light; it's comedy; and Haxard is such splendid tragedy. I want +you to make your first impression in that. You can do comedy afterwards; +but if you did comedy first, the public would never think your tragedy +was serious." + +"Yes, there's a law in that. A clown mustn't prophesy. If a prophet +chooses to joke, now and then, all well and good. I couldn't begin now +and expand that love-business into a whole play. It must remain an +episode, and Godolphin must take it or leave it. Of course he'll want +Atland emaciated to fatten Haxard, as he calls it. But Atland doesn't +amount to much, as it is, and I don't believe I could make him; it's +essentially a passive part; Salome must make the chief effect in that +business, and I think I'll have her a little more serious, too. It'll be +more in keeping with the rest." + +"I don't see why she shouldn't be serious. There's nothing ignoble in +what she does." + +"No. It can be very impassioned." + +Louise thought of the smouldering eyes of that woman, and she wondered +if they were what suggested something very impassioned to Maxwell; but +with all the frankness between them, she did not ask him. + +On their way to the cottage they saw one of the hotel bell-boys coming +out. "Just left a telegram in there for you," he called, as he came +towards them. + +Louise began, "Oh, dear, I hope there's nothing the matter with papa! Or +your mother." + +She ran forward, and Maxwell followed at his usual pace, so that she had +time to go inside and come out with the despatch before he mounted the +veranda steps. + +"You open it!" she entreated, piteously, holding it towards him. + +He pulled it impatiently open, and glanced at the signature. "It's from +Godolphin;" and he read, "Don't destroy old play. Keep new love-business +for episode. Will come over this afternoon." Maxwell smiled. "More mind +transference." + +Louise laughed in hysterical relief. "Now you can make him do just what +you want." + + + + +VI. + + +Maxwell, now, at least, knew that he had got his play going in the right +direction again. He felt a fresh pleasure in returning to the old lines +after his excursion in the region of comedy, and he worked upon them +with fresh energy. He rehabilitated the love-business as he and his wife +had newly imagined it, and, to disguise the originals the more +effectively, he made the girl, whom he had provisionally called Salome, +more like himself than Louise in certain superficial qualities, though +in an essential nobleness and singleness, which consisted with a great +deal of feminine sinuosity and subtlety, she remained a portrait of +Louise. He was doubtful whether the mingling of characteristics would +not end in unreality, but she was sure it would not; she said he was so +much like a woman in the traits he had borrowed from himself that Salome +would be all the truer for being like him; or, at any rate, she would be +finer, and more ideal. She said that it was nonsense, the way people +regarded women as altogether different from men; she believed they were +very much alike; a girl was as much the daughter of her father as of her +mother; she alleged herself as proof of the fact that a girl was often a +great deal more her father's daughter, and she argued that if Maxwell +made Salome quite in his own spiritual image, no one would dream of +criticising her as unwomanly. Then he asked if he need only make Atland +in her spiritual image to have him the manliest sort of fellow. She said +that was not what she meant, and, in any case, a man could have feminine +traits, and be all the nicer for them, but, if a woman had masculine +traits, she would be disgusting. At the same time, if you drew a man +from a woman, he would be ridiculous. + +"Then you want me to model Atland on myself, too," said Maxwell. + +She thought a moment. "Yes, I do. If Salome is to be taken mostly from +me, I couldn't bear to have him like anybody but you. It would be +indelicate." + +"Well, now, I'll tell you what, I'm not going to stand it," said +Maxwell. "I am going to make Atland like Pinney." + +But she would not be turned from the serious aspect of the affair by +his joking. She asked, "Do you think it would intensify the situation if +he were not equal to her? If the spectator could be made to see that she +was throwing herself away on him, after all?" + +"Wouldn't that leave the spectator a little too inconsolable? You don't +want the love-business to double the tragedy, you want to have it +relieved, don't you?" + +"Yes, that is true. You must make him worth all the sacrifice. I +couldn't stand it if he wasn't." + +Maxwell frowned, as he always did when he became earnest, and said with +a little sigh, "He must be passive, negative, as I said; you must simply +feel that he is _good_, and that she will be safe with him, after the +worst has happened to her father. And I must keep the interest of the +love-business light, without letting it become farcical. I must get +charm, all I can, into her character. You won't mind my getting the +charm all from you?" + +"Oh, Brice, what sweet things you say to me! I wish everybody could know +how divine you are." + +"The women would all be making love to me, and I should hate that. One +is quite enough." + +"_Am_ I quite enough?" she entreated. + +"You have been up to the present time." + +"And do you think I shall always be?" She slid from her chair to her +knees on the floor beside him, where he sat at his desk, and put her +arms round him. + +He did not seem to know it. "Look here, Louise, I have got to connect +this love-business with the main action of the play, somehow. It won't +do simply to have it an episode. How would it do to have Atland know all +the time that Haxard has killed Greenshaw, and be keeping it from +Salome, while she is betraying her love for him?" + +"Wouldn't that be rather tawdry?" Louise let her arms slip down to her +side, and looked up at him, as she knelt. + +"Yes, it would," he owned. + +He looked very unhappy about it, and she rose to her feet, as if to give +it more serious attention. "Brice, I want your play to be thoroughly +honest and true from beginning to end, and not to have any sort of +catchpenny effectivism in it. You have planned it so nobly that I can't +bear to have you lower the standard the least bit; and I think the +honest and true way is to let the love-business be a pleasant fact in +the case, as it might very well be. Those things _do_ keep going on in +life alongside of the greatest misery, the greatest unhappiness." + +"Well," said Maxwell, "I guess you are right about the love-business. +I'll treat it frankly for what it is, a fact in the case. That will be +the right way, and that will be the strong way. It will be like life. I +don't know that you are bound to relate things strictly to each other in +art, any more than they are related in life. There are all sorts of +incidents and interests playing round every great event that seem to +have no more relation to it than the rings of Saturn have to Saturn. +They form the atmosphere of it. If I can let Haxard's wretchedness be +seen at last through the atmosphere of his daughter's happiness!" + +"Yes," she said, "that will be quite enough." She knew that they had +talked up to the moment when he could best begin to work, and now left +him to himself. + +Within a week he got the rehabilitated love-business in place, and the +play ready to show to Godolphin again. He had managed to hold the actor +off in the meantime, but now he returned in full force, with suggestions +and misgivings which had first to be cleared away before he could give a +clear mind to what Maxwell had done. Then Maxwell could see that he was +somehow disappointed, for he began to talk as if there were no +understanding between them for his taking the play. He praised it +warmly, but he said that it would be hard to find a woman to do the +part of Salome. + +"That is the principal part in the piece now, you know," he added. + +"I don't see how," Maxwell protested. "It seems to me that her character +throws Haxard's into greater relief than before, and gives it more +prominence." + +"You've made the love-business too strong, I think. I supposed you would +have something light and graceful to occupy the house in the suspense +between the points in Haxard's case. If I were to do him, I should be +afraid that people would come back from Salome to him with more or less +of an effort, I don't say they would, but that's the way it strikes me +now; perhaps some one else would look at it quite differently." + +"Then, as it is, you don't want it?" + +"I don't say that. But it seems to me that Salome is the principal +figure now. I think that's a mistake." + +"If it's a fact, it's a mistake. I don't want to have it so," said +Maxwell, and he made such effort as he could to swallow his disgust. + +Godolphin asked, after a while, "In that last scene between her and her +father, and in fact in all the scenes between them, couldn't you give +more of the strong speeches to him? She's a great creation now, but +isn't she too great for Atland?" + +"I've kept Atland under, purposely, because the part is necessarily a +negative one, and because I didn't want him to compete with Haxard at +all." + +"Yes, that is all right; but as it is, _she_ competes with Haxard." + +After Godolphin had gone, Louise came down, and found Maxwell in a +dreary muse over his manuscript. He looked up at her with a lack-lustre +eye, and said, "Godolphin is jealous of Salome now. What he really wants +is a five-act monologue that will keep him on the stage all the time. He +thinks that as it is, she will take all the attention from him." + +Louise appeared to reflect. "Well, isn't there something in that?" + +"Good heavens! I should think you were going to play Haxard, too!" + +"No; but of course you can't have two characters of equal importance in +your play. Some one has to be first, and Godolphin doesn't want an +actress taking all the honors away from him." + +"Then why did you pretend to like the way I had done it," Maxwell +demanded, angrily, "if you think she will take the honors from him?" + +"I didn't say that I did. All that I want is that you should ask +yourself whether she would or not." + +"Are _you_ jealous of her?" + +"Now, my dear, if you are going to be unreasonable, I will not talk with +you." + +Nothing maddened Maxwell so much as to have his wife take this tone with +him, when he had followed her up through the sinuosities that always +began with her after a certain point. Short of that she was as frank and +candid as a man, and he understood her, but beyond that the eternal +womanly began, and he could make nothing of her. She evaded, and came +and went, and returned upon her course, and all with as good a +conscience, apparently, as if she were meeting him fairly and squarely +on the question they started with. Sometimes he doubted if she really +knew that she was behaving insincerely, or whether, if she knew it, she +could help doing it. He believed her to be a more truthful nature than +himself, and it was insufferable for her to be less so, and then accuse +him of illogicality. + +"I have no wish to talk," he said, smothering his rage, and taking up a +page of manuscript. + +"Of course," she went on, as if there had been no break in their good +feeling, "I know what a goose Godolphin is, and I don't wonder you're +vexed with him, but you know very well that I have nothing but the good +of the play in view as a work of art, and I should say that if you +couldn't keep Salome from rivalling Haxard in the interest of the +spectator, you had better go back to the idea of making two plays of it. +I think that the 'Second Chapter' would be a very good thing to begin +with." + +"Why, good heavens! you said just the contrary when we decided to drop +it." + +"Yes, but that was when I thought you would be able to subdue Salome." + +"There never was any question of subduing Salome; it was a question of +subduing Atland!" + +"It's the same thing; keeping the love-business in the background." + +"I give it up!" Maxwell flung down his manuscript in sign of doing so. +"The whole thing is a mess, and you seem to delight in tormenting me +about it. How am I to give the love-business charm, and yet keep it in +the background?" + +"I should think you could." + +"How?" + +"Well, I was afraid you would give Salome too much prominence." + +"Didn't you know whether I had done so or not? You knew what I had done +before Godolphin came!" + +"If Godolphin thinks she is too prominent, you ought to trust his +instinct." + +Maxwell would not answer her. He went out, and she saw him strolling +down the path to the rocks. She took the manuscript and began to read it +over. + +He did not come back, and when she was ready to go to supper she had to +go down to the rocks for him. His angry fit seemed to have passed, but +he looked abjectly sad, and her heart ached at sight of him. She said, +cheerfully, "I have been reading that love-business over again, Brice, +and I don't find it so far out as I was afraid it was. Salome is a +little too _prononcée_, but you can easily mend that. She is a +delightful character, and you have given her charm--too much charm. I +don't believe there's a truer woman in the whole range of the drama. She +is perfect, and that is why I think you can afford to keep her back a +little in the passages with Haxard. Of course, Godolphin wants to shine +there. You needn't give him her speeches, but you can put them somewhere +else, in some of the scenes with Atland; it won't make any difference +how much she outshines _him_, poor fellow." + +He would not be entreated at once, but after letting her talk on to much +the same effect for awhile, he said, "I will see what can be done with +it. At present I am sick of the whole thing." + +"Yes, just drop it for the present," she said. "I'm hungry, aren't you?" + +"I didn't know it was time." + +She was very tender with him, walking up to the hotel, and all that +evening she kept him amused, so that he would not want to look at his +manuscript. She used him, as a wife is apt to use her husband when he is +fretted and not very well, as if he were her little boy, and she did +this so sweetly that Maxwell could not resent it. + +The next morning she let him go to his play again, and work all the +morning. He ended about noon, and told her he had done what she wanted +done to the love-business, he thought, but he would not show it to her, +for he said he was tired of it, and would have to go over it with +Godolphin, at any rate, when he came in the afternoon. They went to the +beach, but the person with the smouldering eyes failed to appear, and in +fact they did not see her again at Magnolia, and they decided that she +must have been passing a few days at one of the other hotels, and gone +away. + +Godolphin arrived in the sunniest good-humor, as if he had never had any +thought of relinquishing the play, and he professed himself delighted +with the changes Maxwell had made in the love-business. He said the +character of Salome had the true proportion to all the rest now; and +Maxwell understood that he would not be jealous of the actress who +played the part, or feel her a dangerous rival in the public favor. He +approved of the transposition of the speeches that Maxwell had made, or +at least he no longer openly coveted them for Haxard. + +What was more important to Maxwell was that Louise seemed finally +contented with the part, too, and said that now, no matter what +Godolphin wanted, she would never let it be touched again. "I am glad +you have got that 'impassioned' rubbish out. I never thought that was in +character with Salome." + +The artistic consciousness of Maxwell, which caught all the fine +reluctances and all the delicate feminine preferences of his wife, was +like a subtle web woven around him, and took everything, without his +willing it, from within him as well as from without, and held it +inexorably for future use. He knew the source of the impassioned rubbish +which had displeased his wife; and he had felt while he was employing it +that he was working in a commoner material than the rest of Salome's +character; but he had experimented with it in the hope that she might +not notice it. The fact that she had instantly noticed it, and had +generalized the dislike which she only betrayed at last, after she had +punished him sufficiently, remained in the meshes of the net he wore +about his mind, as something of value, which he could employ to +exquisite effect if he could once find a scheme fit for it. + +In the meantime it would be hard to say whether Godolphin continued more +a sorrow or a joy to Maxwell, who was by no means always of the same +mind about him. He told his wife sometimes, when she was pitying him, +that it was a good discipline for him to work with such a man, for it +taught him a great deal about himself, if it did not teach him much +else. He said that it tamed his overweening pride to find that there was +artistic ability employing itself with literature which was so unlike +literary ability. Godolphin conceived perfectly of the literary +intention in the fine passages of the play, and enjoyed their beauty, +but he did not value them any more than the poorest and crudest verbiage +that promised him a point. In fact, Maxwell found that in two or three +places the actor was making a wholly wrong version of his words, and +maturing in his mind an effect from his error that he was rather loath +to give up, though when he was instructed as to their true meaning, he +saw how he could get a better effect out of it. He had an excellent +intelligence, but this was employed so entirely in the study of +impression that significance was often a secondary matter with him. He +had not much humor, and Maxwell doubted if he felt it much in others, +but he told a funny story admirably, and did character-stuff, as he +called it, with the subtlest sense; he had begun in sketches of the +variety type. Sometimes Maxwell thought him very well versed in the +history and theory of the drama; but there were other times when his +ignorance seemed almost creative in that direction. He had apparently no +feeling for values; he would want a good effect used, without regard to +the havoc it made of the whole picture, though doubtless if it could +have been realized to him, he would have abhorred it as thoroughly as +Maxwell himself. He would come over from Manchester one day with a +notion for the play so bad that it almost made Maxwell shed tears; and +the next with something so good that Maxwell marvelled at it; but +Godolphin seemed to value the one no more than the other. He was a +creature of moods the most extreme; his faith in Maxwell was as +profound as his abysmal distrust of him; and his frank and open nature +was full of suspicion. He was like a child in the simplicity of his +selfishness, as far as his art was concerned, but in all matters aside +from it he was chaotically generous. His formlessness was sometimes +almost distracting; he presented himself to the author's imagination as +mere human material, waiting to be moulded in this shape or that. From +day to day, from week to week, Maxwell lived in a superficial +uncertainty whether Godolphin had really taken his play, or would ever +produce it; yet at the bottom of his heart he confided in the promises +which the actor lavished upon him in both the written and the spoken +word. They had an agreement carefully drawn up as to all the business +between them, but he knew that Godolphin would not be held by any clause +of it that he wished to break; he did not believe that Godolphin +understood what it bound him to, either when he signed it or afterward; +but he was sure that he would do not only what was right, but what was +noble, if he could be taken at the right moment. Upon the whole, he +liked him; in a curious sort, he respected and honored him; and he +defended him against Mrs. Maxwell when she said Godolphin was wearing +her husband's life out, and that if he made the play as greatly +successful as "Hamlet," or the "Trip to Chinatown," he would not be +worth what it cost them both in time and temper. + +They lost a good deal of time and temper with the play, which was almost +a conjugal affair with them, and the struggle to keep up a show of gay +leisure before the summering world up and down the coast told upon Mrs. +Maxwell's nerves. She did not mind the people in the hotel so much; they +were very nice, but she did not know many of them, and she could not +care for them as she did for her friends who came up from Beverly Farms +and over from Manchester. She hated to call Maxwell from his work at +such times, not only because she pitied him, but because he came to help +her receive her friends with such an air of gloomy absence and open +reluctance; and she had hated still worse to say he was busy with his +play, the play he was writing for Mr. Godolphin. Her friends were +apparently unable to imagine anyone writing a play so seriously, and +they were unable to imagine Mr. Godolphin at all, for they had never +heard of him; the splendor of his unknown name took them more than +anything else. As for getting Maxwell to return their visits with her, +when men had come with the ladies who called upon her, she could only +manage it if he was so fagged with working at his play that he was too +weak to resist her will, and even then he had to be torn from it almost +by main force. He behaved so badly in the discharge of some of these +duties to society, and was, to her eye at least, so bored and worried by +them that she found it hard to forgive him, and made him suffer for it +on the way home till she relented at the sight of his thin face, the +face that she loved, that she had thought the world well lost for. After +the third or fourth time she made him go with her she gave it up and +went alone, though she was aware that it might look as if they were not +on good terms. She only obliged him after that to go with her to her +father's, where she would not allow any shadow of suspicion to fall upon +their happiness, and where his absent-mindedness would be accounted for. +Her mother seemed to understand it better than her father, who, she +could see, sometimes inwardly resented it as neglect. She also exacted +of Maxwell that he should not sit silent through a whole meal at the +hotel, and that, if he did not or could not talk, he should keep looking +at her, and smiling and nodding, now and then. If he would remember to +do this she would do all the talking herself. Sometimes he did not +remember, and then she trod on his foot in vain. + +The droll side of the case often presented itself for her relief, and, +after all, she knew beforehand that this was the manner of man she was +marrying, and she was glad to marry him. She was happier than she had +ever dreamed of being. She was one of those women who live so largely in +their sympathies that if these were employed she had no thought of +herself, and not to have any thought of one's self is to be blessed. +Maxwell had no thought of anything but his work, and that made his +bliss; if she could have no thought but of him in his work, she could +feel herself in Heaven with him. + + + + +VII. + + +July and August went by, and it was time for Godolphin to take the road +again. By this time Maxwell's play was in as perfect form as it could be +until it was tried upon the stage and then overhauled for repairs. +Godolphin had decided to try it first in Toronto, where he was going to +open, and then to give it in the West as often as he could. If it did as +well as he expected he would bring it on for a run in New York about the +middle of December. He would want Maxwell at the rehearsals there, but +for the present he said he preferred to stage-manage it himself; they +had talked it up so fully that he had all the author's intentions in +mind. + +He came over from Manchester the day before his vacation ended to take +leave of the Maxwells. He was in great spirits with the play, but he +confessed to a misgiving in regard to the lady whom he had secured for +the part of Salome. He said there was only one woman he ever saw fit to +do that part, but when he named the actress the Maxwells had to say +they had never heard of her before. "She is a Southerner. She is very +well known in the West," Godolphin said. + +Louise asked if she had ever played in Boston, and when he said she had +not, Louise said "Oh!" + +Maxwell trembled, but Godolphin seemed to find nothing latent in his +wife's offensive tone, and after a little further talk they all parted +on the friendliest terms. The Maxwells did not hear from him for a +fortnight, though he was to have tried the play in Toronto at least a +week earlier. Then there came a telegram from Midland: + + "_Tried play here last night. Went like wildfire. + Will write._ + GODOLPHIN. + +The message meant success, and the Maxwells walked the air. The +production of the piece was mentioned in the Associated Press despatches +to the Boston papers, and though Mrs. Maxwell studied these in vain for +some verbal corroboration of Godolphin's jubilant message, she did not +lose faith in it, nor allow her husband to do so. In fact, while they +waited for Godolphin's promised letter, they made use of their leisure +to count the chickens which had begun to hatch. The actor had agreed to +pay the author at the rate of five dollars an act for each performance +of the play, and as it was five acts long a simple feat of arithmetic +showed that the nightly gain from it would be twenty-five dollars, and +that if it ran every night and two afternoons, for matinées, the weekly +return from it would be two hundred dollars. Besides this, Godolphin had +once said, in a moment of high content with the piece, that if it went +as he expected it to go he would pay Maxwell over and above this +twenty-five dollars a performance five per cent. of the net receipts +whenever these passed one thousand dollars. His promise had not been put +in writing, and Maxwell had said at the time that he should be satisfied +with his five dollars an act, but he had told his wife of it, and they +had both agreed that Godolphin would keep it. They now took it into the +account in summing up their gains, and Mrs. Maxwell thought it +reasonable to figure at least twenty-five dollars more from it for each +time the play was given; but as this brought the weekly sum up to four +hundred dollars, she so far yielded to her husband as to scale the total +at three hundred dollars, though she said it was absurd to put it at any +such figure. She refused, at any rate, to estimate their earnings from +the season at less than fifteen thousand dollars. It was useless for +Maxwell to urge that Godolphin had other pieces in his repertory, +things that had made his reputation, and that he would naturally want to +give sometimes. She asked him whether Godolphin himself had not +voluntarily said that if the piece went as he expected he would play +nothing else as long as he lived, like Jefferson with Rip Van Winkle; +and here, she said, it had already, by his own showing, gone at once +like wildfire. When Maxwell pleaded that they did not know what wildfire +meant she declared that it meant an overwhelming house and unbridled +rapture in the audience; it meant an instant and lasting triumph for the +play. She began to praise Godolphin, or, at least, to own herself +mistaken in some of her decrials of him. She could not be kept from +bubbling over to two or three ladies at the hotel, where it was quickly +known what an immense success the first performance of Maxwell's play +had been. He was put to shame by several asking him when they were to +have it in Boston, but his wife had no embarrassment in answering that +it would probably be kept the whole winter in New York, and not come to +Boston till some time in the early spring. + +She was resolved, now, that he should drive over to Beverly Farms with +her, and tell her father and mother about the success of the play. She +had instantly telegraphed them on getting Godolphin's despatch, and she +began to call out to her father as soon as she got inside the house, and +saw him coming down the stairs in the hall, "_Now_, what do you say, +papa? Isn't it glorious? Didn't I tell you it would be the greatest +success? Did you ever hear anything like it? Where's mamma? If she +shouldn't be at home, I don't know what I shall do!" + +"She's here," said her father, arriving at the foot of the stairs, where +Louise embraced him, and then let him shake hands with her husband. +"She's dressing. We were just going over to see you." + +"Well, you've been pretty deliberate about it! Here it's after lunch, +and I telegraphed you at ten o'clock." She went on to bully her father +more and more, and to flourish Maxwell's triumph in his face. "We're +going to have three hundred dollars a week from it at the very least, +and fifteen thousand dollars for the season. What do you think of that? +Isn't that pretty good, for two people that had nothing in the world +yesterday? What do you say _now_, papa?" + +There were all sorts of lurking taunts, demands, reproaches, in these +words, which both the men felt, but they smiled across her, and made as +if they were superior to her simple exultation. + +"I should say you had written the play yourself, Louise," said her +father. + +"No," answered her husband, "Godolphin wrote the play; or I've no doubt +he's telling the reporters so by this time." + +Louise would not mind them. "Well, I don't care! I want papa to +acknowledge that I was right, for once. Anybody could believe in Brice's +genius, but I believed in his star, and I always knew that he would get +on, and I was all for his giving up his newspaper work, and devoting +himself to the drama; and now the way is open to him, and all he has got +to do is to keep on writing." + +"Come now, Louise," said her husband. + +"Well," her father interposed, "I'm glad of your luck, Maxwell. It isn't +in my line, exactly, but I don't believe I could be any happier, if it +were. After all, it's doing something to elevate the stage. I wish +someone would take hold of the pulpit." + +Maxwell shrugged. "I'm not strong enough for that, quite. And I can't +say that I had any conscious intention to elevate the stage with my +play." + +"But you had it unconsciously, Brice," said Louise, "and it can't help +having a good effect on life, too." + +"It will teach people to be careful how they murder people," Maxwell +assented. + +"Well, it's a great chance," said Hilary, with the will to steer a +middle course between Maxwell's modesty and Louise's overweening pride. +"There really isn't anything that people talk about more. They discuss +plays as they used to discuss sermons. If you've done a good play, +you've done a good thing." + +His wife hastened to make answer for him. "He's done a _great_ play, and +there are no ifs or ans about it." She went on to celebrate Maxwell's +achievement till he was quite out of countenance, for he knew that she +was doing it mainly to rub his greatness into her father, and he had so +much of the old grudge left that he would not suffer himself to care +whether Hilary thought him great or not. It was a relief when Mrs. +Hilary came in. Louise became less defiant in her joy then, or else the +effect of it was lost in Mrs. Hilary's assumption of an entire +expectedness in the event. Her world was indeed so remote from the world +of art that she could value success in it only as it related itself to +her family, and it seemed altogether natural to her that her daughter's +husband should take its honors. She was by no means a stupid woman; for +a woman born and married to wealth, with all the advantages that go +with it, she was uncommonly intelligent; but she could not help looking +upon ęsthetic honors of any sort as in questionable taste. She would +have preferred position in a son-in-law to any distinction appreciable +to the general, but wanting that it was fit he should be distinguished +in the way he chose. In her feeling it went far to redeem the drama that +it should be related to the Hilarys by marriage, and if she had put her +feeling into words, which always oversay the feelings, they would have +been to the effect that the drama had behaved very well indeed, and +deserved praise. This is what Mrs. Hilary's instinct would have said, +but, of course, her reason would have said something quite different, +and it was her reason that spoke to Maxwell, and expressed a pleasure in +his success that was very gratifying to him. He got on with her better +than with Hilary, partly because she was a woman and he was a man, and +partly because, though she had opposed his marriage with Louise more +steadily than her husband, there had been no open offence between them. +He did not easily forgive a hurt to his pride, and Hilary, with all his +good will since, and his quick repentance at the time, had never made it +quite right with Maxwell for treating him rudely once, when he came to +him so helplessly in the line of his newspaper work. They were always +civil to each other, and they would always be what is called good +friends; they had even an air of mutual understanding, as regarded +Louise and her exuberances. Still, she was so like her father in these, +and so unlike her mother, that it is probable the understanding between +Hilary and Maxwell concerning her was only the understanding of men, and +that Maxwell was really more in sympathy with Mrs. Hilary, even about +Louise, even about the world. He might have liked it as much as she, if +he had been as much of it, and he thought so well of it as a world that +he meant to conquer one of the chief places in it. In the meantime he +would have been very willing to revenge himself upon it, to satirize it, +to hurt it, to humble it--but for his own pleasure, not the world's +good. + +Hilary wanted the young people to stay the afternoon, and have dinner, +but his wife perceived that they wished to be left alone in their +exultation, and she would not let him keep them beyond a decent moment, +or share too much in their joy. With only that telegram from Godolphin +they could not be definite about anything but their future, which +Louise, at least, beheld all rose color. Just what size or shape their +good fortune had already taken they did not know, and could not, till +they got the letter Godolphin had promised, and she was in haste to go +back to Magnolia for that, though it could not arrive before the next +morning at the earliest. She urged that he might have written before +telegraphing, or when he came from the theatre after the play was given. +She was not satisfied with the reception of her news, and she said so to +Maxwell, as soon as they started home. + +"What did you want?" he retorted, in a certain vexation. "They were as +cordial as they could be." + +"Cordial is not enough. You can't expect anything like uproar from +mamma, but she took it too much as a matter of course, and I _did_ +suppose papa would be a little more riotous." + +"If you are going to be as exacting as that with people," Maxwell +returned, "you are going to disappoint yourself frightfully; and if you +insist, you will make them hate you. People can't share your happiness +any more than they can share your misery; it's as much as they can do to +manage their own." + +"But I did think my own father and mother might have entered into it a +little more," she grieved. "Well, you are right, Brice, and I will try +to hold in after this. It wasn't for myself I cared." + +"I know," said Maxwell, so appreciatively that she felt all her loss +made up to her, and shrunk closer to him in the buggy he was driving +with a lax, absent-minded rein. "But I think a little less Fourth of +July on my account would be better." + +"Yes, you are wise, and I shall not say another word about it to +anybody; just treat it as a common every-day event." + +He laughed at what was so far from her possibilities, and began to tell +her of the scheme for still another play that had occurred to him while +they were talking with her father. She was interested in the scheme, but +more interested in the involuntary workings of his genius, and she +celebrated that till he had to beg her to stop, for she made him ashamed +of himself even in the solitude of the woodland stretches they were +passing through. Then he said, as if it were part of the same strain of +thought, "You have to lose a lot of things in writing a play. Now, for +instance, that beautiful green light there in the woods." He pointed to +a depth of the boscage where it had almost an emerald quality, it was so +vivid, so intense. "If I were writing a story about two lovers in such a +light, and how it bathed their figures and illumined their faces, I +could make the reader feel it just as I did. I could make them see it. +But if I were putting them in a play, I should have to trust the +carpenter and the scene-painter for the effect; and you know what broken +reeds they are." + +"Yes," she sighed, "and some day I hope you will write novels. But now +you've made such a success with this play that you must do some others, +and when you've got two or three going steadily you can afford to take +up a novel. It would be wicked to turn your back on the opportunity +you've won." + +He silently assented and said, "I shall be all the the better novelist +for waiting a year or two." + + + + +VIII. + + +There was no letter from Godolphin in the morning, but in the course of +the forenoon there came a newspaper addressed in his handwriting, and +later several others. They were Midland papers, and they had each, +heavily outlined in ink, a notice of the appearance of Mr. Launcelot +Godolphin in a new play written expressly for him by a young Boston +_littérateur_. Mr. Godolphin believed the author to be destined to make +his mark high in the dramatic world, he said in the course of a long +interview in the paper which came first, an evening edition preceeding +the production of the piece, and plainly meant to give the public the +right perspective. He had entered into a generous expression of his own +feelings concerning it, and had given Maxwell full credit for the lofty +conception of an American drama, modern in spirit, and broad in purpose. +He modestly reserved to himself such praise as might be due for the +hints his life-long knowledge of the stage had enabled him to offer the +dramatist. He told how they had spent the summer near each other on the +north shore of Massachusetts, and had met almost daily; and the reporter +got a picturesque bit out of their first meeting at the actor's hotel, +in Boston, the winter before, when the dramatist came to lay the scheme +of the play before Godolphin, and Godolphin made up his mind before he +had heard him half through, that he should want the piece. He had +permitted himself a personal sketch of Maxwell, which lost none of its +original advantages in the diction of the reporter, and which +represented him as young, slight in figure, with a refined and delicate +face, bearing the stamp of intellectual force; a journalist from the +time he left school, and one of the best exponents of the formative +influences of the press in the training of its votaries. From time to +time it was hard for Maxwell to make out whose words the interview was +couched in, but he acquitted Godolphin of the worst, and he certainly +did not accuse him of the flowery terms giving his patriotic reasons for +not producing the piece first in Toronto as he had meant to do. It +appeared that, upon second thoughts, he had reserved this purely +American drama for the opening night of his engagement in one of the +most distinctively American cities, after having had it in daily +rehearsal ever since the season began. + +"I should think they had Pinney out there," said Maxwell, as he and his +wife looked over the interview, with their cheeks together. + +"Not at all!" she retorted. "It isn't the least like Pinney," and he was +amazed to find that she really liked the stuff. She said that she was +glad, now, that she understood why Godolphin had not opened with the +play in Toronto, as he had promised, and she thoroughly agreed with him +that it ought first to be given on our own soil. She was dashed for a +moment when Maxwell made her reflect that they were probably the losers +of four or five hundred dollars by the delay; then she said she did not +care, that it was worth the money. She did not find the personal account +of Maxwell offensive, though she contended that it did not do him full +justice, and she cut out the interview and pasted it in a book, where +she was going to keep all the notices of his play and every printed fact +concerning it. He told her she would have to help herself out with some +of the fables, if she expected to fill her book, and she said she did +not care for that, either, and probably it was just such things as this +interview that drew attention to the play, and must have made it go +like wildfire that first night in Midland. Maxwell owned that it was but +too likely, and then he waited hungrily for further word of his play, +while she expected the next mail in cheerful faith. + +It brought them four or five morning papers, and it seemed from these +that a play might have gone like wildfire, and yet not been seen by a +very large number of people. The papers agreed in a sense of the +graceful compliment paid their city by Mr. Godolphin, who was always a +favorite there, in producing his new piece at one of their theatres, and +confiding it at once to the judgment of a cultivated audience, instead +of trying it first in a subordinate place, and bringing it on with a +factitious reputation worked up from all sorts of unknown sources. They +agreed, too, that his acting had never been better; that it had great +smoothness, and that it rose at times into passion, and was full of his +peculiar force. His company was well chosen, and his support had an even +excellence which reflected great credit upon the young star, who might +be supposed, if he had followed an unwise tradition, to be willing to +shine at the expense of his surroundings. His rendition of the rōle of +Haxard was magnificent in one journal, grand in another, superb in a +third, rich, full and satisfying in a fourth, subtle and conscientious +in a fifth. Beyond this, the critics ceased to be so much of one mind. +They were, by a casting vote, adverse to the leading lady, whom the +majority decided an inadequate Salome, without those great qualities +which the author had evidently meant to redeem a certain coquettish +lightness in her; the minority held that she had grasped the rōle with +intelligence, and expressed with artistic force a very refined intention +in it. The minority hinted that Salome was really the great part in the +piece, and that in her womanly endeavor to win back the lover whom she +had not at first prized at his true worth, while her heart was wrung by +sympathy with her unhappy father in the mystery brooding over him, she +was a far more interesting figure than the less complex Haxard; and they +intimated that Godolphin had an easier task in his portrayal. They all +touched more or less upon the conduct of the subordinate actors in their +parts, and the Maxwells, in every case, had to wade through their +opinions of the playing before they got to their opinions of the play, +which was the only vital matter concerned. + +Louise would have liked to read them, as she had read the first, with +her arm across Maxwell's shoulder, and, as it were, with the same eye +and the same mind, but Maxwell betrayed an uneasiness under the +experiment which made her ask: "Don't you _like_ to have me put my arm +round you, Brice?" + +"Yes, yes," he answered, impatiently, "I like to have you put your arm +around me on all proper occasions; but--it isn't favorable to collected +thought." + +"Why, _I_ think it is," she protested with pathos, and a burlesque of +her pathos. "I never think half so well as when I have my arm around +you. Then it seems as if I thought with your mind. I feel so judicial." + +"Perhaps I feel too emotional, under the same conditions, and think with +_your_ mind. At any rate, I can't stand it; and we can't both sit in the +same chair either. Now, you take one of the papers and go round to the +other side of the table. I want to have all my faculties for the +appreciation of this noble criticism; it's going to be full of +instruction." + +He made her laugh, and she feigned a pout in obeying him; but, +nevertheless, in her heart she felt herself postponed to the interest +that was always first in him, and always before his love. + +"And don't talk," he urged, "or keep calling out, or reading passages +ahead. I want to get all the sense there doesn't seem to be in this +thing." + +In fact the critics had found themselves confronted with a task which is +always confusing to criticism, in the necessity of valuing a work of art +so novel in material that it seems to refuse the application of +criterions. As he followed their struggles in the endeavor to judge his +work by such canons of art as were known to them, instead of taking it +frankly upon the plane of nature and of truth, where he had tried to put +it, and blaming or praising him as he had failed or succeeded in this, +he was more and more bowed down within himself before the generous +courage of Godolphin in rising to an appreciation of his intention. He +now perceived that he was a man of far more uncommon intelligence than +he had imagined him, and that in taking his play Godolphin had shown a +zeal for the drama which was not likely to find a response in criticism, +whatever its fate with the public might be. The critics frankly owned +that in spite of its defects the piece had a cordial reception from the +audience; that the principal actors were recalled again and again, and +they reported that Godolphin had spoken both for the author and himself +in acknowledging the applause, and had disclaimed all credit for their +joint success. This made Maxwell ashamed of the suspicion he had +harbored that Godolphin would give the impression of a joint +authorship, at the least. He felt that he had judged the man narrowly +and inadequately, and he decided that as soon as he heard from him, he +would write and make due reparation for the tacit wrong he had done him. + +Upon the whole he had some reason to be content with the first fortune +of his work, whatever its final fate might be. To be sure, if the +audience which received it was enthusiastic, it was confessedly small, +and it had got no more than a foothold in the public favor. It must +remain for further trial to prove it a failure or a success. His eye +wandered to the column of advertised amusements for the pleasure of +seeing the play announced there for the rest of the week. There was a +full list of the pieces for the time of Godolphin's stay; but it seemed +that neither at night nor at morning was Maxwell's play to be repeated. +The paper dropped from his hand. + +"What is the matter?" his wife asked, looking up from her own paper. +"This poor man is the greatest possible goose. He doesn't seem to know +what he is talking about, even when he praises you. But of course he has +to write merely from a first impression. Do you want to change papers?" + +Maxwell mechanically picked his up, and gave it to her. "The worst of +it is," he said, with the sardonic smile he had left over from an +unhappier time of life, "that he won't have an opportunity to revise his +first impression." + +"What do you mean?" + +He told her, but she could not believe him till she had verified the +fact by looking at the advertisements in all the papers. + +Then she asked: "What in the world _does_ he mean?" + +"Not to give it there any more, apparently. He hasn't entered upon the +perpetual performance of the piece. But if he isn't like Jefferson, +perhaps he's like Rip; he don't count this time. Well, I might have +known it! Why did I ever trust one of that race?" He began to walk up +and down the room, and to fling out, one after another, the expressions +of his scorn and his self-scorn. "They have no idea of what good faith +is, except as something that brings down the house when they register a +noble vow. But I don't blame him; I blame myself. What an ass, what an +idiot, I was! Why, _he_ could have told me not to believe in his +promises; he is a perfectly honest man, and would have done it, if I had +appealed to him. He didn't expect me to believe in them, and from the +wary way I talked, I don't suppose he thought I did. He hadn't the +measure of my folly; I hadn't, myself!" + +"Now, Brice!" his wife called out to him, severely, "I won't have you +going on in that way. When I denounced Godolphin you wouldn't listen to +me; and when I begged and besought you to give him up, you always said +he was the only man in the world for you, till I got to believing it, +and I believe it now. Why, dearest," she added, in a softer tone, "don't +you see that he probably had his programme arranged all beforehand, and +couldn't change it, just because your play happened to be a hit? I'm +sure he paid you a great compliment by giving it the first night. Now, +you must just wait till you hear from him, and you may be sure he will +have a good reason for not repeating it there." + +"Oh, Godolphin would never lack for a good reason. And I can tell you +what his reason in this case will be: that the thing was practically a +failure, and that he would have lost money if he had kept it on." + +"Is that what is worrying you? I don't believe it was a failure. I think +from all that the papers say, and the worst that they say, the piece was +a distinct success. It was a great success with nice people, you can +see that for yourself, and it will be a popular success, too; I know it +will, as soon as it gets a chance. But you may be sure that Godolphin +has some scheme about it, and that if he doesn't give it again in +Midland, it's because he wants to make people curious about it, and hold +it in reserve, or something like that. At any rate, I think you ought to +wait for his letter before you denounce him." + +Maxwell laughed again at these specious arguments, but he could not +refuse to be comforted by them, and he had really nothing to do but to +wait for Godolphin's letter. It did not come the next mail, and then his +wife and he collated his dispatch with the newspaper notices, and tried +to make up a judicial opinion from their combined testimony concerning +the fate of the play with the audience. Their scrutiny of the telegram +developed the fact that it must have been sent the night of the +performance, and while Godolphin was still warm from his recalls and +from the congratulations of his friends; it could not have reached them +so soon as it did in the morning if it had been sent to the office then; +it was not a night message, but it had probably lain in the office over +night. In this view it was not such valuable testimony to the success of +the play as it had seemed before. But a second and a third reading of +the notices made them seem friendlier than at first. The Maxwells now +perceived that they had first read them in the fever of their joy from +Godolphin's telegram, and that their tempered approval had struck cold +upon them because they were so overheated. They were really very +favorable, after all, and they witnessed to an interest in the play +which could not be ignored. Very likely the interest in it was partly +from the fact that Godolphin had given it, but apart from this it was +evident that the play had established a claim of its own. The mail, +which did not bring a letter from Godolphin, brought another copy of +that evening paper which had printed the anticipatory interview with +him, and this had a long and careful consideration of the play in its +editorial columns, apparently written by a lover of the drama, as well +as a lover of the theatre. Very little regard was paid to the +performance, but a great deal to the play, which was skilfully analyzed, +and praised and blamed in the right places. The writer did not attempt +to forecast its fate, but he said that whatever its fate with the public +might be, here, at least, was a step in the direction of the drama +dealing with facts of American life--simply, vigorously, and honestly. +It had faults of construction, but the faults were not the faults of +weakness. They were rather the effects of a young talent addressing +itself to the management of material too rich, too abundant for the +scene, and allowing itself to touch the borders of melodrama in its will +to enforce some tragic points of the intrigue. But it was not mawkish +and it was not romantic. In its highest reaches it made you think, by +its stern and unflinching fidelity to the implications, of Ibsen; but it +was not too much to say that it had a charm often wanting to that +master. It was full of the real American humor; it made its jokes, as +Americans did, in the very face of the most disastrous possibilities; +and in the love-passages it was delicious. The whole episode of the love +between Haxard's daughter, Salome, and Atland was simply the sweetest +and freshest bit of nature in the modern drama. It daringly portrayed a +woman in circumstances where it was the convention to ignore that she +ever was placed, and it lent a grace of delicate comedy to the somber +ensemble of the piece, without lowering the dignity of the action or +detracting from the sympathy the spectator felt for the daughter of the +homicide; it rather heightened this. + +Louise read the criticism aloud, and then she and Maxwell looked at each +other. It took their breath away; but Louise got her breath first. "Who +in the world would have dreamed that there was any one who could write +such a criticism, _out there_?" + +Maxwell took the paper, and ran the article over again. Then he said, +"If the thing did nothing more than get itself appreciated in that way, +I should feel that it had done enough. I wonder who the fellow is! Could +it be a woman?" + +There was, in fact, a feminine fineness in the touch, here and there, +that might well suggest a woman, but they finally decided against the +theory: Louise said that a woman writer would not have the honesty to +own that the part Salome played in getting back her lover was true to +life, though every woman who saw it would know that it was. She examined +the wrapper of the newspaper, and made sure that it was addressed in +Godolphin's hand, and she said that if he did not speak of the article +in his letter, Maxwell must write out to the newspaper and ask who had +done it. + +Godolphin's letter came at last, with many excuses for his delay. He +said he had expected the newspaper notices to speak for him, and he +seemed to think that they had all been altogether favorable to the play. +It was not very consoling to have him add that he now believed the piece +would have run the whole week in Midland, if he had kept it on; but he +had arranged merely to give it a trial, and Maxwell would understand +how impossible it was to vary a programme which had once been made out. +One thing was certain, however: the piece was an assured success, and a +success of the most flattering and brilliant kind, and Godolphin would +give it a permanent place in his _répertoire_. There was no talk of his +playing nothing else, and there was no talk of putting the piece on for +a run, when he opened in New York. He said he had sent Maxwell a paper +containing a criticism in the editorial columns, which would serve to +show him how great an interest the piece had excited in Midland, though +he believed the article was not written by one of the regular force, but +was contributed from the outside by a young fellow who had been +described to Godolphin as a sort of Ibsen crank. At the close, he spoke +of certain weaknesses which the piece had developed in the performance, +and casually mentioned that he would revise it at these points as he +found the time; it appeared to him that it needed overhauling, +particularly in the love episode; there was too much of that, and the +interest during an entire act centred so entirely upon Salome that, as +he had foreseen, the rōle of Haxard suffered. + + + + +IX. + + +The Maxwells stared at each other in dismay when they had finished this +letter, which Louise had opened, but which they had read together, she +looking over his shoulder. All interest in the authorship of the article +of the Ibsen crank, all interest in Godolphin's apparent forgetfulness +of his solemn promises to give the rest of his natural life to the +performance of the piece, was lost in amaze at the fact that he was +going to revise it to please himself, and to fashion Maxwell's careful +work over in his own ideal of the figure he should make in it to the +public. The thought of this was so petrifying that even Louise could not +at once find words for it, and they were both silent, as people +sometimes are, when a calamity has befallen them, in the hope that if +they do not speak it will turn out a miserable dream. + +"Well, Brice," she said at last, "you certainly never expected _this_!" + +"No," he answered with a ghastly laugh; "this passes my most sanguine +expectations, even of Godolphin. Good Heaven! Fancy the botch he will +make of it!" + +"You mustn't let him touch it. You must demand it back, peremptorily. +You must telegraph!" + +"What a mania you have for telegraphing," he retorted. "A special +delivery postage-stamp will serve every purpose. He isn't likely to do +the piece again for a week, at the earliest." He thought for awhile, and +then he said: "In a week he'll have a chance to change his mind so +often, that perhaps he won't revise and overhaul it, after all." + +"But he mustn't think that you would suffer it for an instant," his wife +insisted. "It's an indignity that you should not submit to; it's an +outrage!" + +"Very likely," Maxwell admitted, and he began to walk the floor, with +his head fallen, and his fingers clutched together behind him. The sight +of his mute anguish wrought upon his wife and goaded her to more and +more utterance. + +"It's an insult to your genius, Brice, dear, and you must resent it. I +am sure I have been as humble about the whole affair as any one could +be, and I should be the last person to wish you to do anything rash. I +bore with Godolphin's suggestions, and I let him worry you to death with +his plans for spoiling your play, but I certainly didn't dream of +anything so high-handed as his undertaking to work it over himself, or I +should have insisted on your breaking with him long ago. How patient you +have been through it all! You've shown so much forbearance, and so much +wisdom, and so much delicacy in dealing with his preposterous ideas, and +then, to have it all thrown away! It's too bad!" + +Maxwell kept walking hack and forth, and Louise began again at a new +point. + +"I was willing to have it remain simply a _succčs d'estime_, as far as +Midland was concerned, though I think you were treated abominably in +that, for he certainly gave you reason to suppose that he would do it +every night there. He says himself that it would have run the whole +week; and you can see from that article how it was growing in public +favor all the time. What has become of his promise to play nothing else, +I should like to know? And he's only played it once, and now he proposes +to revise it himself!" + +Still Maxwell walked on and she continued: + +"I don't know what I shall say to my family. They can never understand +such a thing, never! Papa couldn't conceive of giving a promise and not +keeping it, much less giving a promise just for the _pleasure_ of +breaking it. What shall I tell them, Brice? I can't bear to say that +Godolphin is going to make your play over, unless I can say at the same +time that you've absolutely forbidden him to do so. That's why I wanted +you to telegraph. I wanted to say you had telegraphed." + +Maxwell stopped in his walk and gazed at her, but she could feel that he +did not see her, and she said: + +"I don't know that it's actually necessary for me to say anything at +present. I can show them the notices, or that article alone. It's worth +all the rest put together, and then we can wait, and see if we hear +anything more from Godolphin. But now I don't want you to lose any more +time. You must write to him at once, and absolutely forbid him to touch +your play. Will you?" + +Her husband returned from his wanderings of mind and body, and as he +dropped upon the lounge at her side, he said, gently, "No, I don't think +I'll write at all, Louise." + +"Not write at all! Then you're going to let him tamper with that +beautiful work of yours?" + +"I'm going to wait till I hear from him again. Godolphin is a good +fellow--" + +"Oh!" + +"And he won't be guilty of doing me injustice. Besides," and here +Maxwell broke off with a laugh that had some gayety in it, "he couldn't. +Godolphin is a fine actor, and he's going to be a great one, but his +gifts are not in the line of literature." + +"I should think not!" + +"He couldn't change the piece any more than if he couldn't read or +write. And if he could, when it came to touching it, I don't believe he +would, because the fact would remind him that it wasn't fair. He has to +realize things in the objective way before he can realize them at all. +That's the stage. If they can have an operator climbing a real +telegraph-pole to tap the wire and telegraph the girl he loves that he +is dead, so that she can marry his rich rival and go to Europe and +cultivate her gift for sculpture, they feel that they have got real +life." + +Louise would not be amused, or laugh with her husband at this. "Then +what in the world does Godolphin mean?" she demanded. + +"Why, being interpreted out of actor's parlance, he means that he wishes +he could talk the play over with me again and be persuaded that he is +wrong about it." + +"I must say," Louise remarked, after a moment for mastering the +philosophy of this, "that you take it very strangely, Brice." + +"I've thought it out," said Maxwell. + +"And what are you going to do?" + +"I am going to wait the turn of events. My faith in Godolphin is +unshaken--such as it is." + +"And what is going to be our attitude in regard to it?" + +"Attitude? With whom?" + +"With our friends. Suppose they ask us about the play, and how it is +getting along. And my family?" + +"I don't think it will be necessary to take any attitude. They can think +what they like. Let them wait the turn of events, too. If we can stand +it, they can." + +"No, Brice," said his wife. "That won't do. We might be silently patient +ourselves, but if we left them to believe that it was all going well, we +should be living a lie." + +"What an extraordinary idea!" + +"I've told papa and mamma--we've both told them, though I did the +talking, you can say--that the play was a splendid success, and +Godolphin was going to give it seven or eight times a week; and now if +it's a failure--" + +"It _isn't_ a failure!" Maxwell retorted, as if hurt by the notion. + +"No matter! If he's only going to play it once a fortnight or so, and is +going to tinker it up to suit himself without saying by-your-leave to +you, I say we're occupying a false position, and that's what I mean by +living a lie." + +Maxwell looked at her in that bewilderment which he was beginning to +feel at the contradictions of her character. She sometimes told outright +little fibs which astonished him; society fibs she did not mind at all; +but when it came to people's erroneously inferring this or that from her +actions, she had a yearning for the explicit truth that nothing else +could appease. He, on the contrary, was indifferent to what people +thought, if he had not openly misled them. Let them think this, or let +them think that; it was altogether their affair, and he did not hold +himself responsible; but he was ill at ease with any conventional lie on +his conscience. He hated to have his wife say to people, as he sometimes +overheard her saying, that he was out, when she knew he had run +upstairs with his writing to escape them; she contended that it was no +harm, since it deceived nobody. + +Now he said, "Aren't you rather unnecessarily complex?" + +"No, I'm not. And I shall tell papa as soon as I see him just how the +case stands. Why, it would be dreadful if we let him believe it was all +going well, and perhaps tell others that it was, and we knew all the +time that it wasn't. He would hate that, and he wouldn't like us for +letting him." + +"Hadn't you better give the thing a chance to go right? There hasn't +been time yet." + +"No, dearest, I feel that since I've bragged so to papa, I ought to eat +humble-pie before him as soon as possible." + +"Yes. Why should you make me eat it, too?" + +"I can't help that; I would if I could. But, unfortunately, we are one." + +"And you seem to be the one. Suppose I should ask you not to eat +humble-pie before your father?" + +"Then, of course, I should do as you asked. But I hope you won't." + +Maxwell did not say anything, and she went on, tenderly, entreatingly, +"And I hope you'll never allow me to deceive myself about anything you +do. I should resent it a great deal more than if you had positively +deceived me. Will you promise me, if anything sad or bad happens, that +you don't want me to know because it will make me unhappy or +disagreeable, you'll tell me at once?" + +"It won't be necessary. You'll find it out." + +"No, do be serious, dearest. _I_ am _very_ serious. Will you?" + +"What is the use of asking such a thing as that? It seems to me that +I've invited you to a full share of the shame and sorrow that Godolphin +has brought upon me." + +"Yes, you have," said Louise, thoughtfully. "And you may be sure that I +appreciate it. Don't you like to have me share it?" + +"Well, I don't know. I might like to get at it first myself." + +"Ah, you didn't like my opening Godolphin's letter when it came!" + +"I shouldn't mind, now, if you would answer it." + +"I shall be only too glad to answer it, if you will let me answer it as +it deserves." + +"That needs reflection." + + + + +X. + + +The weather grew rough early in September, and all at once, all in a +moment, as it were, the pretty watering-place lost its air of summer +gayety. The sky had an inner gray in its blue; the sea looked cold. A +few hardy bathers braved it out on select days in the surf, but they +were purple and red when they ran up to the bath-houses, and they came +out wrinkled, and hurried to their hotels, where there began to be a +smell of steam-heat and a snapping of radiators in the halls. The barges +went away laden to the stations, and came back empty, except at night, +when they brought over the few and fewer husbands whose wives were +staying down simply because they hated to go up and begin the social +life of the winter. The people who had thronged the grassy-bordered +paths of the village dwindled in number; the riding and driving on the +roads was less and less; the native life showed itself more in the +sparsity of the sojourners. The sweet fern in the open fields, and the +brakes and blackberry-vines among the bowlders, were blighted with the +cold wind; even the sea-weed swaying at the foot of the rocks seemed to +feel a sharper chill than that of the brine. A storm came, and strewed +the beach with kelp, and blew over half the bath-houses; and then the +hardiest lingerer ceased to talk of staying through October. There began +to be rumors at the Maxwells' hotel that it would close before the month +was out; some ladies pressed the landlord for the truth, and he +confessed that he expected to shut the house by the 25th. This spread +dismay; but certain of the boarders said they would go to the other +hotels, which were to keep open till October. The dependent cottages had +been mostly emptied before; those who remained in them, if they did not +go away, came into the hotel. The Maxwells themselves did this at last, +for the sake of the warmth and the human companionship around the +blazing hearth-fires in the parlors. They got a room with a stove in it, +so that he could write; and there was a pensive, fleeting coziness in it +all, with the shrinking numbers in the vast dining-room grouped at two +or three tables for dinner, and then gathered in the light of the +evening lamps over the evening papers. In these conditions there came, +if not friendship, an intensification of acquaintance, such as is +imaginable of a company of cultured castaways. Ladies who were not quite +socially certain of one another in town gossiped fearlessly together; +there was whist among the men; more than once it happened that a young +girl played or sang by request, and not, as so often happens where a +hotel is full, against the general desire. It came once to a wish that +Mr. Maxwell would read something from his play; but no one had the +courage to ask him. In society he was rather severe with women, and his +wife was not sorry for that; she made herself all the more approachable +because of it. But she discouraged the hope of anything like reading +from him; she even feigned that he might not like to do it without +consulting Mr. Godolphin, and if she did not live a lie concerning the +status of his play, she did not scruple to tell one, now and then. + +That is, she would say it was going beyond their expectations, and this +was not so fabulous as it might seem, for their expectations were not so +high as they had been, and Godolphin was really playing the piece once +or twice a week. They heard no more from him by letter, for Maxwell had +decided that it would be better not to answer his missive from Midland; +but he was pretty faithful in sending the newspaper notices whenever he +played, and so they knew that he had not abandoned it. They did not know +whether he had carried out his threat of overhauling it; and Maxwell +chose to remain in ignorance of the fact till Godolphin himself should +speak again. Unless he demanded the play back he was really helpless, +and he was not ready to do that, for he hoped that when the actor +brought it on to New York he could talk with him about it, and come to +some understanding. He had not his wife's belief in the perfection of +the piece; it might very well have proved weak in places, and after his +first indignation at the notion of Godolphin's revising it, he was +willing to do what he could to meet his wishes. He did not so much care +what shape it had in these remote theatres of the West; the real test +was New York, and there it should appear only as he wished. + +It was a comfort to his wife when he took this stand, and she vowed him +to keep it; she would have made him go down on his knees and hold up his +right hand, which was her notion of the way an oath was taken in court, +but she did not think he would do it, and he might refuse to seal any +vow at all if she urged it. + +In the meanwhile she was not without other consolations. At her +insistence he wrote to the newspaper which had printed the Ibsen crank's +article on the play, and said how much pleasure it had given him, and +begged his thanks to the author. They got a very pretty letter back from +him, adding some praises of the piece which he said he had kept out of +print because he did not want to seem too gushing about it; and he +ventured some wary censures of the acting, which he said he had +preferred not to criticise openly, since the drama was far more +important to him than the theatre. He believed that Mr. Godolphin had a +perfect conception of the part of Haxard, and a thorough respect for the +piece, but his training had been altogether in the romantic school; he +was working out of it, but he was not able at once to simplify himself. +This was in fact the fault of the whole company. The girl who did Salome +had moments of charming reality, but she too suffered from her +tradition, and the rest went from bad to worse. He thought that they +would all do better as they familiarized themselves with the piece, and +he deeply regretted that Mr. Godolphin had been able to give it only +once in Midland. + +At this Mrs. Maxwell's wounds inwardly bled afresh, and she came little +short of bedewing the kind letter with her tears. She made Maxwell +answer it at once, and she would not let him deprecate the writer's +worship of him as the first American dramatist to attempt something in +the spirit of the great modern masters abroad. She contended that it +would be as false to refuse this tribute as to accept one that was not +due him, and there could be no doubt but it was fully and richly +merited. The critic wrote again in response to Maxwell, and they +exchanged three or four letters. + +What was even more to Louise was the admirable behavior of her father +when she went to eat humble-pie before him. He laughed at the notion of +Godolphin's meddling with the play, and scolded her for not taking her +husband's view of the case, which he found entirely reasonable, and the +only reasonable view of it. He argued that Godolphin simply chose to +assert in that way a claim to joint authorship, which he had all along +probably believed he had, and he approved of Maxwell's letting him have +his head in the matter, so far as the West was concerned. If he +attempted to give it with any alterations of his own in the East, there +would be time enough to stop him. Louise seized the occasion to confirm +herself in her faith that her father admired Maxwell's genius as much as +she did herself; and she tried to remember just the words he used in +praising it, so that she could repeat them to Maxwell. She also +committed to memory his declaration that the very fact of Godolphin's +playing the piece every now and then was proof positive that he would be +very reluctant to part with it, if it came to that. This seemed to her +very important, and she could hardly put up with Maxwell's sardonic +doubt of it. + +Before they left Magnolia there came a letter from Godolphin himself, +wholly different in tone from his earlier letter. He said nothing now of +overhauling the piece, which he felt was gradually making its way. He +was playing it at various one-night stands in the Northwest, preparatory +to bringing it to Chicago and putting it on for a week, and he asked if +Maxwell could not come out and see it there. He believed they were all +gradually getting down to it, and the author's presence at the +rehearsals would be invaluable. He felt more and more that they had a +fortune in it, and it only needed careful working to realize a bonanza. +He renewed his promises, in view of his success so far, to play it +exclusively if the triumph could be clinched by a week's run in such a +place as Chicago. He wrote from Grand Rapids, and asked Maxwell to reply +to him at Oshkosh. + +"Tell him you'll come, of course," said his wife. + +Maxwell shook his head. "He doesn't mean this any more than he meant to +revise the thing himself. He probably finds that he can't do that, and +wants me to do it. But if I did it he might take it off after the first +night in Chicago if the notices were unfavorable." + +"But they won't be," she argued. "I _know_ they won't." + +"I should simply break him up from the form he's got into, if I went to +the rehearsals. He must keep on doing it in his own way till he comes to +New York." + +"But think of the effect it will have in New York if you should happen +to make it go in Chicago." + +"It won't have the slightest effect. When he brings it East, it will +have to make its way just as if it had never been played anywhere +before." + +A bright thought occurred to Louise. "Then tell him that if he will +bring it on to Boston you will superintend all the rehearsals. And I +will go with you to them." + +Maxwell only laughed at this. "Boston wouldn't serve any better than +Chicago, as far as New York is concerned. We shall have to build a +success from the ground up there, if we get one. It might run a whole +winter in Boston, and then we should probably begin with half a house in +New York, or a third. The only advantage of trying it anywhere before, +is that the actors will be warm in their parts. Besides, do you suppose +Godolphin could get a theatre in Boston out of the order of his +engagement there next spring?" + +"Why not?" + +"Simply because every night at every house is taken six months +beforehand." + +"Who would ever have dreamt," said Louise, ruefully, "that simply +writing a play would involve any one in all these exasperating business +details." + +"Nobody can get free of business," Maxwell returned. + +"Then I will tell you," she brightened up to say. "Why not sell him the +piece outright, and wash your hands of it?" + +"Because he wouldn't buy it outright, and if I washed my hands of it he +could do what he pleased with it. If he couldn't tinker it up himself he +could hire some one else to do it, and that would be worse yet." + +"Well, then, the only thing for us to do is to go on to New York, and +wait there till Godolphin comes. I suppose papa and mamma would like to +have us stay through October with them in Boston, but I don't see much +sense in that, and I don't choose to have the air of living on them. I +want to present an unbroken front of independence from the beginning, as +far as inquiring friends are concerned; and in New York we shall be so +lost to sight that nobody will know how we are living. You can work at +your new play while we're waiting, and we can feel that the onset in the +battle of life has sounded." + +Maxwell laughed, as she meant him, at the mock heroics of her phrase, +and she pulled off his hat, and rubbed his hair round on his skull in +exultation at having arrived at some clear understanding. "I wouldn't +have hair like silk," she jeered. + +"And I wouldn't have hair like corn-silk," he returned. "At least not on +my own head." + +"Yes, it _is_ coarse. And it's yours quite as much as mine," she said, +thoughtfully. "We _do_ belong to each other utterly, don't we? I never +thought of it in that light before. And now our life has gone into your +work, already! I can't tell you, Brice, how sweet it is to think of that +love-business being our own! I shall be so proud of it on the stage! But +as long as we live no one but ourselves must know anything about it. Do +you suppose they will?" she asked, in sudden dismay. + +He smiled. "Should you care?" + +She reflected a moment. "No!" she shouted, boldly. "What difference?" + +"Godolphin would pay any sum for the privilege of using the fact as an +advertisement. If he could put it into Pinney's hands, and give him +_carte blanche_, to work in all the romance he liked--" + +"Brice!" she shrieked. + +"Well, we needn't give it away, and if _we_ don't, nobody else will." + +"No, and we must always keep it sacredly secret. Promise me one thing!" + +"Twenty!" + +"That you will let me hold your hand all through the first performance +of that part. Will you?" + +"Why, we shall be set up like two brazen images in a box for all the +first-nighters to stare at and the society reporters to describe. What +would society journalism say to your holding my hand throughout the +tender passages? It would be onto something personal in them in an +instant." + +"No; now I will show you how we will do." They were sitting in a nook of +the rocks, in the pallor of the late September sunshine, with their +backs against a warm bowlder. "Now give me your hand." + +"Why, you've got hold of it already." + +"Oh yes, so I have! Well, I'll just grasp it in mine firmly, and let +them both rest on your knee, so; and fling the edge of whatever I'm +wearing on my shoulders over them, or my mantle, if it's hanging on the +back of the chair, so"--she flung the edge of her shawl over their +clasped hands to illustrate--"and nobody will suspect the least thing. +Suppose the sea was the audience--a sea of faces you know; would any one +dream down there that I was squeezing your hand at all the important +moments, or you squeezing mine?" + +"I hope they wouldn't think me capable of doing anything so indelicate +as squeezing a lady's hand," said Maxwell. "I don't know what they might +think of you, though, if there was any such elaborate display of +concealment as you've got up here." + +"Oh, this is merely rehearsing. Of course, I shall be more adroit, more +careless, when I really come to it. But what I mean is that when we +first see it together, the love-business, I shall want to feel that you +are feeling every instant just as I do. Will you?" + +"I don't see any great objection to that. We shall both be feeling very +anxious about the play, if that's what you mean." + +"That's what I mean in one sense," Louise allowed. "Sha'n't you be very +anxious to see how they have imagined Salome and Atland?" + +"Not so anxious as about how Godolphin has 'created' Haxard." + +"I care nothing about that. But if the woman who does _me_ is vulgar, or +underbred, or the least bit coarse, and doesn't keep the character just +as sweet and delicate as you imagined it, I don't know what I shall do +to her." + +"Nothing violent, I hope," Maxwell suggested languidly. + +"I am not so sure," said Louise. "It's a dreadfully intimate affair with +me, and if I didn't like it I should hiss, anyway." + +Maxwell laughed long and loud. "What a delightful thing that would be +for society journalism. 'At one point the wife of the author was +apparently unable to control her emotions, and she was heard to express +her disapprobation by a prolonged sibilation. All eyes were turned upon +the box where she sat with her husband, their hands clasped under the +edge of her mantle.' No, you mustn't hiss, my dear; but if you find +Salome getting too much for you you can throw a dynamite bomb at the +young woman who is doing her. I dare say we shall want to blow up the +whole theatre before the play is over." + +"Oh, I don't believe we shall. I know the piece will go splendidly if +the love-business is well done. But you can understand, can't you, just +how I feel about Salome?" + +"I think I can, and I am perfectly sure that you will be bitterly +disappointed in her, no matter how she's done, unless you do her +yourself." + +"I wish I could!" + +"Then the other people might be disappointed." + + + + +XI. + + +The Maxwells went to New York early in October, and took a little +furnished flat for the winter on the West Side, between two streets +among the Eighties. It was in a new apartment-house, rather fine on the +outside, and its balconies leaned caressingly towards the tracks of the +Elevated Road, whose trains steamed back and forth under them night and +day. At first they thought it rather noisy, but their young nerves were +strong, and they soon ceased to take note of the uproar, even when the +windows were open. + +The weather was charming, as the weather of the New York October is apt +to be. The month proved much milder than September had been at Magnolia. +They were not very far from Central Park, and they went for whole +afternoons into it. They came to have such a sense of ownership in one +of the seats in the Ramble, that they felt aggrieved when they found +anybody had taken it, and they resented other people's intimacy with +the squirrels, which Louise always took a pocketful of nuts to feed; the +squirrels got a habit of climbing into her lap for them. Sometimes +Maxwell hired a boat and rowed her lazily about on the lake, while he +mused and she talked. Sometimes, to be very lavish, they took places in +the public carriage which plied on the drives of the Park, and went up +to the tennis-grounds beyond the reservoirs, and watched the players, or +the art-students sketching the autumn scenery there. They began to know, +without acquaintance, certain attached or semi-attached couples; and no +doubt they passed with these for lovers themselves, though they felt a +vast superiority to them in virtue of their married experience; they +looked upon them, though the people were sometimes their elders, as very +young things, who were in the right way, but were as yet deplorably +ignorant how happy they were going to be. They almost always walked back +from these drives, and it was not so far but they could walk over to the +North River for the sunset before their dinner, which they had late when +they did that, and earlier when they did not do it. Dinner was rather a +matter of caprice with them. Sometimes they dined at a French or Italian +_table d'hōte_; sometimes they foraged for it before they came in from +their sunset, or their afternoon in the park. When dinner consisted +mainly of a steak or chops, with one of the delicious salads their +avenue abounded in, and some improvisation of potatoes, and coffee +afterward, it was very easy to get it up in half an hour. They kept one +maid, who called herself a Sweden's girl, and Louise cooked some of the +things herself. She did not cook them so well as the maid, but Maxwell +never knew what he was eating, and he thought it all alike good. + +In their simple circumstances, Louise never missed the affluence that +had flattered her whole life in her father's house. It seemed to her as +if she had not lived before her marriage--as if she had always lived as +she did now. She made the most of her house-keeping, but there was not a +great deal of that, at the most. She knew some New York people, but it +was too early yet for them to be back to town, and, besides, she doubted +if she should let them know where she was; for society afflicted +Maxwell, and she could not care for it unless he did. She did not wish +to do anything as yet, or be anything apart from him; she was timid +about going into the street without him. She wished to be always with +him, and always talking to him; but it soon came to his imploring her +not to talk when she was in the room where he was writing; and he often +came to the table so distraught that the meal might have passed without +a word but for her. + +He valued her all she could possibly have desired in relation to his +work, and he showed her how absolutely he rested upon her sympathy, if +not her judgment, in it. He submitted everything to her, and forbore, +and changed, and amended, and wrote and rewrote at her will; or when he +revolted, and wrote on in defiance of her, he was apt to tear the work +up. He destroyed a good deal of good literature in this way, and more +than once it happened that she had tacitly changed her mind and was of +his way of thinking when it was too late. In view of such a chance she +made him promise that he would always show her what he had written, even +when he had written wholly against her taste and wish. He was not to let +his pride keep him from doing this, though, as a general thing, she took +a good deal of pride in his pride, having none herself, as she believed. +Whether she had or not, she was very wilful, and rather prepotent; but +she never bore malice, as the phrase is, when she got the worst of +anything, though she might have been quite to blame. She had in all +things a high ideal of conduct, which she expected her husband to live +up to when she was the prey of adverse circumstances. At other times +she did her share of the common endeavor. + +All through the month of October he worked at the new play, and from +time to time they heard from the old play, which Godolphin was still +giving, here and there, in the West. He had not made any reply to +Maxwell's letter of regret that he could not come to the rehearsals at +Chicago, but he sent the notices marked in the newspapers, at the +various points where he played, and the Maxwells contented themselves as +they could with these proofs of an unbroken amity. They expected +something more direct and explicit from him when he should get to +Chicago, where his engagement was to begin the first week in November. +In the meantime the kind of life they were living had not that stressful +unreality for Louise that it had for Maxwell on the economic side. For +the first time his regular and serious habits of work did not mean the +earning of money, but only the chance of earning money. Ever since he +had begun the world for himself, and he had begun it very early, there +had been some income from his industry; however little it was, it was +certain; the salary was there for him at the end of the week when he +went to the cashier's desk. His mother and he had both done so well and +so wisely in their several ways of taking care of themselves, that +Maxwell had not only been able to live on his earnings, but he had been +able to save out of them the thousand dollars which Louise bragged of to +her father, and it was this store which they were now consuming, not +rapidly, indeed, but steadily, and with no immediate return in money to +repair the waste. The fact kept Maxwell wakeful at night sometimes, and +by day he shuddered inwardly at the shrinkage of his savings, so much +swifter than their growth, though he was generously abetted by Louise in +using them with frugality. She could always have had money from her +father, but this was something that Maxwell would not look forward to. +There could be no real anxiety for them in the situation, but for +Maxwell there was care. He might be going to get a great deal out of the +play he was now writing, but as yet it was in no form to show to a +manager or an actor; and he might be going to get a great deal out of +his old play, but so far Godolphin had made no sign that he remembered +one of the most essential of the obligations which seemed all to rest so +lightly upon him. Maxwell hated to remind him of it, and in the end he +was very glad that he never did, or that he had not betrayed the +slightest misgiving of his good faith. + +One morning near the end of the month, when he was lower in his spirits +than usual from this cause, there came a letter from the editor of the +Boston _Abstract_ asking him if he could not write a weekly letter from +New York for his old newspaper. It was a temptation, and Maxwell found +it a hardship that his wife should have gone out just then to do the +marketing for the day; she considered this the duty of a wife, and she +fulfilled it often enough to keep her sense of it alive, but she much +preferred to forage with him in the afternoon; that was poetry, she +said, and the other was prose. He would have liked to talk the +proposition over with her; to realize the compliment while it was fresh, +to grumble at it a little, and to be supported in his notion that it +would be bad business just then for him to undertake a task that might +draw him away from his play too much; to do the latter well would take a +great deal of time. Yet he did not feel quite that he ought to refuse +it, in view of the uncertainties of the future, and it might even be +useful to hold the position aside from the money it would bring him; the +New York correspondent of the Boston _Abstract_ might have a claim upon +the attention of the managers which a wholly unaccredited playwright +could not urge; there was no question of their favor with Maxwell; he +would disdain to have that, even if he could get it, except by the +excellence, or at least the availability of his work. + +Louise did not come in until much later than usual, and then she came in +looking very excited. "Well, my dear," she began to call out to him as +soon as the door was opened for her, "I have seen that woman again!" + +"What woman?" he asked. + +"You know. That smouldering-eyed thing in the bathing-dress." She added, +in answer to his stupefied gaze: "I don't mean that she was in the +bathing-dress still, but her eyes were smouldering away just as they +were that day on the beach at Magnolia." + +"Oh!" said Maxwell, indifferently. "Where did you see her?" + +"On the avenue, and I know she lives in the neighborhood somewhere, +because she was shopping here on the avenue, and I could have easily +followed her home if she had not taken the Elevated for down town." + +"Why didn't you take it, too? It might have been a long way round, but +it would have been certain. I've been wanting you here badly. Just tell +me what you think of that." + +He gave her the editor's letter, and she hastily ran it through. "I +wouldn't think of it for a moment," she said. "Were there any letters +for me?" + +"It isn't a thing to be dismissed without reflection," he began. + +"I thought you wanted to devote yourself entirely to the drama?" + +"Of course." + +"And you've always said there was nothing so killing to creative work as +any sort of journalism." + +"This wouldn't take more than a day or two each week, and twenty-five +dollars a letter would be convenient while we are waiting for our cards +to turn up." + +"Oh, very well! If you are so fickle as all that, _I_ don't know what to +say to you." She put the letter down on the table before him, and went +out of the room. + +He tried to write, but with the hurt of what he felt her unkindness he +could not, and after a certain time he feigned an errand into their +room, where she had shut herself from him, and found her lying down. +"Are you sick?" he asked, coldly. + +"Not at all," she answered. "I suppose one may lie down without being +sick, as you call it. I should say ill, myself." + +"I'm so glad you're not sick that I don't care what you call it." + +He was going out, when she spoke again: "I didn't know you cared +particularly, you are always so much taken up with your work. I suppose, +if you wrote those letters for the _Abstract_, you need never think of +me at all, whether I was ill or well." + +"You would take care to remind me of your existence from time to time, I +dare say. You haven't the habit of suffering in silence a great deal." + +"You would like it better, of course, if I had." + +"A great deal better, my dear. But I didn't know that you regarded my +work as self-indulgence altogether. I have flattered myself now and then +that I was doing it for you, too." + +"Oh yes, very likely. But if you had never seen me you would be doing it +all the same." + +"I'm afraid so. I seem to have been made that way. I'm sorry you don't +approve. I supposed you did once." + +"Oh, I do approve--highly." He left her, and she heard him getting his +hat and stick in the little hallway, as if he were going out of doors. +She called to him, "What I wonder is how a man so self-centred that he +can't look at his wife for days together, can tell whether another +woman's eyes are smouldering or not." + +Maxwell paused, with his hand on the knob, as if he were going to make +some retort, but, perhaps because he could think of none, he went out +without speaking. + +He stayed away all the forenoon, walking down the river along the +squalid waterside avenues; he found them in sympathy with the squalor in +himself which always followed a squabble with his wife. At the end of +one of the westward streets he found himself on a pier flanked by vast +flotillas of canal-boats. As he passed one of these he heard the sound +of furious bickering within, and while he halted a man burst from the +gangway and sprang ashore, followed by the threats and curses of a +woman, who put her head out of the hatch to launch them after him. + +The incident turned Maxwell faint; he perceived that the case of this +unhappy man, who tried to walk out of earshot with dignity, was his own +in quality, if not in quantity. He felt the shame of their human +identity, and he reached home with his teeth set in a hard resolve to +bear and forbear in all things thereafter, rather than share ever again +in misery like that, which dishonored his wife even more than it +dishonored him. At the same time he was glad of a thought the whole +affair suggested to him, and he wondered whether he could get a play out +of it. This was the notion of showing the evil eventuation of good. +Their tiffs came out of their love for each other, and no other quarrels +could have the bitterness that these got from the very innermost +sweetness of life. It would be hard to show this dramatically, but if it +could be done the success would be worth all the toil it would cost. + +At his door he realized with a pang that he could not submit the notion +to his wife now, and perhaps never. But the door was pulled open before +he could turn his latch-key in the lock, and Louise threw her arms round +his neck. + +"Oh, dearest, guess!" she commanded between her kisses. + +"Guess what?" he asked, walking her into the parlor with his arms round +her. She kept her hands behind her when he released her, and they stood +confronted. + +"What should you consider the best news--or not news exactly; the best +thing--in the world?" + +"Why, I don't know. Has the play been a great success in Chicago?" + +"Better than that!" she shouted, and she brought an open letter from +behind her, and flourished it before him, while she went on +breathlessly: "It's from Godolphin, and of course I opened it at once, +for I thought if there was anything worrying in it, I had better find it +out while you were gone, and prepare you for it. He's sent you a check +for $300--twelve performances of the play--and he's written you the +sweetest letter in the world, and I take back everything I ever said +against him! Here, shall I read it? Or, no, you'll want to read it +yourself. Now, sit down at your desk, and I'll put it before you, with +the check on top!" + +She pushed him into his chair, and he obediently read the check first, +and then took up the letter. It was dated at Chicago, and was written +with a certain histrionic consciousness, as if Godolphin enjoyed the +pose of a rising young actor paying over to the author his share of the +profits of their joint enterprise in their play. There was a list of the +dates and places of the performances, which Maxwell noted were chiefly +matinées; and he argued a distrust of the piece from this fact, which +Godolphin did not otherwise betray. He said that the play constantly +grew upon him, and that with such revision as they should be able to +give it together when he reached New York, they would have one of the +greatest plays of the modern stage. He had found that wherever he gave +it the better part of his audience was best pleased with it, and he felt +sure that when he put it on for a run the houses would grow up to it in +every way. He was going to test it for a week in Chicago; there was no +reference to his wish that Maxwell should have been present at the +rehearsals there; but otherwise Godolphin's letter was as candid as it +was cordial. + +Maxwell read it with a silent joy which seemed to please his wife as +well as if he had joined her in rioting over it. She had kept the lunch +warm for him, and now she brought it in from the kitchen herself and set +it before him, talking all the time. + +"Well, now we can regard it as an accomplished fact, and I shall not +allow you to feel any anxiety about it from this time forward. I +consider that Godolphin has done his whole duty by it. He has kept the +spirit of his promises if he hasn't the letter, and from this time +forward I am going to trust him implicitly, and I'm going to make you. +No more question of Godolphin in _this_ family! Don't you long to know +how it goes in Chicago? But I don't really care, for, as you say, that +won't have the slightest influence in New York; and I know it will go +here, anyway. Yes, I consider it, from this time on, an assured success. +And isn't it delightful that, as Godolphin says, it's such a favorite +with refined people?" She went on a good while to this effect, but when +she had talked herself out, Maxwell had still said so little that she +asked, "What is it, Brice?" + +"Do you think we deserve it?" he returned, seriously. + +"For squabbling so? Why, I suppose I was tired and overwrought, or I +shouldn't have done it." + +"And I hadn't even that excuse," said Maxwell. + +"Oh, yes you had," she retorted. "I provoked you. And if any one was to +blame, I was. Do you mind it so much?" + +"Yes, it tears my heart. And it makes me feel so low and mean." + +"Oh, how good you are!" she began, but he stopped her. + +"Don't! I'm not good; and I don't deserve success. I don't feel as if +this belonged to me. I ought to send Godolphin's check back, in common +honesty, common decency." He told of the quarrel he had witnessed on the +canal-boat, and she loved him for his simple-hearted humility; but she +said there was nothing parallel in the cases, and she would not let him +think so; that it was morbid, and showed he had been overworking. + +"And now," she went on, "you must write to Mr. Ricker at once and thank +him, and tell him you can't do the letters for him. Will you?" + +"I'll see." + +"You must. I want you to reserve your whole strength for the drama. +That's your true vocation, and it would be a sin for you to turn to the +right or left." He continued silent, and she went on: "Are you still +thinking about our scrap this morning? Well, then, I'll promise never to +begin it again. Will that do?" + +"Oh, I don't know that you began it. And I wasn't thinking--I was +thinking of an idea for a play--the eventuation of good in evil--love +evolving in hate." + +"That will be grand, if you can work it out. And now you see, don't you, +that there is some use in squabbling, even?" + +"I suppose nothing is lost," said Maxwell. He took out his pocket-book, +and folded Godolphin's check into it. + + + + +XII. + + +A week later there came another letter from Godolphin. It was very +civil, and in its general text it did not bear out the promise of +severity in its change of address to _Dear Sir_, from the _Dear Mr. +Maxwell_ of the earlier date. + +It conveyed, in as kindly terms as could have been asked, a fact which +no terms could have flattered into acceptability. + +Godolphin wrote, after trying the play two nights and a matinée in +Chicago, to tell the author that he had withdrawn it because its failure +had not been a failure in the usual sense but had been a grievous +collapse, which left him no hopes that it would revive in the public +favor if it were kept on. Maxwell would be able to judge, he said, from +the newspapers he sent, of the view the critics had taken of the piece; +but this would not have mattered at all if it had not been the view of +the public, too. He said he would not pain Maxwell by repeating the +opinions which he had borne the brunt of alone; but they were such as to +satisfy him fully and finally that he had been mistaken in supposing +there was a part for him in the piece. He begged to return it to +_Maxwell_, and he ventured to send his prompt-book with the original +manuscript, which might facilitate his getting the play into other +hands. + +The parcel was brought in by express while they were sitting in the +dismay caused by the letter, and took from them the hope that Godolphin +might have written from a mood and changed his mind before sending back +the piece. Neither of them had the nerve to open the parcel, which lay +upon Maxwell's desk, very much sealed and tied and labelled, diffusing a +faint smell of horses, as express packages mostly do, through the room. + +Maxwell found strength, if not heart, to speak first. "I suppose I am to +blame for not going to Chicago for the rehearsals." Louise said she did +not see what that could have done to keep the play from failing, and he +answered that it might have kept Godolphin from losing courage. "You +see, he says he had to take the brunt of public opinion _alone_. He was +sore about that." + +"Oh, well, if he is so weak as that, and would have had to be bolstered +up all along, you are well rid of him." + +"I am certainly rid of him," Maxwell partially assented, and they both +lapsed into silence again. Even Louise could not talk. They were as if +stunned by the blow that had fallen on them, as all such blows fall, +when it was least expected, and it seemed to the victims as if they were +least able to bear it. In fact, it was a cruel reverse from the +happiness they had enjoyed since Godolphin's check came, and although +Maxwell had said that they must not count upon anything from him, except +from hour to hour, his words conveyed a doubt that he felt no more than +Louise. Now his gloomy wisdom was justified by a perfidy which she could +paint in no colors that seemed black enough. Perhaps the want of these +was what kept her mute at first; even when she began to talk she could +only express her disdain by urging her husband to send back Godolphin's +check to him. "We want nothing more to do with such a man. If he felt no +obligation to keep faith with you, it's the same as if he had sent that +money out of charity." + +"Yes, I have thought of that," said Maxwell. "But I guess I shall keep +the money. He may regard the whole transaction as child's play; but I +don't, and I never did. I worked very hard on the piece, and at the +rates for space-work, merely, I earned his money and a great deal more. +If I can ever do anything with it, I shall be only too glad to give him +his three hundred dollars again." + +She could see that he had already gathered spirit for new endeavor with +the play, and her heart yearned upon him in pride and fondness. "Oh, you +dear! What do you intend to do next?" + +"I shall try the managers." + +"Brice!" she cried in utter admiration. + +He rose and said, as he took up the express package, and gave +Godolphin's letter a contemptuous push with his hand, "You can gather up +this spilt milk. Put it away somewhere; I don't want to see it or think +of it again." He cut open the package, and found the prompt-book, which +he laid aside, while he looked to see if his own copy of the play were +all there. + +"You are going to begin at once?" gasped Louise. + +"This instant," he said. "It will be slow enough work at the best, and +we mustn't lose time. I shall probably have to go the rounds of all the +managers, but I am not going to stop till I have gone the rounds. I +shall begin with the highest, and I sha'n't stop till I reach the +lowest." + +"But when? How? You haven't thought it out." + +"Yes, I have. I have been thinking it out ever since I got the play into +Godolphin's hands. I haven't been at peace about him since that day when +he renounced me in Magnolia, and certainly till we got his check there +has been nothing in his performance to restore my confidence. Come, now, +Louise, you mustn't stop me, dear," he said, for she was beginning to +cling about him. "I shall be back for lunch, and then we can talk over +what I have begun to do. If I began to talk of it before, I should lose +all heart for it. Kiss me good luck!" + +She kissed him enough for all the luck in the world, and then he got +himself out of her arms while she still hardly knew what to make of it +all. He was half-way down the house-stairs, when her eye fell on the +prompt-book. She caught it up and ran out upon the landing, and screamed +down after him, "Brice, Brice! You've forgotten something." + +He came flying back, breathless, and she held the book out to him. "Oh, +I don't want that," he panted, "It would damage the play with a manager +to know that Godolphin had rejected it." + +"But do you think it would be quite right--quite frank--to let him take +it without telling him?" + +"It will be right to show it him without telling him. It will be time +enough to tell him if he likes it." + +"That is true," she assented, and then she kissed him again and let him +go; he stood a step below her, and she had to stoop a good deal; but she +went in doors, looking up to him as if he were a whole flight of steps +above her, and saying to herself that he had always been so good and +wise that she must now simply trust him in everything. + +Louise still had it on her conscience to offer Maxwell reparation for +the wrong she thought she had done him when she had once decided that he +was too self-seeking and self-centred, and had potentially rejected him +on that ground. The first thing she did after they became engaged was to +confess the wrong, and give him a chance to cast her off if he wished; +but this never seemed quite reparation enough, perhaps because he +laughed and said that she was perfectly right about him, and must take +him with those faults or not at all. She now entered upon a long, +delightful review of his behavior ever since that moment, and she found +that, although he was certainly as self-centred as she had ever thought +or he had owned himself to be, self-seeking he was not, in any mean or +greedy sense. She perceived that his self-seeking, now, at least, was as +much for her sake as his own, and that it was really after all not +self-seeking, but the helpless pursuit of aims which he was born into +the world to achieve. She had seen that he did not stoop to achieve +them, but had as haughty a disdain of any but the highest means as she +could have wished him to have, and much haughtier than she could have +had in his place. If he forgot her in them, he forgot himself quite as +much, and they were equal before his ambition. In fact, this seemed to +her even more her charge than his, and if he did not succeed as with his +genius he had a right to succeed, it would be constructively her fault, +and at any rate she should hold herself to blame for it; there would be +some satisfaction in that. She thought with tender pathos how hard he +worked, and was at his writing all day long, except when she made him go +out with her, and was then often so fagged that he could scarcely speak. +She was proud of his almost killing himself at it, but she must study +more and more not to let him kill himself, and must do everything that +was humanly possible to keep up his spirits when he met with a reverse. + +She accused herself with shame of having done nothing for him in the +present emergency, but rather flung upon him the burden of her own +disappointment. She thought how valiantly he had risen up under it, and +had not lost one moment in vain repining; how instantly he had collected +himself for a new effort, and taken his measures with a wise prevision +that omitted no detail. In view of all this, she peremptorily forbade +herself to be uneasy at the little reticence he was practising with +regard to Godolphin's having rejected his play; and imagined the +splendor he could put on with the manager after he had accepted it, in +telling him its history, and releasing him, if he would, from his +agreement. She imagined the manager generously saying this made no +difference whatever, though he appreciated Mr. Maxwell's candor in the +matter, and should be all the happier to make a success of it because +Godolphin had failed with it. + +But she returned from this flight into the future, and her husband's +part in it, to the present and her own first duty in regard to him; and +it appeared to her, that this was to look carefully after his health in +the strain put upon it, and to nourish him for the struggle before him. +It was to be not with one manager only, but many managers, probably, and +possibly with all the managers in New York. That was what he had said +it would be before he gave up, and she remembered how flushed and +excited he looked when he said it, and though she did not believe he +would get back for lunch--the manager might ask him to read his play to +him, so that he could get just the author's notion--she tried to think +out the very most nourishing lunch she could for him. Oysters were in +season, and they were very nourishing, but they had already had them for +breakfast, and beefsteak was very good, but he hated it. Perhaps chops +would do, or, better still, mushrooms on toast, only they were not in +the market at that time of year. She dismissed a stewed squab, and +questioned a sweetbread, and wondered if there were not some kind of +game. In the end she decided to leave it to the provision man, and she +lost no time after she reached her decision in going out to consult him. +He was a bland, soothing German, and it was a pleasure to talk with him, +because he brought her married name into every sentence, and said, "No, +Mrs. Maxwell;" "Yes, Mrs. Maxwell;" "I send it right in, Mrs. Maxwell." +She went over his whole list of provisions with him, and let him +persuade her that a small fillet was the best she could offer a person +whose frame needed nourishing, while at the same time his appetite +needed coaxing. She allowed him to add a can of mushrooms, as the right +thing to go with it, and some salad; and then while he put the order up +she stood reproaching herself for it, since it formed no fit lunch, and +was both expensive and commonplace. + +She was roused from her daze, when she was going to countermand the +whole stupid order by the man's saying: "What can I do for you this +morning, Mrs. Harley?" and she turned round to find at her elbow the +smouldering-eyed woman of the bathing-beach. She lifted her heavy lids +and gave Louise a dull glance, which she let a sudden recognition burn +through for a moment and then quenched. But in that moment the two women +sealed a dislike that had been merely potential before. Their look said +for each that the other was by nature, tradition, and aspiration +whatever was most detestable in their sex. + +Mrs. Harley, whoever she was, under a name that Louise electrically +decided to be fictitious, seemed unable to find her voice at first in +their mutual defiance, and she made a pretence of letting her strange +eyes rove about the shop before she answered. Her presence was so +repugnant to Louise that she turned abruptly and hurried out of the +place without returning the good-morning which the German sent after +her with the usual addition of her name. She resented it now, for if it +was not tantamount to an introduction to that creature, it was making +her known to her, and Louise wished to have no closer acquaintance with +her than their common humanity involved. It seemed too odious to have +been again made aware that they were inhabitants of the same planet, and +the anger that heaved within her went out in a wild flash of resentment +towards her husband for having forever fixed that woman in her +consciousness with a phrase. If it had not been for that, she would not +have thought twice of her when they first saw her, and she would not +have known her when they met again, and at the worst would merely have +been harassed with a vague resemblance which would never have been +verified. + +She had climbed the stairs to their apartment on the fourth floor, when +she felt the need to see more, know more, of this hateful being so +strong upon her, that she stopped with her latch-key in her door and +went down again. She did not formulate her intention, but she meant to +hurry back to the provision store, with the pretext of changing her +order, and follow the woman wherever she went, until she found out where +she lived; and she did not feel, as a man would, the disgrace of +dogging her steps in that way so much as she felt a fatal dread of her. +If she should be gone by the time Louise got back to the shop, she would +ask the provision man about her, and find out in that way. She stayed a +little while to rehearse the terms of her inquiry, and while she +lingered the woman herself came round the corner of the avenue and +mounted the steps where Louise stood and, with an air of custom, went on +upstairs to the second floor, where Louise heard her putting a latch-key +into the door, which then closed after her. + + + + +XIII. + + +Maxwell went to a manager whom he had once met in Boston, where they had +been apparently acceptable to each other in a long talk they had about +the drama. The manager showed himself a shrewd and rather remorseless +man of business in all that he said of the theatre, but he spoke as +generously and reverently of the drama as Maxwell felt, and they parted +with a laughing promise to do something for it yet. In fact, if it had +not been for the chances that threw him into Godolphin's hand +afterwards, he would have gone to this manager with his play in the +first place, and he went to him now, as soon as he was out of +Godolphin's hands, not merely because he was the only manager he knew in +the city, but because he believed in him as much as his rather sceptical +temper permitted him to believe in any one, and because he believed he +would give him at least an intelligent audience. + +The man in the box-office, where he stood in the glow of an electric +light at midday, recovered himself from the disappointment he suffered +when Maxwell asked for the manager instead of a seat for the night's +performance. He owned that the manager was in his room, but said he was +very much engaged, and he was hardly moved from this conviction by +Maxwell's urgence that he should send in his card; perhaps something in +Maxwell's tone and face as of authority prevailed with him; perhaps it +was the title of the Boston _Abstract_, which Maxwell wrote under his +name, to recall himself better to the manager's memory. The answer was a +good while getting back; people came in and bought tickets and went +away, while Maxwell hung about the vestibule of the theatre and studied +the bill of the play which formed its present attraction, but at last +the man in the box-office put his face sidewise to the semi-circular +opening above the glass-framed plan of seats and, after he had +identified Maxwell, said, "Mr. Grayson would like to see you." At the +same time the swinging doors of the theatre opened, and a young man came +out, to whom the other added, indicating Maxwell, "This is the +gentleman;" and the young man held the door open for him to pass in, and +then went swiftly before him into the theatre, and led the way around +the orchestra circle to a little door that opened in the wall beside +one of the boxes. There was a rehearsal going on in the glare of some +grouped incandescent bulbs on the stage, and people moving about in top +hats and bonnets and other every-day outside gear, which Maxwell lost +sight of in his progress through the wings and past a rough brick wall +before he arrived at another door down some winding stairs in the depths +of the building. His guide knocked at it, and when an answering voice +said, "Come in!" he left Maxwell to go in alone. The manager had risen +from his chair at his table, and stood, holding out his hand, with a +smile of kindly enough welcome. He said, "I've just made you out, Mr. +Maxwell. Do you come as a friendly interviewer, or as a deadly +dramatist!" + +"As both or as neither, whichever you like," said Maxwell, and he gladly +took the manager's hand, and then took the chair which he cleared of +some prompt-books for him to sit down in. + +"I hadn't forgotten the pleasant talk I had with you in Boston, you +see," the manager began again, "but I had forgotten whom I had it with." + +"I can't say I had even done that," Maxwell answered, and this seemed to +please the manager. + +"Well, that counts you one," he said. "You noticed that we have put on +'Engaged?' We've made a failure of the piece we began with; it's several +pieces now. _Couldn't_ you do something like 'Engaged?'" + +"I wish I could! But I'm afraid Gilbert is the only man living who can +do anything like 'Engaged.' My hand is too heavy for that kind." + +"Well, the heavy hand is not so bad if it hits hard enough," said the +manager, who had a face of lively intelligence and an air of wary +kindliness. He looked fifty, but this was partly the effect of overwork. +There was something of the Jew, something of the Irishman, in his +visage; but he was neither; he was a Yankee, from Maine, with a Boston +training in his business. "What have you got?" he asked, for Maxwell's +play was evident. + +"Something I've been at work on for a year, more or less." Maxwell +sketched the plot of his play, and the manager seemed interested. + +"Rather Ibsenish, isn't it?" he suggested at the end. + +The time had passed with Maxwell when he wished to have this said of his +play, not because he did not admire Ibsen, but because he preferred the +recognition of the original quality of his work. "I don't know that it +is, very. Perhaps--if one didn't like it." + +"Oh, I don't know that I should dislike it for its Ibsenism. The time +of that sort of thing may be coming. You never can be sure, in this +business, when the time of anything is coming. I've always thought that +a naturalized Ibsenism wouldn't be so bad for our stage. You don't want +to be quite so bleak, you know, as the real Norwegian Ibsen." + +"I've tried not to be very bleak, because I thought it wasn't in the +scheme," said Maxwell. + +"I don't understand that it ends well?" + +"Unless you consider the implicated marriage of the young people a good +ending. Haxard himself, of course, is past all surgery. But the thing +isn't pessimistic, as I understand, for its doctrine is that harm comes +only from doing wrong." + +The manager laughed. "Oh, the average public would consider that _very_ +pessimistic. They want no harm to come even from doing wrong. They want +the drama to get round it, somehow. If you could show that Divine +Providence forgets wrong-doing altogether in certain cases, you would +make the fortune of your piece. Come, why couldn't you try something of +that kind? It would be the greatest comfort to all the sinners in front, +for every last man of them--or woman--would think she was the one who +was going to get away." + +"I might come up to that, later," said Maxwell, willing to take the +humorous view of the matter, if it would please the manager and smooth +the way for the consideration of his work; but, more obscurely, he was +impatient, and sorry to have found him in so philosophical a mood. + +The manager was like the man of any other trade; he liked to talk of his +business, and this morning he talked of it a long time, and to an effect +that Maxwell must have found useful if he had not been so bent upon +getting to his manuscript that he had no mind for generalities. At last +the manager said, abruptly, "You want me to read your play?" + +"Very much," Maxwell answered, and he promptly put the packet he had +brought into the manager's extended hand. + +He not only took it, but he untied it, and even glanced at the first few +pages. "All right," he said, "I'll read it, and let you hear from me as +soon as I can. Your address--oh, it's on the wrapper, here. By-the-way, +why shouldn't you lunch with me? We'll go over to the Players' Club." + +Maxwell flushed with eager joy; then he faltered. + +"I should like to do it immensely. But I'm afraid--I'm afraid Mrs. +Maxwell will be waiting for me." + +"Oh, all right; some other time," answered the manager; and then Maxwell +was vexed that he had offered any excuse, for he thought it would have +been very pleasant and perhaps useful for him to lunch at the Players'. +But the manager did not urge him. He only said, as he led the way to the +stage-door, "I didn't know there was a Mrs. Maxwell." + +"She's happened since we met," said Maxwell, blushing with fond pride. +"We're such a small family that we like to get together at lunch," he +added. + +"Oh, yes, I can understand that stage of it," said the manager. +"By-the-way, are you still connected with the _Abstract_? I noticed the +name on your card." + +"Not quite in the old way. But," and with the words a purpose formed +itself in Maxwell's mind, "they've asked me to write their New York +letter." + +"Well, drop in now and then. I may have something for you." The manager +shook hands with him cordially, and Maxwell opened the door and found +himself in the street. + +He was so little conscious of the transit homeward that he seemed to +find himself the next moment with Louise in their little parlor. He +remembered afterwards that there was something strange in her manner +towards him at first, but, before he could feel presently cognizant of +it, this wore off in the interest of what he had to tell. + +"The sum of it all," he ended his account of the interview with the +manager, "is that he's taken the thing to read, and that he's to let me +hear from him when he's read it. When that will be nobody knows, and I +should be the last to ask. But he seemed interested in my sketch of it, +and he had an intelligence about it that was consoling. And it was a +great comfort, after Godolphin, and Godolphin's pyrotechnics, to have +him take it in a hard, business way. He made no sort of promises, and he +held out no sort of hopes; he didn't commit himself in any sort of way, +and he can't break his word, for he hasn't given it. I wish, now, that I +had never let Godolphin have the play back after he first renounced it; +I should have saved a great deal of time and wear and tear of feelings. +Yes, if I had taken your advice then--" + +At this generous tribute to her wisdom, all that was reluctant ceased +from Louise's manner and behavior. She put her arm around his neck and +protested. "No, no! I can't let you say that, Brice! You were right +about that, as you are about everything. If you hadn't had this +experience with Godolphin, you wouldn't have known how to appreciate Mr. +Grayson's reception of you, and you might have been unreasonable. I can +see now that it's all been for the best, and that we needed just this +discipline to prepare us for prosperity. But I guess Godolphin will +wish, when he hears that Mr. Grayson has taken your piece, and is going +to bring it out at the Argosy, here--" + +"Oh, good heavens! Do give those poor chickens a chance to get out of +the shell this time, my dear!" + +"Well, I know it vexes you, and I know it's silly; but still I feel sure +that Mr. Grayson will take it. You don't mind that, do you?" + +"Not if you don't say it. I want you to realize that the chances are +altogether against it. He was civil, because I think he rather liked me +personally--" + +"Of _course_ he did!" + +"Oh!" + +"Well, never mind. Personally--" + +"And I don't suppose it did me any harm with him to suppose that I still +had a newspaper connection. I put Boston _Abstract_ on my card--for +purposes of identification, as the editors say--because I was writing +for it when I met him in Boston." + +"Oh, well, as long as you're not writing for it now, I don't care. I +want you to devote yourself entirely to the drama, Brice." + +"Yes, that's all very well. But I think I shall do Ricker's letters for +him this winter at least. I was thinking of it on the way down. It'll be +work, but it'll be money, too, and if I have something coming in I +sha'n't feel as if I were ruined every time my play gets back from a +manager." + +"Mr. Grayson will take it!" + +"Now, Louise, if you say that, you will simply drive me to despair, for +I shall know how you will feel when he doesn't--" + +"No, I shall not feel so; and you will see. But if you don't let me hope +for you--" + +"You know I can't stand hoping. The only safe way is to look for the +worst, and if anything better happens it is so much pure gain. If we +hadn't been so eager to pin our faith to Godolphin--" + +"How much better off should we have been? What have we lost by it?" she +challenged him. + +He broke off with a laugh. "We have lost the pins. Well, hope away! But, +remember, you take the whole responsibility." Maxwell pulled out his +watch. "Isn't lunch nearly ready? This prosperity is making me hungry, +and it seems about a year since breakfast." + +"I'll see what's keeping it," said Louise, and she ran out to the +kitchen with a sudden fear in her heart. She knew that she had meant to +countermand her order for the fillet and mushrooms, and she thought that +she had forgotten to order anything else for lunch. She found the cook +just serving it up, because such a dish as that took more time than an +ordinary lunch, and the things had come late. Louise said, Yes, she +understood that; and went back to Maxwell, whom she found walking up and +down the room in a famine very uncommon for him. She felt the motherly +joy a woman has in being able to appease the hunger of the man she +loves, and now she was glad that she had not postponed the fillet till +dinner as she had thought of doing. Everything was turning out so +entirely for the best that she was beginning to experience some revival +of an ancestral faith in Providence in a heart individually agnostic, +and she was piously happy when Maxwell said at sight of the lunch, +"Isn't this rather prophetic? If it isn't that, it's telepathic. I +sha'n't regret now that I didn't go with Grayson to lunch at the +Players' Club." + +"Did he ask you to do that?" + +Maxwell nodded with his mouth full. + +A sudden misgiving smote her. "Oh, Brice, you ought to have gone! Why +didn't you go?" + +"It must have been a deep subconsciousness of the fillet and mushrooms. +Or perhaps I didn't quite like to think of your lunching alone." + +"Oh, you dear, faithful little soul!" she cried. The tears came into her +eyes, and she ran round the table to kiss him several times on the top +of his head. + +He kept on eating as well as he could, and when she got back to her +place, "Of course, it would have been a good thing for me to go to the +Players'," he teased, "for it would have pleased Grayson, and I should +probably have met some other actors and managers there, and made +interest with them provisionally for my play, if he shouldn't happen to +want it." + +"Oh, I know it," she moaned. "You have ruined yourself for me. I'm not +worth it. No, I'm not! Now, I want you to promise, dearest, that you'll +never mind me again, but lunch or dine, or breakfast, or sup whenever +anybody asks you?" + +"Well, I can't promise all that, quite." + +"I mean, when the play is at stake." + +"Oh, in that case, yes." + +"What in the world did you say to Mr. Grayson?" + +"Very much what I have said to you: that I hated to leave you to lunch +alone here." + +"Oh, didn't he think it very silly?" she entreated, fondly. "Don't you +think he'll laugh at you for it!" + +"Very likely. But he won't like me the less for it. Men are glad of +marital devotion in other men; they feel that it acts as a sort of +dispensation for them." + +"You oughtn't to waste those things on me," she said, humbly. "You ought +to keep them for your plays." + +"Oh, they're not wasted, exactly. I can use them over again. I can say +much better things than that with a pen in my hand." + +She hardly heard him. She felt a keen remorse for something she had +meant to do and to say when he came home. Now she put it far from her; +she thought she ought not to keep even an extinct suspicion in her heart +against him, and she asked, "Brice, did you know that woman was living +in this house?" + +"What woman?" + +Louise was ashamed to say anything about the smouldering eyes. "That +woman on the bathing-beach at Magnolia--the one I met the other day." + +He said, dryly: "She seems to be pursuing us. How did you find it out?" + +She told him, and she added, "I think she _must_ be an actress of some +sort." + +"Very likely, but I hope she won't feel obliged to call because we're +connected with the profession." + +Some time afterwards Louise was stitching at a centre-piece she was +embroidering for the dining-table, and Maxwell was writing a letter for +the _Abstract_, which he was going to send to the editor with a note +telling him that if it were the sort of thing he wanted he would do the +letters for them. + +"After all," she breathed, "that look of the eyes may be purely +physical." + +"What look?" Maxwell asked, from the depths of his work. + +She laughed in perfect content, and said: "Oh, nothing." But when he +finished his letter, and was putting it into the envelope, she asked: +"Did you tell Mr. Grayson that Godolphin had returned the play?" + +"No, I didn't. That wasn't necessary at this stage of the proceedings." + +"No." + + + + +XIV. + + +During the week that passed before Maxwell heard from the manager +concerning his play, he did another letter for the _Abstract_, and, with +a journalistic acquaintance enlarged through certain Boston men who had +found places on New York papers, familiarized himself with New York ways +and means of getting news. He visited what is called the Coast, a series +of points where the latest intelligence grows in hotel bars and lobbies +of a favorable exposure, and is nurtured by clerks and barkeepers +skilled in its culture, and by inveterate gossips of their acquaintance; +but he found this sort of stuff generally telegraphed on by the +Associated Press before he reached it, and he preferred to make his +letter a lively comment on events, rather than a report of them. The +editor of the _Abstract_ seemed to prefer this, too. He wrote Maxwell +some excellent criticism, and invited him to appeal to the better rather +than the worse curiosity of his readers, to remember that this was the +principle of the _Abstract_ in its home conduct. Maxwell showed the +letter to his wife, and she approved of it all so heartily that she +would have liked to answer it herself. "Of course, Brice," she said, +"it's _you_ he wants, more than your news. Any wretched reporter could +give him that, but you are the one man in the world who can give him +your mind about it." + +"Why not say universe?" returned Maxwell, but though he mocked her he +was glad to believe she was right, and he was proud of her faith in him. + +In another way this was put to proof more than once during the week, for +Louise seemed fated to meet Mrs. Harley on the common stairs now when +she went out or came in. It was very strange that after living with her +a whole month in the house and not seeing her, she should now be seeing +her so much. Mostly she was alone, but sometimes she was with an elderly +woman, whom Louise decided at one time to be her mother, and at another +time to be a professional companion. The first time she met them +together she was sure that Mrs. Harley indicated her to the chaperon, +and that she remembered her from Magnolia, but she never looked at +Louise, any more than Louise looked at her, after that. + +She wondered if Maxwell ever met her, but she was ashamed to ask him, +and he did not mention her. Only once when they were together did they +happen to encounter her, and then he said, quite simply, "I think she's +certainly an actress. That public look of the eyes is unmistakable. +Emotional parts, I should say." + +Louise forced herself to suggest, "You might get her to let you do a +play for her." + +"I doubt if I could do anything unwholesome enough for her." + +At last the summons they were expecting from Grayson came, just after +they had made up their minds to wait another week for it. + +Louise had taken the letter from the maid, and she handed it to Maxwell +with a gasp at sight of the Argosy theatre address printed in the corner +of the envelope. "I know it's a refusal." + +"If you think that will make it an acceptance," he had the hardihood to +answer, "it won't. I've tried that sort of thing too often;" and he tore +open the letter. + +It was neither a refusal nor an acceptance, and their hopes soared +again, hers visibly, his secretly, to find it a friendly confession that +the manager had not found time to read the play until the night before, +and a request that Maxwell would drop in any day between twelve and one, +which was rather a leisure time with him, and talk it over. + +"Don't lose an instant, dear!" she adjured him. + +"It's only nine o'clock," he answered, "and I shall have to lose several +instants." + +"That is so," she lamented; and then they began to canvas the probable +intention of the manager's note. She held out passionately to the end +for the most encouraging interpretation of it, but she did not feel that +it would have any malign effect upon the fact for him to say, "Oh, it's +just a way of letting me down easy," and it clearly gave him great heart +to say so. + +When he went off to meet his fate, she watched him, trembling, from the +window; as she saw him mounting the elevated steps, she wondered at his +courage; she had given him all her own. + +The manager met him with "Ah, I'm glad you came soon. These things fade +out of one's mind so, and I really want to talk about your play. I've +been very much interested in it." + +Maxwell could only bow his head and murmur something about being very +glad, very, very glad, with a stupid iteration. + +"I suppose you know, as well as I do, that it's two plays, and that it's +only half as good as if it were one." + +The manager wheeled around from his table, and looked keenly at the +author, who contrived to say, "I think I know what you mean." + +"You've got the making of the prettiest kind of little comedy in it, and +you've got the making of a very strong tragedy. But I don't think your +oil and water mix, exactly," said Grayson. + +"You think the interest of the love-business will detract from the +interest of the homicide's fate?" + +"And vice versa. Excuse me for asking something that I can very well +understand your not wanting to tell till I had read your play. Isn't +this the piece Godolphin has been trying out West?" + +"Yes, it is," said Maxwell. "I thought it might prejudice you against +it, if--" + +"Oh, that's all right. Why have you taken it from him?" + +Maxwell felt that he could make up for his want of earlier frankness +now. "I didn't take it from him; he gave it back to me." + +He sketched the history of his relation to the actor, and the manager +said, with smiling relish, "Just like him, just like Godolphin." Then +he added, "I'll tell you, and you mustn't take it amiss. Godolphin may +not know just why he gave the piece up, and he probably thinks it's +something altogether different, but you may depend upon it the trouble +was your trying to ride two horses in it. Didn't you feel that it was a +mistake yourself?" + +"I felt it so strongly at one time that I decided to develop the +love-business into a play by itself and let the other go for some other +time. My wife and I talked it over. We even discussed it with Godolphin. +He wanted to do Atland. But we all backed out simultaneously, and went +back to the play as it stood." + +"Godolphin saw he couldn't make enough of Atland," said the manager, as +if he were saying it to himself. "Well, you may be sure he feels now +that the character which most appeals to the public in the play is +Salome." + +"He felt that before." + +"And he was right. Now, I will tell you what you have got to do. You +have either got to separate the love-business from the rest of the play +and develop it into a comedy by itself--" + +"That would mean a great deal of work, and I am rather sick of the whole +thing." + +"Or," the manager went on without minding Maxwell, "you have got to cut +the part of Salome, and subordinate it entirely to Haxard"--Maxwell made +a movement of impatience and refusal, and the manager finished--"or else +you have got to treat it frankly as the leading part in the piece, and +get it into the hands of some leading actress." + +"Do you mean," the author asked, "that you--or any manager--would take +it if that were done?" + +Grayson looked a little unhappy. "No, that isn't what I mean, exactly. I +mean that as it stands, no manager would risk it, and that as soon as an +actor had read it, he would see, as Godolphin must have seen from the +start, that Haxard was a subordinate part. What you want to do is to get +it in the hands of some woman who wants to star, and would take the road +with it." The manager expatiated at some length on the point, and then +he stopped, and sat silent, as if he had done with the subject. + +Maxwell perceived that the time had come for him to get up and go away. + +"I'm greatly obliged to you for all your kindness, Mr. Grayson, and I +won't abuse your patience any further. You've been awfully good to me, +and--" He faltered, in a dejection which he could not control. Against +all reason, he had hoped that the manager would have taken his piece +just as it stood, and apparently he would not have taken it in any +event. + +"You mustn't speak of that," said the manager. "I wish you would let me +see anything else you do. There's a great deal that's good in this +piece, and I believe that a woman who would make it her battle-horse +could make it go." + +Maxwell asked, with melancholy scorn, "But you don't happen to know any +leading lady who is looking round for a battle-horse?" + +The manager seemed trying to think. "Yes, I do. You wouldn't like her +altogether, and I don't say she would be the ideal Salome, but she would +be, in her way, effective; and I know that she wants very much to get a +play. She hasn't been doing anything for a year or two but getting +married and divorced, but she made a very good start. She used to call +herself Yolande Havisham; I don't suppose it was her name; and she had a +good deal of success in the West; I don't think she's ever appeared in +New York. I believe she was of quite a good Southern family; the +Southerners all are; and I hear she has money." + +"Godolphin mentioned a Southern girl for the part," said Maxwell. "I +wonder if--" + +"Very likely it's the same one. She does emotional leads. She and +Godolphin played together in California, I believe. I was trying to +think of her married name--or her unmarried name--" + +Some one knocked at the door, and the young man put his head in, with +what Maxwell fancied a preconcerted effect, and gave the manager a card. +He said, "All right; bring him round," and he added to Maxwell, "Shall I +send your play--" + +"No, no, I will take it," and Maxwell carried it away with a heavier +heart than he had even when he got it back from Godolphin. He did not +know how to begin again, and he had to go home and take counsel with his +wife as to the next step. + +He could not bear to tell her of his disappointment, and it was harder +still to tell her of the kind of hope the manager had held out to him. +He revolved a compromise in his mind, and when they sat down together he +did not mean to conceal anything, but only to postpone something; he did +not clearly know why. He told her the alternatives the manager had +suggested, and she agreed with him they were all impossible. + +"Besides," she said, "he doesn't promise to take the play, even if you +do everything to a 't.' Did he ask you to lunch again?" + +"No, that seemed altogether a thing of the past." + +"Well, let us have ours, and then we can go into the Park, and forget +all about it for a while, and perhaps something new will suggest +itself." + +That was what they did, but nothing new suggested itself. They came home +fretted with their futile talk. There seemed nothing for Maxwell to do +but to begin the next day with some other manager. + +They found a note from Grayson waiting Maxwell. "Well, you open it," he +said, listlessly, to his wife, and in fact he felt himself at that +moment physically unable to cope with the task, and he dreaded any +fluctuation of emotion that would follow, even if it were a joyous one. + +"What does this mean, Brice?" demanded his wife, with a terrible +provisionality in her tone, as she stretched out the letter to him, and +stood before him where he lounged in the cushioned window-seat. + +Grayson had written: "If you care to submit your play to Yolande +Havisham, you can easily do so. I find that her address is the same as +yours. Her name is Harley. But I was mistaken about the divorce. It was +a death." + +Maxwell lay stupidly holding the note before him. + +"Will you tell me what it means?" his wife repeated. "Or why you didn't +tell me before, if you meant to give your play to that creature?" + +"I don't mean to give it to her," said Maxwell, doggedly. "I never did, +for an instant. As for not telling you that Grayson had suggested +it--well, perhaps I wished to spare myself a scene like the present." + +"Do you think I will believe you?" + +"I don't think you will insult me. Why shouldn't you believe I am +telling you the truth?" + +"Because--because you didn't tell me at once." + +"That is nonsense, and you know it. If I wanted to keep this from you, +it was to spare you the annoyance I can't help now, and because the +thing was settled in my mind as soon as Grayson proposed it." + +"Then, why has he written to you about it?" + +"I suppose I didn't say it was settled." + +"Suppose? Don't you _know_ whether you did?" + +"Come, now, Louise! I am not on the witness-stand, and I won't be +cross-questioned. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. What is the +matter with you? Am I to blame because a man who doesn't imagine your +dislike of a woman that you never spoke to suggests her taking part in a +play that she probably wouldn't look at? You're preposterous! Try to +have a little common-sense!" These appeals seemed to have a certain +effect with his wife; she looked daunted; but Maxwell had the misfortune +to add, "One would think you were jealous of the woman." + +"_Now_ you are insulting _me_!" she cried. "But it's a part of the +vulgarity of the whole business. Actors, authors, managers, you're all +alike." + +Maxwell got very pale. "Look out, Louise!" he warned her. + +"I _won't_ look out. If you had any delicacy, the least delicacy in the +world, you could imagine how a woman who had given the most sacred +feelings of her nature to you for your selfish art would loathe to be +represented by such a creature as that, and still not be jealous of her, +as you call it! But I am justly punished! I might have expected it." + +The maid appeared at the door and said something, which neither of them +could make out at once, but which proved to be the question whether Mrs. +Maxwell had ordered the dinner. + +"No, I will go--I was just going out for it," said Louise. She had in +fact not taken off her hat or gloves since she came in from her walk, +and she now turned and swept out of the room without looking at her +husband. He longed to detain her, to speak some kindly or clarifying +word, to set himself right with her, to set her right with herself; but +the rage was so hot in his heart that he could not. She came back to the +door a moment, and looked in. "_I_ will do _my_ duty." + +"It's rather late," he sneered, "but if you're very conscientious, I +dare say we shall have dinner at the usual time." + +He did not leave the window-seat, and it was as if the door had only +just clashed to after her when there came a repeated and violent ringing +at the bell, so that he jumped up himself, to answer it, without waiting +for the maid. + +"Your wife--your wife!" panted the bell-boy, who stood there. "She's +hurt herself, and she's fainted." + +"My wife? Where--how?" He ran down stairs after the boy, and in the +hallway on the ground floor he found Louise stretched upon the marble +pavement, with her head in the lap of a woman, who was chafing her +hands. He needed no look at this woman's face to be sure that it was the +woman of his wife's abhorrence, and he felt quite as sure that it was +the actress Yolande Havisham, from the effective drama of her +self-possession. + +"Don't be frightened. Your wife turned her foot on the steps here. I +was coming into the house, and caught her from falling. It's only a +swoon." She spoke with the pseudo-English accent of the stage, but with +a Southern slip upon the vowels here and there. "Get some water, +please." + +The hall-boy came running up the back stairs with some that he had gone +to get, and the woman bade Maxwell sprinkle his wife's face. But he +said: "No--you," and he stooped and took his wife's head into his own +hands, so that she might not come to in the lap of Mrs. Harley; in the +midst of his dismay he reflected how much she would hate that. He could +hardly keep himself from being repellant and resentful towards the +woman. In his remorse for quarrelling with Louise, it was the least +reparation he could offer her. Mrs. Harley, if it were she, seemed not +to notice his rudeness. She sprinkled Louise's face, and wiped her +forehead with the handkerchief she dipped in the water; but this did not +bring her out of her faint, and Maxwell began to think she was dead, and +to feel that he was a murderer. With a strange ęsthetic vigilance he +took note of his sensations for use in revising Haxard. + +The janitor of the building had somehow arrived, and Mrs. Harley said: +"I will go for a doctor, if you can get her up to your apartment;" and +she left Louise with the two men. + +The janitor, a burly Irishman, lifted her in his arms, and carried her +up the three flights of steps; Maxwell followed, haggardly, helplessly. + +On her own bed, Louise revived, and said: "My shoe--Oh, get it off!" + +The doctor came a few minutes later, but Mrs. Harley did not appear with +him as Maxwell had dreaded she would. He decided that Mrs. Maxwell had +strained, not sprained, her ankle, and he explained how the difference +was all the difference in the world, as he bound the ankle up with a +long ribbon of india-rubber, and issued directions for care and quiet. + +He left them there, and Maxwell heard him below in parley, apparently +with the actress at her door. Louise lay with her head on her husband's +arm, and held his other hand tight in hers, while he knelt by the bed. +The bliss of repentance and mutual forgiveness filled both their hearts, +while she told him how she had hurt herself. + +"I had got down to the last step, and I was putting my foot to the +pavement, and I thought, Now I am going to turn my ankle. Wasn't it +strange? And I turned it. How did you get me upstairs?" + +"The janitor carried you." + +"How lucky he happened to be there! I suppose the hall-boy kept me from +falling--poor little fellow! You must give him some money. How did you +find out about me?" + +"He ran up to tell," Maxwell said this, and then he hesitated. "I guess +you had better know all about it. Can you bear something disagreeable, +or would you rather wait--" + +"No, no, tell me now! I can't bear to wait. What is it?" + +"It wasn't the hall-boy that caught you. It was that--woman." + +He felt her neck and hand grow rigid, but he went on, and told her all +about it. At the end some quiet tears came into her eyes. "Well, then, +we must be civil to her. I am glad you told me at once, Brice!" She +pulled his head down and kissed him, and he was glad, too. + + + + +XV. + + +Louise sent Maxwell down to Mrs. Harley's apartment to thank her, and +tell her how slight the accident was; and while he was gone she +abandoned herself to an impassioned dramatization of her own death from +blood-poisoning, and her husband's early marriage with the actress, who +then appeared in all his plays, though they were not happy together. Her +own spectre was always rising between them, and she got some fearful joy +out of that. She counted his absence by her heart-beats, but he came +back so soon that she was ashamed, and was afraid that he had behaved so +as to give the woman a notion that he was not suffered to stay longer. +He explained that he had found her gloved and bonneted to go out, and +that he had not stayed for fear of keeping her. She had introduced him +to her mother, who was civil about Louise's accident, and they had both +begged him to let them do anything they could for her. He made his +observations, and when Louise, after a moment, asked him about them, he +said they affected him as severally typifying the Old South and the New +South. They had a photograph over the mantel, thrown up large, of an +officer in Confederate uniform. Otherwise the room had nothing personal +in it; he suspected the apartment of having been taken furnished, like +their own. Louise asked if he should say they were ladies, and he +answered that he thought they were. + +"Of course," she said, and she added, with a wide sweep of censure: +"They get engaged to four or five men at a time, down there. Well," she +sighed, "you mustn't stay in here with me, dear. Go to your writing." + +"I was thinking whether you couldn't come out and lie on the lounge. I +hate to leave you alone in here." + +"No, the doctor said to be perfectly quiet. Perhaps I can, to-morrow, if +it doesn't swell up any worse." + +She kept her hold of his hand, which he had laid in hers, and he sat +down beside the bed, in the chair he had left there. He did not speak, +and after a while she asked, "What are you thinking of?" + +"Oh, nothing. The confounded play, I suppose." + +"You're disappointed at Grayson's not taking it." + +"One is always a fool." + +"Yes," said Louise, with a catching of the breath. She gripped his hand +hard, and said, as well as she could in keeping back the tears, "Well, I +will never stand in your way, Brice. You may do +anything--_anything_--with it that you think best." + +"I shall never do anything you don't like," he answered, and he leaned +over and kissed her, and at this her passion burst in a violent sobbing, +and when she could speak she made him solemnly promise that he would not +regard her in the least, but would do whatever was wisest and best with +the play, for otherwise she should never be happy again. + +As she could not come out to join him at dinner, he brought a little +table to the bedside, and put his plate on it, and ate his dinner there +with her. She gave him some attractive morsels off her own plate, which +he had first insisted on bestowing upon her. They had such a gay evening +that the future brightened again, and they arranged for Maxwell to take +his play down-town the next day, and not lose a moment in trying to +place it with some manager. + +It all left him very wakeful, for his head began to work upon this +scheme and that. When he went to lock the outer door for the night, the +sight of his overcoat hanging in the hall made him think of a +theatrical newspaper he had bought coming home, at a certain corner of +Broadway, where numbers of smooth-shaven, handsome men, and women with +dark eyes and champagned hair were lounging and passing. He had got it +on the desperate chance that it might suggest something useful to him. +He now took it out of his coat-pocket, and began to look its +advertisements over in the light of his study lamp, partly because he +was curious about it, and partly because he knew that he should begin to +revise his play otherwise, and then he should not sleep all night. + +In several pages of the paper ladies with flowery and alliterative names +and pseudonyms proclaimed themselves in large letters, and in smaller +type the parts they were presently playing in different combinations; +others gave addresses and announced that they were At Liberty, or +specified the kinds of rōles they were accustomed to fill, as Leads or +Heavies, Dancing Soubrettes and Boys; Leads, Emotional and Juvenile; +Heavy or Juvenile or Emotional Leads. There were gentlemen seeking +engagements who were Artistic Whistling Soloists, Magicians, Leading +Men, Leading Heavies, Singing and Dancing Comedians, and there were both +ladies and gentlemen who were now Starring in this play or that, but +were open to offers later. A teacher of stage dancing promised +instruction in skirt and serpentine dancing, as well as high kicking, +front and back, the backward bend, side practice, toe-practice, and all +novelties. Dramatic authors had their cards among the rest, and one poor +fellow, as if he had not the heart to name himself, advertised a play to +be heard of at the office of the newspaper. Whatever related to the +theatre was there, in bizarre solidarity, which was droll enough to +Maxwell in one way. But he hated to be mixed up with all that, and he +perceived that he must be mixed up with it more and more, if he wrote +for the theatre. Whether he liked it or not, he was part of the thing +which in its entirety meant high-kicking and toe-practice, as well as +the expression of the most mystical passions of the heart. There was an +austerity in him which the fact offended, and he did what he could to +appease this austerity by reflecting that it was the drama and never the +theatre that he loved; but for the time this was useless. He saw that if +he wrote dramas he could not hold aloof from the theatre, nor from +actors and actresses--heavies and juveniles, and emotionals and +soubrettes. He must know them, and more intimately; and at first he must +be subject to them, however he mastered them at last; he must flatter +their oddities and indulge their caprices. His experience with +Godolphin had taught him that, and his experience with Godolphin in the +construction of his play could be nothing to what he must undergo at +rehearsals and in the effort to adapt his work to a company. He reminded +himself that Shakespeare even must have undergone all that. But this did +not console him. He was himself, and what another, the greatest, had +suffered would not save him. Besides, it was not the drama merely that +Maxwell loved; it was not making plays alone; it was causing the life +that he had known to speak from the stage, and to teach there its +serious and important lesson. In the last analysis he was a moralist, +and more a moralist than he imagined. To enforce, in the vividest and +most palpable form, what he had thought true, it might be worth while to +endure all the trials that he must; but at that moment he did not think +so; and he did not dare submit his misgiving to his wife. + +They had now been six months married, and if he had allowed himself to +face the fact he must have owned that, though they loved each other so +truly, and he had known moments of exquisite, of incredible rapture, he +had been as little happy as in any half-year he had lived. He never +formulated his wife's character, or defined the precise relation she +bore to his life; if he could have been challenged to do so, he would +have said that she was the whole of life to him, and that she was the +most delightful woman in the world. + +He tasted to its last sweetness the love of loving her and of being +loved by her. At the same time there was an obscure stress upon him +which he did not trace to her at once; a trouble in his thoughts which, +if he could have seen it clearly, he would have recognized for a lurking +anxiety concerning how she would take the events of their life as they +came. Without realizing it, for his mind was mostly on his work, and it +was only in some dim recess of his spirit that the struggle took place, +he was perpetually striving to adjust himself to the unexpected, or +rather the unpredictable. + +But when he was most afraid of her harassing uncertainty of emotion or +action he was aware of her fixed loyalty to him; and perhaps it was the +final effect with himself that he dreaded. Should he always be able to +bear and forbear, as he felt she would, with all her variableness and +turning? The question did not put itself in words, and neither did his +conviction that his relation to the theatre was doubled in difficulty +through her. But he perceived that she had no love for the drama, and +only a love for his love of it; and sometimes he vaguely suspected that +if he had been in business she would have been as fond of business as +she was of the drama. He never perhaps comprehended her ideal, and how +it could include an explicit and somewhat noisy devotion to the aims of +his ambition, because it was his, and a patronizing reservation in +regard to the ambition itself. But this was quite possible with Louise, +just as it was possible for her to have had a humble personal joy in +giving herself to him, while she had a distinct social sense of the +sacrifice she had made in marrying him. In herself she looked up to him; +as her father's and mother's daughter, as the child of her circumstance, +there is no doubt she looked down upon him. But neither of these +attitudes held in their common life. Love may or may not level ranks, +but marriage unquestionably does, and is the one form of absolute +equality. The Maxwells did not take themselves or each other +objectively; they loved and hated, they made war and made peace, without +any sense of the difference or desert that might have been apparent to +the spectators. + +Maxwell had never been so near the standpoint of the impartial observer +as now when he confronted the question of what he should do, with a +heart twice burdened by the question whether his wife would not make it +hard for him to do it, whatever it was. He thought, with dark +foreboding, of the difficulties he should have to smooth out for her if +it ever came to a production of the piece. The best thing that could +happen, perhaps, would be its rejection, final and total, by all +possible managers and actors; for she would detest any one who took the +part of Salome, and would hold him responsible for all she should suffer +from it. + +He recurred to what he had felt so strongly himself, and what Grayson +had suggested, and thought how he could free himself from fealty to her +by cutting out the whole love-business from his play. But that would be +very hard. The thing had now knitted itself in one texture in his mind, +and though he could sever the ties that bound the parts together, it +would take from the piece the great element of charm. It was not +symmetrical as it stood, but it was not two distinct motives; the +motives had blended, and they really belonged to each other. He would +have to invent some other love-business if he cut this out, but still it +could be done. Then it suddenly flashed upon him that there was +something easier yet, and that was to abandon the notion of getting his +piece played at all, and to turn it into a novel. He could give it +narrative form without much trouble, if any, beyond that of copying it, +and it would be thought a very dramatic story. He saw instantly how he +could keep and even enhance all the charm of the love-business as it +stood, in a novel; and in his revulsion of feeling he wished to tell his +wife. He made a movement towards the door of her room, but he heard the +even breathing of her sleep, and he stopped and flung himself on the +lounge to think. It was such a happy solution of the whole affair! He +need not even cease trying it with the managers, for he could use the +copy of the play that Godolphin had returned for that, and he could use +the copy he had always kept for recasting it in narrative. By the time +that he had got his play back from the last manager he would have his +novel ready for the first publisher. In the meantime he should be +writing his letters for the _Abstract_, and not consuming all his little +savings. + +The relief from the stress upon him was delicious. He lay at rest and +heard the soft breathing of his wife from the other room, and an +indescribable tenderness for her filled his heart. Then he heard her +voice saying, "Well, don't wake him, poor boy!" + + + + +XVI. + + +Maxwell opened his eyes and found the maid lightly escaping from the +room. He perceived that he had slept all night on the lounge, and he +sent a cheery hail into his wife's room, and then followed it to tell +her how he had thought it all out. She was as glad as he was; she +applauded his plan to the ceiling; and he might not have thought of her +accident if he had not seen presently that she was eating her breakfast +in bed. + +Then he asked after her ankle, and she said, "Oh, that is perfectly +well, or the same as perfectly. There's no pain at all there to speak +of, and I shall get up to luncheon. You needn't mind me any more. If you +haven't taken your death of cold sleeping there on the lounge--" + +"I haven't." + +"I want you to go down town to some manager with your play, and get some +paper, the kind I like; and then, after lunch, we'll begin turning it +into a novel, from your copy. It will be so easy for you that you can +dictate, and I'll do the writing, and we'll work it up together. Shall +you like collaborating with me?" + +"Ah!--" + +"It will be our story, and I shall like it twice as well as if it were a +play. We shall be independent of the theatre, that's one satisfaction; +they can take the play, if they like, but it will be perfectly +indifferent to us. I shall help you get in all those nice touches that +you said you could never get into a play, like that green light in the +woods. I know just how we shall manage that love business, and we +sha'n't have any horror of an actress interpreting our inspirations to +the public. We'll play Atland and Salome ourselves. We'll--ow!" + +She had given her foot a twist in the excitement and she fell back on +the pillow rather faint. But she instantly recovered herself with a +laugh, and she hurried him away to his breakfast, and then away with his +play. He would rather have stayed and begun turning it into a story at +once. But she would not let him; she said it would be a loss of time, +and she should fret a good deal more to have him there with her, than +to have him away, for she should know he was just staying to cheer her +up. + +When he was gone she sent for whatever papers the maid could find in the +parlor, so that she need not think of him in the amusement she would get +out of them. Among the rest was that dramatic newspaper which caught her +eye first, with the effigy of a very dramatized young woman whose +portrait filled the whole first page. Louise abhorred her, but with a +novel sense of security in the fact that Maxwell's play was going so +soon to be turned into a story; and she felt personally aloof from all +the people who had dragged him down with a sense of complicity in their +professional cards. She found them neither so droll nor so painful as he +had, but she was very willing to turn from them, and she was giving the +paper a parting glance before dropping it when she was arrested by an +advertisement which made her start: + + WANTED.--A drama for prominent star; light comic and emotional: + star part must embody situations for the display of intense + effects. Address L. STERNE, this office. + +A series of effects as intense as the advertiser could have desired in a +drama followed one another in the mind of Louise. She now wildly +reproached herself that she had, however unwittingly, sent her husband +out of reach for four or five hours, when his whole future might depend +upon his instantly answering this notice. Whether he had already seen +the notice and rashly decided to ignore it, or had not seen it, he might +involve himself with some manager irretrievably before he could be got +at with a demand which seemed specifically framed to describe his play. +She was in despair that there was no means of sending a messenger-boy +after him with any chance of finding him. The light comic reliefs which +the advertiser would have wished to give the dark phases of her mood +were suggested by her reckless energy in whirling herself into her +dressing-gown, and hopping out to Maxwell's desk in the other room, +where she dashed off a note in reply to the advertisement in her +husband's name, and then checked herself with the reflection that she +had no right to sign his name: even in such a cause she must not do +anything wrong. Something must be done, however, right or wrong, and she +decided that a very formal note in the third person would involve the +least moral trespass. She fixed upon these terms, after several +experiments, almost weeping at the time they cost her, when every moment +was precious: + +_Mr. Brice Maxwell writes to Mr. L. Sterne and begs to inform him that +he has a play which he believes will meet the requirements of Mr. +Sterne, as stated in his advertisement in the Theatrical Register of +November the tenth. Mr. Maxwell asks the favor of an interview with Mr. +Sterne at any time and place that Mr. Sterne may appoint._ + +It seemed to her that this violated no law of man or God, or if it did +the exigency was such that the action could be forgiven, if not +justified. She ransacked Maxwell's desk for a special delivery stamp, +and sent the letter out beyond recall; and then it occurred to her that +its opening terms were too much those of a lady addressing a seamstress; +but after a good deal of anguish on this point she comforted herself +with the hope that a man would not know the form, or at least would not +suspect another man of using it offensively. + +She passed the time till Maxwell came back, in doubt whether to tell him +what she had done. There was no reason why she should not, except that +he might have seen the advertisement and decided not to answer it for +some reason; but in that case it might be said that he ought to have +spoken to her about it. She told him everything at once, but there were +many things that he did not tell her till long afterwards; it would be a +good thing to let him realize how that felt; besides, it would be a +pleasure to keep it and let it burst upon him, if that L. Sterne, +whoever he was, asked to see the play. In any case, it would not be a +great while that she need keep from him what she had done, but at sight +of him when he came in she could hardly be silent. He was gloomy and +dispirited, and he confessed that his pleasant experience with Grayson +had not been repeated with the other managers. They had all been civil +enough, and he had seen three or four of them, but only one had +consented to let him even leave his play with him; the others said that +it would be useless for them to look at it. + +She could not forbear showing him the advertisement she had answered as +they sat at lunch; but he glanced at it with disdain, and said there +must be some sort of fake in it; if it was some irresponsible fellow +getting up a combination he would not scruple to use the ideas of any +manuscript submitted to him and work them over to suit himself. Louise +could not speak. All heart went out of her; she wanted to cry, and she +did not tell what she had done. + +Neither of them ate much. He asked her if she was ready to begin on the +story with him; she said, "Oh yes;" and she hobbled off into the other +room. Then he seemed to remember her hurt for the first time; he had +been so full of his failure with the play before. He asked her how she +was, and she said much better; and then he stretched himself on the +lounge and tried to dictate, and she took her place at his desk and +tried to write. But she either ran ahead of him and prompted him, which +vexed him, or she lagged so far behind that he lost the thread of what +he was saying and became angry. At last she put her head down on the +paper and blotted it with her tears. + +At that he said, "Oh, you'd better go back to bed," and then, though he +spoke harshly, he lifted her tenderly and half carried her to her room. + + + + +XVII. + + +They did not try working the play into a story again together. Maxwell +kept doggedly at it, though he said it was of no use; the thing had +taken the dramatic form with inexorable fixity as it first came from his +mind; it could be changed, of course, but it could only be changed for +the worse, artistically. If he could sell it as a story, the work would +not be lost; he would gain the skill that came from doing, in any event, +and it would keep him alive under the ill-luck that now seemed to have +set in. + +None of the managers wanted his play. Some of them seemed to want it +less than others; some wanted it less immediately than others; some did +not want it after reading; some refused it without reading it; some had +their arrangements made for an indefinite time, others in the present +uncertain state of affairs could not make any arrangements; some said it +was an American play; others that it was un-American in its pessimistic +spirit; some found it too literary; others, lacking in imagination. They +were nearly all so kind that at first Maxwell was guilty of the folly of +trying to persuade them against the reasons they gave; when he realized +that these reasons were also excuses, he set his teeth and accepted them +in silence. + +For a number of days Louise suffered in momentary expectation of a reply +from L. Sterne. She thought it would come by district messenger the day +she wrote; and for several days afterwards she had the letters brought +to her first, so that she could read them, and not disturb Maxwell with +them at his work, if it were not necessary. He willingly agreed to that; +he saw that it helped to pass the irksome time for her. She did not mean +to conceal any answer she should have from L. Sterne, but she meant when +the answer came to prepare her husband for it in such sort that he would +understand her motive, and though he condemned it, would easily forgive +her. But the days went and no letter from L. Sterne came, and after a +season of lively indignation at his rudeness, Louise began to forget him +a little, though she still kept her surveillance of the mail. + +It was always on her conscience, in the meantime, to give some of the +first moments of her recovery to going with Maxwell and thanking Mrs. +Harley for the kindness she had shown her in her accident. She was the +more strenuous in this intention because the duty was so distasteful, +and she insisted upon Maxwell's company, though he argued that he had +already done enough himself in thanking her preserver, because she +wished to punish a certain reluctance of her own in having him go. She +promised herself that she would do everything that was right by the +creature; and perhaps she repaired to her presence in rather +overwhelming virtue. If this was so, Mrs. Harley showed herself equal to +the demand upon her, and was overwhelming in her kind. She not only made +nothing of what she had done for Louise, but she made nothing of Louise, +and contrived with a few well-directed strokes to give her distinctly +the sense of being a chit, a thing Louise was not at all used to. She +was apparently one of those women who have no use for persons of their +own sex; but few women, even of that sort, could have so promptly +relegated Louise to the outside of their interest, or so frankly devoted +themselves to Maxwell. The impartial spectator might easily have +imagined that it was his ankle which had been strained, and that Louise +was at best an intrusive sympathizer. Sometimes Mrs. Harley did not +hear what she said; at other times, if she began a response to her, she +ended it in a question to him; even when she talked to Louise, her eyes +were smouldering upon Maxwell. If this had all or any of it been +helpless or ignorant rudeness, it could have been borne and forgiven; +but Louise was aware of intention, of perfect intelligence in it; she +was sensible of being even more disliked than disliking, and of finally +being put to flight with a patronizing benevolence for her complete +recovery that was intolerable. What was worse was that, while the woman +had been so offensive, she could not wholly rid herself of the feeling +that her punishment was in a measure merited, though it was not justice +that had dealt with her. + +"Well, that is over," said Maxwell, when they were again by themselves. + +"Yes, forever," sighed Louise, and for once she was not let have the +last word. + +"I hope you'll remember that I didn't want to go." + +At least, they had not misunderstood each other about Mrs. Harley. + +Towards the end of the month, Louise's father and mother came on from +Boston. They professed that they had been taken with that wish to see +the autumn exhibition at the National Academy which sometimes affects +Bostonians, and that their visit had nothing to do with the little hurt +that Louise wrote them of when she was quite well of it. They drove over +from their hotel the morning they arrived, and she did not know anything +of their coming till she heard their voices at the door; her father's +voice was rather husky from the climb to her apartment. + +The apartment was looking somewhat frouzy, for the Maxwells breakfasted +late, and the house-maid had not had time to put it in order. Louise saw +it through her father's and mother's eyes with the glance they gave it, +and found the rooms ridiculously little, and furnished with cheap +Fourteenth Street things; but she bragged all the more noisily of it on +that account, and made her mother look out of the window for the pretty +view they had from their corner room. Mrs. Hilary pulled her head back +from the prospect of the railroad-ridden avenue with silent horror, and +Louise burst into a wild laugh. "Well, it _isn't_ Commonwealth Avenue, +mamma; I don't pretend that, you know." + +"Where's Maxwell?" asked Hilary, still puffing from the lounge he had +sunk upon as soon as he got into the room. + +"Oh, he's down town interviewing a manager about his play." + +"I thought that fellow out West had his play. Or is this a new one?" + +"No," said Louise, very slowly and thoughtfully, "Brice has taken back +his play from Mr. Godolphin." This was true; he _had_ taken it back in a +sense. She added, as much to herself as to her father, "But he _has_ got +a new play--that he's working at." + +"I hope he hasn't been rash with Godolphin; though I always had an idea +that it would have been better for him to deal with a manager. It seems +more business-like." + +"Oh, much," said Louise. + +After a little while they were more at home with each other; she began +to feel herself more their child, and less Maxwell's wife; the barriers +of reluctance against him, which she always knew were up with them, fell +away from between them and herself. But her father said they had come to +get her and Maxwell to lunch with them at their hotel, and then Louise +felt herself on her husband's side of the fence again. She said no, they +must stay with her; that she was sure Brice would be back for lunch; and +she wanted to show them her house-keeping. Mrs. Hilary cast her eye +about the room at the word, as if she had seen quite enough of it +already, and this made Louise laugh again. She was no better in person +than the room was, and she felt her mother's tacit censure apply to her +slatternly dressing-gown. + +"I know what you're thinking, mamma. But I got the habit of it when I +had my strained ankle." + +"Oh, I'm sure it must be very comfortable," Mrs. Hilary said, of the +dressing-gown. "Is it entirely well now?" she added, of the ankle; and +she and Hilary both looked at Louise in a way that would have convinced +her that their final anxiety concerning it had brought them to New York, +if she had not guessed it already. "The doctor," and by this she meant +their old family doctor, as if he were the only one, "said you couldn't +be too careful." + +"Well, I haven't been careful," said Louise, gayly; "but I'm quite well, +and you can go back at once, if that's all, mamma." + +Hilary laughed with her. "You haven't changed much, Louise." + +Her mother said, in another sense, "I think you look a little pulled +down," and that made her and her father laugh again. She got to playing +with him, and poking him, and kissing him, in the way she had with him +when she was a girl; it was not so very long ago. + +Her mother bore with this for awhile, and then she rose to go. + +"You're not going to stay!" Louise protested. + +"Not to-day, my dear. I've got some shopping to do before lunch." + +"Well," said Louise, "I didn't suppose you would stay the first time, +such swells as you and papa. But I shall insist upon your coming +to-morrow when you've recovered a little from the blow this home of +virtuous poverty has given you, and I've had a chance to dust and +prepare for you. And I'll tell you what, mamma; Brice and I will come to +dinner with you to-night, and we won't take any refusal. We'll be with +you at seven. How will that do, papa?" + +"That will do," said Hilary, with his arm round her waist, and they +kissed each other to clinch the bargain. + +"And don't you two old things go away and put your frosty paws together +and say Brice and I are not happy. We do quarrel like cats and dogs +every now and then, but the rest of the time we're the happiest couple +in the universe, and an example to parents." + +Hilary would have manifestly liked to stay and have her go on with her +nonsense, but his wife took him away. + +When Maxwell came in she was so full of their visit that she did not ask +him what luck he had with his play, but told him at once they were going +to dine with her father and mother. "And I want you to brace up, my +dear, and not let them imagine anything." + +"How, anything?" he asked, listlessly. + +"Oh, nothing. About your play not going perfectly. I didn't think it +necessary to go into particulars with them, and you needn't. Just pass +it over lightly if they ask you anything about it. But they won't." + +Maxwell did not look so happy as he might at the prospect of dining with +his wife's father and mother, but he did not say anything disagreeable, +and after an instant of silent resentment Louise did not say anything +disagreeable either. In fact, she devoted herself to avoiding any +displeasures with him, and she arrived with him at the Hilarys' hotel on +perfectly good terms, and, as far as he was concerned, in rather good +spirits. + +Upon the whole, they had a very good time. Hilary made occasion to speak +to Maxwell of his letters to the _Abstract_, and told him they were +considered by far the best letters of the kind published anywhere, which +meant anywhere in Boston. + +"You do that sort of thing so well, newspaper writing," he continued, +with a slyness that was not lost upon Louise, though Maxwell was +ignorant of his drift, "that I wonder you don't sometimes want to take +it up again." + +"It's well enough," said Maxwell, who was gratified by his praise. + +"By the way," said Hilary, "I met your friend, Mr. Ricker, the other +day, and he spoke most cordially about you. I fancy he would be very +glad to have you back." + +"In the old way? I would rather be excused." + +"No, from what he said, I thought he would like your writing in the +editorial page." + +Maxwell looked pleased. "Ricker's always been very good, but he has very +little influence on the _Abstract_. He has no money interest in the +paper." + +Hilary said, with the greatest artfulness, "I wonder he doesn't buy in. +I hear it can be done." + +"Not by Ricker, for the best of all possible reasons," said Maxwell, +with a laugh. + +Louise could hardly wait till she had parted from her father and mother +before she began on her husband: "You goose! Didn't you see that papa +was hinting at buying _you_ a share in the _Abstract_?" + +"He was very modest about it, then; I didn't see anything of the kind." + +"Oh, do you think _you_ are the only modest man? Papa is _very_ modest, +and he wouldn't make you an offer outright, unless he saw that you would +like it. But I know that was what he was coming to, and if you'll let +me--" + +A sentiment of a reluctance rather than a refusal was what made itself +perceptible from his arm to hers, as they hurried along the street +together, and Louise would not press the question till he spoke again. + +He did not speak till they were in the train on their way home. Then he +said, "I shouldn't care to have a money interest in a newspaper. It +would tie me up to it, and load me down with cares I should hate. It +wouldn't be my real life." + +"Yes," said his wife, but when they got into their little apartment she +cast an eye, opened to its meanness and narrowness, over the common +belongings, and wondered if he would ask himself whether this was her +real life. But she did not speak, though she was apt to speak out most +things that she thought. + + + + +XVIII. + + +Some people began to call, old friends of her mother, whose visit to New +York seemed to have betrayed to them the fact of Louise's presence for +the first time, and some friends of her own, who had married, and come +to New York to live, and who said they had just got back to town long +enough to learn that she was there. These all reproached her for not +having let them know sooner where she was, and they all more or less +followed up their reproaches with the invitations which she dreaded +because of Maxwell's aversion for them. But she submitted them to him, +and submitted to his refusal to go with her, and declined them. In her +heart she thought he was rather ungracious, but she did not say so, +though in two or three cases of people whom she liked she coaxed him a +little to go with her. Meeting her mother and talking over the life she +used to lead in Boston, and the life so many people were leading there +still, made her a little hungry for society; she would have liked well +enough to find herself at a dinner again, and she would have felt a +little dancing after the dinner no hardship; but she remembered the +promise she had made herself not to tease Maxwell about such things. So +she merely coaxed him, and he so far relented as to ask her why she +could not go without him, and that hurt her, and she said she never +would go without him. All the same, when there came an invitation for +lunch, from a particularly nice friend of her girlhood, she hesitated +and was lost. She had expected, somehow, that it was going to be a very +little lunch, but she found it a very large one, in the number of +people, and after the stress of accounting for her husband's failure to +come with her, she was not sorry to have it so. She inhaled with joy the +atmosphere of the flower-scented rooms; her eye dwelt with delight on +their luxurious and tasteful appointments, the belongings of her former +life, which seemed to emerge in them from the past and claim her again; +the women in their _chic_ New York costumes and their miracles of early +winter hats hailed her a long-lost sister by every graceful movement and +cultivated tone; the correctly tailored and agreeably mannered men had +polite intelligence of a world that Maxwell never would and never could +be part of; the talk of the little amusing, unvital things that began at +once was more precious to her than the problems which the austere +imagination of her husband dealt with; it suddenly fatigued her to think +how hard she had tried to sympathize with his interest in them. Her +heart leaped at sight of the long, rose-heaped table, with its glitter +of glass and silver, and the solemn perfection of the serving-men; a +spectacle not important in itself was dear to her from association with +gayeties, which now, for a wicked moment, seemed to her better than +love. + +There were all sorts of people: artists and actors, as well as people of +fashion. Her friend had given her some society notable to go out with, +but she had appointed for the chair next her, on the other hand, a young +man in a pretty pointed beard, whom she introduced across from the head +of the table as soon as she could civilly take the notable to herself. +Louise did not catch his name, and it seemed presently that he had not +heard hers, but their acquaintance prospered without this knowledge. He +made some little jokes, which she promptly responded to, and they talked +awhile as if they were both New-Yorkers, till she said, at some remark +of his, "But I am not a New-Yorker," and then he said, "Well, neither am +I," and offered to tell her what he was if she would tell him what she +was. + +"Oh, I'm from Boston, of course," she answered, but then, instead of +saying where he was from, he broke out: + +"Now I will fulfil my vow!" + +"Your vow? What is your vow?" + +"To ask the first Boston person I met if that Boston person knew +anything about another Boston person, who wrote a most remarkable play I +saw in the fall out at home." + +"A play?" said Louise, with a total loss of interest in the gentleman's +city or country. + +"Yes, by a Boston man named Maxwell--" + +Louise stared at him, and if their acquaintance had been a little older, +she might have asked him to come off. As it was she could not speak, and +she let him go on. + +"I don't know when I've ever had a stronger impression in the theatre +than I had from that play. Perfectly modern, and perfectly American." He +briefly sketched it. "It was like a terrible experience on the tragic +side, and on the other side it was a rapture. I never saw love-making on +the stage before that made me wish to be a lover--" + +A fire-red flew over Louise's face, and she said, almost snubbingly, as +if he had made some unwarrantable advance: "I think I had better not let +you go on. It was my husband who wrote that play. I am Mrs. Maxwell." + +"Mrs. Maxwell! You are Mrs. Maxwell?" he gasped, and she could not doubt +the honesty of his amaze. + +His confusion was so charming that she instantly relented. "Of course I +should like to have you go on all day as you've begun, but there's no +telling what exceptions you might be going to make later. Where did you +see my husband's play?" + +"In Midland--" + +"What! You are not--you can't be--Mr. Ray?" + +"I am--I can," he returned, gleefully, and now Louise impulsively gave +him her hand under the table-cloth. + +The man[oe]uvre caught the eye of the hostess. "A bet?" she asked. + +"Better," cried Louise, not knowing her pun, "a thousand times," and she +turned without further explanation to the gentleman: "When I tell Mr. +Maxwell of this he will suffer as he ought, and that's saying a great +deal, for not coming with me to-day. To think of it's being _you_!" + +"Ah, but to think of it's being _he_! You acquit me of the poor taste of +putting up a job?" + +"Oh, of anything you want to be acquitted of! What crime would you +prefer? There are whole deluges of mercy for you. But now go on, and +tell me everything you thought about the play." + +"I'd rather you'd tell me what you know about the playwright." + +"Everything, of course, and nothing." She added the last words from a +sudden, poignant conviction. "Isn't that the way with the wives of you +men of genius?" + +"Am I a man of genius?" + +"You're literary." + +"Oh, literary, yes. But I'm not married." + +"You're determined to get out of it, somehow. Tell me about Midland. It +has filled such a space in our imagination! You can't think what a +comfort and stay you have been to us! But why in Midland? Is it a large +place?" + +"Would it take such a very big one to hold me? It's the place I brought +myself up in, and it's very good to me, and so I live there. I don't +think it has any vast intellectual or ęsthetic interests, but there are +very nice people there, very cultivated, some of them, and very well +read. After all, you don't need a great many people; three or four will +do." + +"And have you always lived there?" + +"I lived a year or so in New York, and I manage to get on here some time +every winter. The rest of the year Midland is quite enough for me. It's +gay at times; there's a good deal going on; and I can write there as +well as anywhere, and better than in New York. Then, you know, in a +small way I'm a prophet in my own country, perhaps because I was away +from it for awhile. It's very pretty. But it's very base of you to make +me talk about myself when I'm so anxious to hear about Mr. Maxwell." + +"And do you spend all your time writing Ibsen criticisms of Ibsen +plays?" Louise pursued against his protest. + +"I do some other kind of writing." + +"As--" + +"Oh, no! I'm not here to interview myself." + +"Oh, but you ought. I know you've written something--some novel. Your +name was so familiar from the first." Mr. Ray laughed and shook his head +in mockery of her cheap device. "You mustn't be vexed because I'm so +vague about it. I'm very ignorant." + +"You said you were from Boston." + +"But there are Bostons and Bostons. The Boston that I belonged to never +hears of American books till they are forgotten!" + +"Ah, how famous I must be there!" + +"I see you are determined to be bad. But I remember now; it was a play. +Haven't you written a play?" He held up three fingers. "I knew it! What +was it?" + +"My plays," said the young fellow, with a mock of superiority, "have +never been played. I've been told that they are above the heads of an +audience. It's a great consolation. But now, really, about Mr. +Maxwell's. When is it to be given here? I hoped very much that I might +happen on the very time." + +Louise hesitated a moment, and then she said: "You know he has taken it +back from Godolphin." It was not so hard to say this as it was at first, +but it still required resolution. + +"Oh, I'm so glad!" said Mr. Ray. "I never thought he appreciated it. He +was so anxious to make his part all in all that he would have been +willing to damage the rest of it irretrievably. I could see, from the +way he talked of it, that he was mortally jealous of Salome; and the +girl who did that did it very sweetly and prettily. Who has got the play +now?" + +"Well," said Louise, with rather a painful smile, "nobody has it at +present. We're trying to stir up strife for it among managers." + +"What play is that?" asked her friend, the hostess, and all that end of +the table became attentive, as any fashionable company will at the +mention of a play; books may be more or less out of the range of +society, but plays never at all. + +"My husband's," said Louise, meekly. + +"Why, does _your_ husband write _plays_?" cried the lady. + +"What did you think he did?" returned Louise, resentfully; she did not +in the least know what her friend's husband did, and he was no more +there to speak for himself than her own. + +"He's written a very _great_ play," Mr. Ray spoke up with generous +courage; "the very greatest American play I have seen. I don't say ever +written, for I've written some myself that I haven't seen yet," he +added, and every one laughed at his bit of self-sacrifice. "But Mr. +Maxwell's play is just such a play as I would have written if I +could--large, and serious, and charming." + +He went on about it finely, and Louise's heart swelled with pride. She +wished Maxwell could have been there, but if he had been, of course Mr. +Ray would not have spoken so freely. + +The hostess asked him where he had seen it, and he said in Midland. + +Then she said, "We must all go," and she had the effect of rising to do +so, but it was only to leave the men to their tobacco. + +Louise laid hold of her in the drawing-room: "Who is he? What is he?" + +"A little dear, isn't he?" + +"Yes, of course. But what has he done?" + +"Why, he wrote a novel--I forget the name, but I have it somewhere. It +made a great sensation. But surely _you_ must know what it was?" + +"No, no," Louise lamented. "I am ashamed to say I don't." + +When the men joined the ladies, she lingered long enough to thank Mr. +Ray, and try to make him tell her the name of his novel. She at least +made him promise to let them know the next time he was in New York, and +she believed all he said of his regret that he was going home that +night. He sent many sweet messages to Maxwell, whom he wanted to talk +with about his play, and tell him all he had thought about it. He felt +sure that some manager would take it and bring it out in New York, and +again he exulted that it was out of the actor's hands. A manager might +not have an artistic interest in it; an actor could only have a personal +interest in it. + + + + +XIX. + + +Louise came home in high spirits. The world seemed to have begun to move +again. It was full of all sorts of gay hopes, or at least she was, and +she was impatient to impart them to Maxwell. Now she decided that her +great office in his life must be to cheer him up, to supply that spring +of joyousness which was so lacking in him, and which he never could do +any sort of work without. She meant to make him go into society with +her. It would do him good, and he would shine. He could talk as well as +Mr. Ray, and if he would let himself go, he could be as charming. + +She rushed in to speak with him, and was vexed to find a strange man +sitting in the parlor alone. The stranger rose at her onset, and then, +when she confusedly retreated, he sank into his chair again. She had +seen him black against the window, and had not made out any feature or +expression of his face. + +The maid explained that it was a gentleman who had called to see Mr. +Maxwell earlier in the day, and the last time had asked if he might sit +down and wait for him. He had been waiting only a few minutes. + +"But who is he?" demanded Louise, with a provisional indignation in case +it should be a liberty on some unauthorized person's part. "Didn't he +give you a card?" + +He had given the girl a card, and she now gave it to Mrs. Maxwell. It +bore the name Mr. Lawrence Sterne, which Louise read with much the same +emotion as if it had been Mr. William Shakespeare. She suspected what +her husband would have called a fake of some sort, and she felt a little +afraid. She did not like the notion of the man's sitting there in her +parlor while she had nobody with her but the girl. He might be all +right, and he might even be a gentleman, but the dark bulk which had +risen up against the window and stood holding a hat in its hand was not +somehow a gentlemanly bulk, the hat was not definitively a gentleman's +hat, and the baldness which had shone against the light was not exactly +what you would have called a gentleman's baldness. Clearly, however, the +only thing to do was to treat the event as one of entire fitness till it +proved itself otherwise, and Louise returned to the parlor with an air +of lady-*like inquiry, expressed in her look and movement; if this +effect was not wholly unmixed with patronage, it still was kind. + +"I am sorry," she said, "that my husband is out, and I am sorry to say +that I don't know just when he will be at home." She stood and the man +had risen again, with his portly frame and his invisible face between +her and the light again. "If I could be of any use in giving him a +message--" She stopped; it was really sending the man out of the house, +and she could not do that; it was not decent. She added, "Or if you +don't mind waiting a few minutes longer--" + +She sat down, but the man did not. He said: "I can't wait any longer +just now; but if Mr. Maxwell would like to see me, I am at the Coleman +House." She looked at him as if she did not understand, and he went on: +"If he doesn't recall my name he'll remember answering my advertisement, +some weeks ago in the _Theatrical Register_, for a play." + +"Oh yes!" said Louise. This was the actor whom she had written to on +behalf of Maxwell. With electrical suddenness and distinctness she now +recalled the name, L. Sterne, along with all the rest, though the card +of Mr. Lawrence Sterne had not stirred her sleeping consciousness. She +had always meant to tell Maxwell what she had done, but she was always +waiting for something to come of it, and when nothing came of it, she +did not tell; she had been so disgusted at the mere notion of answering +the man's advertisement. Now, here was the man himself, and he had to be +answered, and that would probably be worse than answering his +advertisement. "I remember," she said, provisionally, but with the +resolution to speak exactly the truth; "I wrote to you _for_ Mr. +Maxwell," which did not satisfy her as the truth ought to have done. + +"Well, then, I wish you would please tell him that I didn't reply to his +letter because it kept following me from place to place, and I only got +it at the _Register_ office this morning." + +"I will tell Mr. Maxwell," said Louise. + +"I should be glad to see his play, if he still has it to dispose of. +From what Mr. Grayson has told me of it, I think it might--I think I +should like to see it. It might suit the--the party I am acting for," he +added, letting himself go. + +"Then you are not the--the--star?" + +"I am the manager for the star." + +"Oh," said Louise, with relief. The fact seemed to put another +complexion on the affair. A distaste which she had formed for Mr. Sterne +personally began to cede to other feelings. If he was manager for the +star, he must be like other managers, such as Maxwell was willing to +deal with, and if he knew Mr. Grayson he must be all right. "I will +tell Mr. Maxwell," she said, with no provisionality this time. + +Mr. Sterne prepared to go, so far as buttoning his overcoat and making +some paces towards the door gave token of his intention. Louise followed +him with a politeness which was almost gratitude to him for reinstating +her in her own esteem. He seemed to have atmospheric intelligence of her +better will towards him, for he said, as if it were something she might +feel an interest in: "If I can get a play that will suit, I shall take +the road with a combination immediately after New Year's. I don't know +whether you have ever seen the lady I want the play for." + +"The lady?" gasped Louise. + +"She isn't very well-known in the East yet, but she will be. She wants a +play of her own. As I understand Mr. Grayson, there is a part in Mr. +Maxwell's play that would fit her to a T, or could be fitted to her; +these things always need some little adaptation." Mr. Sterne's manner +became easier and easier. "Curious thing about it is that you are next +door--or next floor--neighbors, here. Mrs. Harley." + +"We--we have met her," said Louise in a hollow murmur. + +"Well, you can't have any idea what Yolande Havisham is from Mrs. +Harley. I shall be at the Coleman the whole evening, if Mr. Maxwell +would like to call. Well, good-morning," said Mr. Sterne, and he got +himself away before Louise could tell him that Maxwell would never give +his play to a woman; before she could say that it was already as good as +accepted by another manager; before she could declare that if no manager +ever wanted it, still, as far as Mrs. Harley was concerned, with her +smouldering eyes, it would always be in negotiation; before she could +form or express any utter and final refusal and denial of his abominable +hopes. + +It remained for her either to walk quietly down to the North River and +drown herself or to wait her husband's return and tell him everything +and throw herself on his mercy, implore him, adjure him, not to give +that woman his play; and then to go into a decline that would soon rid +him of the clog and hinderance she had always been to him. It flashed +through her turmoil of emotion that it was already dark, in spite of +Mr. Sterne's good-morning at parting, and that some one might speak to +her on the way to the river; and then she thought how Maxwell would +laugh when she told him the fear of being spoken to had kept her from +suicide; and she sat waiting for him to come with such an inward +haggardness that she was astonished, at sight of herself in the glass, +to find that she wan looking very much as usual. Maxwell certainly +noticed no difference when he came in and flung himself wearily on the +lounge, and made no attempt to break the silence of their meeting; they +had kissed, of course, but had not spoken. + +She was by no means sure what she was going to do; she had hoped there +would be some leading on his part that would make it easy for her to do +right, whatever the right was, but her heart sank at sight of him. He +looked defeated and harassed. But there was no help for it. She must +speak, and speak unaided; the only question was whether she had better +speak before dinner or after. She decided to speak after dinner, and +then all at once she was saying: "Brice, I have brought something +dreadful on myself." + +"At the lunch?" he asked, wearily, and she saw that he thought she had +been making some silly speech she was ashamed of. + +"Oh, if it had only been at the lunch!" she cried. "No, it was +here--here in this very room." + +"_I_ don't know what's the matter with you, Louise," he said, lying back +and shutting his eyes. + +"Then I must tell you!" And she came out with the whole story, which she +had to repeat in parts before he could understand it. When he did +understand that she had answered an advertisement in the _Register_, in +his name, he opened his eyes and sat up. + +"Well?" he said. + +"Well, don't you see how wrong and wicked that was?" + +"I've heard of worse things." + +"Oh, don't say so, dearest! It was living a lie, don't you see. And I've +been living a lie ever since, and now I'm justly punished for not +telling you long ago." + +She told him of the visit she had just had, and who the man was, and +whom he wanted the play for; and now a strange thing happened with her. +She did not beseech him not to give his play to that woman; on the +contrary she said: "And now, Brice, I want you to let her have it. I +know she will play Salome magnificently, and that will make the fortune +of the piece, and it will give you such a name that anything you write +after this will get accepted; and you can satisfy your utmost ambition, +and you needn't mind me--no--or think of me at all any more than if I +were the dust of the earth; and I am! Will you?" + +He got up from the lounge and began to walk the floor, as he always did +when he was perplexed; and she let him walk up and down in silence as +long as she could bear it. At last she said: "I am in earnest, Brice, I +am indeed, and if you don't do it, if you let me or my feelings stand in +your way, in the slightest degree, I will never forgive you. Will you go +straight down to the Coleman House, as soon as you've had your dinner, +and tell that man he can have your play for that woman?" + +"No," said Maxwell, stopping in his walk, and looking at her in a dazed +way. + +Her heart seemed to leap into her throat. "Why?" she choked. + +"Because Godolphin is here." + +"Godo--" she began; and she cast herself on the lounge that Maxwell had +vacated, and plunged her face in the pillow and sobbed, "Oh, cruel, +cruel, _cruel_! Oh, _cruel_, cruel, cruel, cruel!" + + + + +XX. + + +Maxwell stood looking at his wife with the cold disgust which hysterics +are apt to inspire in men after they have seen them more than once. "I +suppose that when you are ready you will tell me what is the matter with +you." + +"To let me suffer so, when you knew all the time that Godolphin was +here, and you needn't give your play to that creature at all," wailed +Louise. + +"How did _I_ know you were suffering?" he retorted. "And how do I know +that I can do anything with Godolphin?" + +"Oh, I _know_ you can!" She sprang up with the greatest energy, and ran +into the bedroom to put in order her tumbled hair; she kept talking to +him from there. "I want you to go down and see him the instant you have +had dinner; and don't let him escape you. Tell him he can have the play +on any terms. I believe he is the only one who can make it go. He was +the first to appreciate the idea, and--Frida!" she called into the hall +towards the kitchen, "we will have dinner at once, now, please--he +always talked so intelligently about it; and now if he's where you can +superintend the rehearsals, it will be the greatest success. How in the +world did you find out he was here?" + +She came out of her room, in surprising repair, with this question, and +the rest of their talk went on through dinner. + +It appeared that Maxwell had heard of Godolphin's presence from Grayson, +whom he met in the street, and who told him that Godolphin had made a +complete failure of his venture. His combination had gone to pieces at +Cleveland, and his company were straggling back to New York as they +could. Godolphin was deeply in debt to them all, and to everybody else; +and yet the manager spoke cordially of him, and with no sort of +disrespect, as if his insolvency were only an affair of the moment, +which he would put right. Louise took the same view of it, and she urged +Maxwell to consider how Godolphin had promptly paid him, and would +always do so. + +"Probably I got the pay of some poor devil who needed it worse," said +Maxwell. + +She said, "Nonsense! The other actors will take care of all that. They +are so good to each other," and she blamed Maxwell for not going to see +Godolphin at once. + +"That was what I did," he answered, "but he wasn't at home. He was to be +at home after dinner." + +"Well, that makes it all the more providential," said Louise; her piety +always awoke in view of favorable chances. "You mustn't lose any time. +Better not wait for the coffee." + +"I think I'll wait for the coffee," said Maxwell. "It's no use going +there before eight." + +"No," she consented. "Where is he stopping?" + +"At the Coleman House." + +"The Coleman House? Then if that wretch should see you?" She meant the +manager of Mrs. Harley. + +"He wouldn't know me, probably," Maxwell returned, scornfully. "But if +you think there's any danger of his laying hold of me, and getting the +play away before Godolphin has a chance of refusing it, I'll go masked. +I'm tired of thinking about it. What sort of lunch did you have?" + +"I had the best time in the world. You ought to have come with me, +Brice. I shall make you, the next one. Oh, and guess who was there! Mr. +Ray!" + +"_Our_ Mr. Ray?" Maxwell breathlessly demanded. + +"There is no other, and he's the sweetest little dear in the world. He +isn't so big as you are, even, and he's such a merry spirit; he hasn't +the bulk your gloom gives you. I want you to be like him, Brice. I don't +see why you shouldn't go into society, too." + +"If I'd gone into society to-day, I should have missed seeing Grayson, +and shouldn't have known Godolphin was in town." + +"Well, that is true, of course. But if you get your play into +Godolphin's hands, you'll have to show yourself a little, so that nice +people will be interested in it. You ought to have heard Mr. Ray +celebrate it. He piped up before the whole table." + +Louise remembered what Ray said very well, and she repeated it to a +profound joy in Maxwell. It gave him an exquisite pleasure, and it +flattered him to believe that, as the hostess had said in response, +they, the nice people, must see it, though he had his opinion of nice +people, apart from their usefulness in seeing his play. To reward his +wife for it all, he rose as soon as he had drunk his coffee, and went +out to put on his hat and coat. She went with him, and saw that he put +them on properly, and did not go off with half his coat-collar turned +up. After he got his hat on, she took it off to see whether his +cow-lick was worse than usual. + +"Why, good heavens! Godolphin's seen me before, and besides, I'm not +going to propose marriage to him," he protested. + +"Oh, it's much more serious than that!" she sighed. "Anybody would take +_you_, dear, but it's your play we want him to take--or take back." + +When Maxwell reached the hotel, he did not find Godolphin there. He came +back twice; then, as something in his manner seemed to give Maxwell +authority, the clerk volunteered to say that he thought he might find +the actor at the Players' Club. In this hope he walked across to +Gramercy Park. Godolphin had been dining there, and when he got +Maxwell's name, he came half way down the stairs to meet him. He put his +arm round him to return to the library. + +There happened to be no one else there, and he made Maxwell sit down in +an arm-chair fronting his own, and give an account of himself since they +parted. He asked after Mrs. Maxwell's health, and as far as Maxwell +could make out he was sincere in the quest. He did not stop till he had +asked, with the most winning and radiant smile, "And the play, what have +you done with the play?" + +He was so buoyant that Maxwell could not be heavy about it, and he +answered as gayly: "Oh, I fancy I have been waiting for you to come on +and take it." + +Godolphin did not become serious, but he became if possible more +sincere. "Do you really think I could do anything with it?" + +"If you can't nobody can." + +"Why, that is very good of you, very good indeed, Maxwell. Do you know, +I have been thinking about that play. You see, the trouble was with the +Salome. The girl I had for the part was a thoroughly nice girl, but she +hadn't the weight for it. She did the comic touches charmingly, but when +it came to the tragedy she wasn't there. I never had any doubt that I +could create the part of Haxard. It's a noble part. It's the greatest +rōle on the modern stage. It went magnificently in Chicago--with the +best people. You saw what the critics said of it?" + +"No; you didn't send me the Chicago papers." Maxwell did not say that +all this was wholly different from what Godolphin had written him when +he renounced the play. Yet he felt that Godolphin was honest then and +was honest now. It was another point of view; that was all. + +"Ah, I thought I sent them. There was some adverse criticism of the +play as a whole, but there was only one opinion of Haxard. And you +haven't done anything with the piece yet?" + +"No, nothing." + +"And you think I could do Haxard? You still have faith in me?" + +"As much faith as I ever had," said Maxwell; and Godolphin found nothing +ambiguous in a thing certainly susceptible of two interpretations. + +"That is very good of you, Maxwell; very good." He lifted his fine head +and gazed absently a moment at the wall before him. "Well, then I will +tell you what I will do, Mr. Maxwell; I will take the play." + +"You will!" + +"Yes; that is if you think I can do the part." + +"Why, of course!" + +"And if--if there could be some changes--very slight changes--made in +the part of Salome. It needs subduing." Godolphin said this as if he had +never suggested anything of the kind before; as if the notion were newly +evolved from his experience. + +"I will do what I can, Mr. Godolphin," Maxwell promised, while he +knitted his brows in perplexity "But I do think that the very strength +of Salome gives relief to Haxard--gives him greater importance." + +"It _may_ be so, dramatically. But theatrically, it detracts from him. +Haxard must be the central figure in the eye of the audience from first +to last." + +Maxwell mused for a moment of discouragement. They were always coming +back to that; very likely Godolphin was right; but Maxwell did not know +just how to subdue the character of Salome so as to make her less +interesting. "Do you think that was what gave you bad houses in +Chicago--the double interest, or the weakened interest in Haxard?" + +"I think so," said Godolphin. + +"Were the houses bad--comparatively?" + +Godolphin took a little note-book out of his breast-pocket. "Here are my +dates. I opened the first night, the tenth of November, with Haxard, but +we papered the house thoroughly, and we made a good show to the public +and the press. There were four hundred and fifty dollars in it. The next +night there were three hundred; the next night, two eighty; Wednesday +matinée, less than two hundred. That night we put on 'Virginius,' and +played to eight hundred dollars; Thursday night, with the 'Lady of +Lyons,' we had eleven hundred; Friday night, we gave the 'Lady' to +twelve hundred; Saturday afternoon with the same piece, we took in +eleven hundred and fifty; Saturday night, with 'Ingomar,' we had +fifteen hundred dollars in the house, and a hundred people standing." +Maxwell listened with a drooping head; he was bitterly mortified. "But +it was too late then," said Godolphin, with a sigh, as he shut his hook. + +"Do you mean," demanded Maxwell, "that my piece had crippled you so +that--that--" + +"I didn't say that, Mr. Maxwell. I never meant to let you see the +figures. But you asked me." + +"Oh, you're quite right," said Maxwell. He thought how he had blamed the +actor, in his impatience with him, for not playing his piece +oftener--and called him fool and thought him knave for not doing it all +the time, as Godolphin had so lavishly promised to do. He caught at a +straw to save himself from sinking with shame. "But the houses, were +they so bad everywhere?" + +Godolphin checked himself in a movement to take out his note-book again; +Maxwell had given him such an imploring glance. "They were pretty poor +everywhere. But it's been a bad season with a good many people." + +"No, no," cried Maxwell. "You did very well with the other plays, +Godolphin. Why do you want to touch the thing again? It's been ruinous +to you so far. Give it up! Come! I can't let you have it!" + +Godolphin laughed, and all his beautiful white teeth shone. There was a +rich, wholesome red in his smoothly shaven cheeks; he was a real +pleasure to the eye. "I believe it would go better in New York. I'm not +afraid to try it. You mustn't take away my last chance of retrieving the +season. Hair of the dog, you know. Have you seen Grayson lately?" + +"Yes, I saw him this afternoon. It was he that told me you were in +town." + +"Ah, yes." + +"And Godolphin, I've got it on my conscience, if you do take the play, +to tell you that I offered it to Grayson, and he refused it. I think you +ought to know that; it's only fair; and for the matter of that, it's +been kicking round all the theatres in New York." + +"Dear boy!" said Godolphin, caressingly, and with a smile that was like +a benediction, "that doesn't make the least difference." + +"Well, I wished you to know," said Maxwell, with a great load off his +mind. + +"Yes, I understand that. Will you drink anything, or smoke anything? +Or--I forgot! I hate all that, too. But you'll join me in a cup of tea +downstairs?" They descended to the smoking-room below, and Godolphin +ordered the tea, and went on talking with a gay irrelevance till it +came. Then he said, as he poured out the two cups of it: "The fact is, +Grayson is going in with me, if I do your piece." This was news to +Maxwell, and yet he was somehow not surprised at it. "I dare say he told +you?" + +"No, he didn't give me any hint of it. He simply told me that you were +in town, and where you were." + +"Ah, that was like Grayson. Queer fish." + +"But I'm mighty glad to know it. You can make it go, together, if any +power on earth can do it; and if it fails," Maxwell added, "I shall have +the satisfaction of ruining some one else this time." + +"Well, Grayson has made nearly as bad a mess of it as I have, this +season," said Godolphin. "He's got to take off that thing he has going +now, and it's a question of what he shall put on. It will be an +experiment with Haxard, but I believe it will be a successful +experiment. I have every confidence in that play." Godolphin looked up, +his lips set convincingly, and with the air of a man who had stood +unfalteringly by his opinion from the first. "Now, if you will excuse +me, I will tell you what I think ought to be done to it." + +"By all means," said Maxwell; "I shall be glad to do anything you wish, +or that I can." + +Godolphin poured out a cloudy volume of suggestion, with nothing clear +in it but the belief that the part of Haxard ought to be fattened. He +recurred to all the structural impossibilities that he had ever desired, +and there was hardly a point in the piece that he did not want changed. +At the end he said: "But all these things are of no consequence, +comparatively speaking. What we need is a woman who can take the part of +Salome, and play it with all the feminine charm that you've given it, +and yet keep it strictly in the background, or thoroughly subordinated +to the interest of Haxard." + +For all that Godolphin seemed to have learned from his experience with +the play, Maxwell might well have thought they were still talking of it +at Magnolia. It was a great relief to his prepossessions in the form of +conclusions to have Grayson appear, with the air of looking for some +one, and of finding the object of his search in Godolphin. He said he +was glad to see Maxwell, too, and they went on talking of the play. From +the talk of the other two Maxwell perceived that the purpose of doing +his play had already gone far with them; but they still spoke of it as +something that would be very good if the interest could be unified in +it. Suddenly the manager broke out: "Look here, Godolphin! I have an +idea! Why not frankly accept the inevitable! I don't believe Mr. Maxwell +can make the play different from what it is, structurally, and I don't +believe the character of Salome can be subdued or subordinated. Then why +not play Salome as strongly as possible, and trust to her strength to +enhance Haxard's effect, instead of weakening it?" + +Godolphin smiled towards Maxwell: "That was your idea." + +"Yes," said Maxwell, and he kept himself from falling on Grayson's neck +for joy. + +"It might do," the actor assented with smiling eagerness and tolerant +superiority. "But whom could you get for such a Salome as that?" + +"Well, there's only one woman for it," said Grayson. + +"Yolande Havisham?" + +The name made Maxwell's heart stop. He started forward to say that Mrs. +Harley could not have the part, when the manager said: "And we couldn't +get her. Sterne has engaged her to star in his combination. By the way, +he was looking for you to-day, Mr. Maxwell." + +"I missed him," answered Maxwell, with immense relief. "But I should not +have let him have the piece while I had the slightest hope of your +taking it." + +Neither the manager nor the actor was perhaps greatly moved by his +generous preference, though they both politely professed to be so. They +went on to canvass the qualities and reputations of all the other +actresses attainable, and always came back to Yolande Havisham, who was +unattainable; Sterne would never give her up in the world, even if she +were willing to give up the chance he was offering her. But she was the +one woman who could do Salome. + +They decided that they must try to get Miss Pettrell, who had played the +part with Godolphin, and who had done it with refinement, if not with +any great force. When they had talked to this conclusion, Grayson +proposed getting something to eat, and the others refused, but they went +into the dining-room with him, where he showed Maxwell the tankards of +the members hanging on the walls over their tables--Booth's tankard, +Salvini's, Irving's, Jefferson's. He was surprised that Maxwell was not +a member of the Players, and said that he must be; it was the only club +for him, if he was going to write for the stage. He came out with them +and pointed out several artists whose fame Maxwell knew, and half a +dozen literary men, among them certain playwrights; they were all +smoking, and the place was blue with the fumes of their cigars. The +actors were coming in from the theatres for supper, and Maxwell found +himself with his friends in a group with a charming old comedian who was +telling brief, vivid little stories, and sketching character, with +illustrations from his delightful art. He was not swagger, like some of +the younger men who stood about with their bell-crowned hats on, before +they went into supper; and two or three other elderly actors who sat +round him and took their turn in the anecdote and mimicry looked, with +their smooth-shaven faces, like old-fashioned ministers. Godolphin, who +was like a youthful priest, began to tell stories, too; and he told very +good ones admirably, but without appearing to feel their quality, though +he laughed loudly at them with the rest. + +When Maxwell refused every one's wish to have him eat or drink +something, and said good-night, Grayson had already gone in to his +supper, and Godolphin rose and smiled so fondly upon him that Maxwell +felt as if the actor had blessed him. But he was less sure than in the +beginning of the evening that the play was again in Godolphin's hands; +and he had to confirm himself from his wife's acceptance of the facts in +the belief that it was really so. + + + + +XXI. + + +Louise asked Maxwell, as soon as they had established their joint faith, +whom Godolphin was going to get to play Salome, and he said that Grayson +would like to re-engage Miss Pettrell, though he had a theory that the +piece would be strengthened, and the effect of Haxard enhanced, if they +could have a more powerful Salome. + +"Mr. Ray told me at lunch," said Louise, impartially but with an air of +relief, "that in all the love-making she was delightful; but when it +came to the tragedy, she wasn't there." + +"Grayson seemed to think that if she could be properly rehearsed, she +could be brought up to it," Maxwell interposed. + +"Mr. Ray said she was certainly very refined, and her Salome was always +a lady. And that is the essential thing," Louise added, decisively. "I +don't at all agree with Mr. Grayson about having Salome played so +powerfully. I think Mr. Godolphin is right." + +"For Heaven's sake don't tell him so!" said Maxwell. "We have had +trouble enough to get him under." + +"Indeed, I shall tell him so! I think he ought to know how we feel." + +"_We?_" repeated Maxwell. + +"Yes. What we want for Salome is sweetness and delicacy and refinement; +for she has to do rather a bold thing, and yet keep herself a lady." + +"Well, it may be too late to talk of Miss Pettrell now," said Maxwell. +"Your favorite Godolphin parted enemies with her." + +"Oh, stage enemies! Mr. Grayson can get her, and he must." + +"I'll tell him what your orders are," said Maxwell. + +The next day he saw the manager, but nothing had been done, and the +affair seemed to be hanging fire again. In the evening, while he was +talking it over with his wife in a discouragement which they could not +shake off, a messenger came to him with a letter from the Argosy +Theatre, which he tore nervously open. + +"What is it, dear?" asked his wife, tenderly. "Another disappointment?" + +"Not exactly," he returned, with a husky voice, and after a moment of +faltering he gave her the letter. It was from Grayson, and it was to the +effect that he had seen Sterne, and that Sterne had agreed to a +proposition he had made him, to take Maxwell's play on the road, if it +succeeded, and in view of this had agreed to let Yolande Havisham take +the part of Salome. + +Godolphin was going to get all his old company together as far as +possible, with the exception of Miss Pettrell, and there was to be +little or no delay, because the actors had mostly got back to New York, +and were ready to renew their engagements. That no time might be lost, +Grayson asked Maxwell to come the next morning and read the piece to +such of them as he could get together in the Argosy greenroom, and give +them his sense of it. + +Louise handed him back the letter, and said, with dangerous calm: "You +might save still more time by going down to Mrs. Harley's apartment and +reading it to her at once." Maxwell was miserably silent, and she +pursued: "May I ask whether you knew they were going to try to get her?" + +"No," said Maxwell. + +"Was there anything said about her?" + +"Yes, there was, last night. But both Grayson and Godolphin regarded it +as impossible to get her." + +"Why didn't you tell me that they would like to get her?" + +"You knew it, already. And I thought, as they both had given up the hope +of getting her, I wouldn't mention the subject. It's always been a very +disagreeable one." + +"Yes." Louise sat quiet, and then she said: "What a long misery your +play has been to me!" + +"You haven't helped make it any great joy to me," said Maxwell, +bitterly. + +She began to weep, silently, and he stood looking down at her in utter +wretchedness. "Well," he said at last, "what shall I do about it?" + +Louise wiped her tears, and cleared up cold, as we say of the weather. +She rose, as if to leave the room, and said, haughtily: "You shall do as +you think best for yourself. You must let them have the play, and let +them choose whom they think best for the part. But you can't expect me +to come to see it." + +"Then that unsays all the rest. If you don't come to see it, I sha'n't, +and I shall not let them have the piece. That is all. Louise," he +entreated, after these first desperate words, "_can't_ we grapple with +this infernal nightmare, so as to get it into the light, somehow, and +see what it really is? How can it matter to you who plays the part? Why +do you care whether Miss Pettrell or Mrs. Harley does it?" + +"Why do you ask such a thing as that?" she returned, in the same hard +frost. "You know where the idea of the character came from, and why it +was sacred to me. Or perhaps you forget!" + +"No, I don't forget. But try--can't you try?--to specify just why you +object to Mrs. Harley?" + +"You have your theory. You said I was jealous of her." + +"I didn't mean it. I never believed that." + +"Then I can't explain. If you don't understand, after all that's been +said, what is the use of talking? I'm tired of it!" + +She went into her room, and he sank into the chair before his desk and +sat there, thinking. When she came back, after a while, he did not look +round at her, and she spoke to the back of his head. "Should you have +any objection to my going home for a few days?" + +"No," he returned. + +"I know papa would like to have me, and I think you would be less +hampered in what you will have to do now if I'm not here." + +"You're very considerate. But if that's what you are going for, you +might as well stay. I'm not going to do anything whatever." + +"Now, you mustn't talk foolishly, Brice," she said, with an air of +superior virtue mixed with a hint of martyrdom. "I won't have you doing +anything rash or boyish. You will go on and let them have your play just +the same as if I didn't exist." She somewhat marred the effect of her +self-devotion by adding: "And I shall go on just as if _it_ didn't +exist." He said nothing, and she continued: "You couldn't expect me to +take any interest in it after this, could you? Because, though I am +ready to make any sort of sacrifice for you, I think any one, I don't +care who it was, would say that was a little _too_ much. Don't you think +so yourself?" + +"You are always right. I think that." + +"Don't be silly. I am trying to do the best I can, and you have no right +to make it hard for me." + +Maxwell wheeled round in his chair: "Then I wish you wouldn't make your +best so confoundedly disagreeable." + +"Oh!" she twitted. "I see that you have made up your mind to let them +have the play, after all." + +"Yes, I have," he answered, savagely. + +"Perhaps you meant to do it all along?" + +"Perhaps I did." + +"Very well, then," said Louise. "Would you mind coming to the train with +me on your way down town to-morrow?" + +"Not at all." + + + + +XXII. + + +In the morning neither of them recurred to what Louise had said of her +going home for a few days. She had apparently made no preparation for +the journey; but if she was better than her words in this, he was quite +as bad as his in going down town after breakfast to let Grayson have the +play, no matter whom he should get to do Salome. He did not reiterate +his purpose, but she knew from the sullen leave, or no-leave, which he +took of her, that it was fixed. + +When he was gone she had what seemed to her the very worst quarter of an +hour she had ever known; but when he came back in the afternoon, looking +haggard but savage, her ordeal had long been over. She asked him quietly +if they had come to any definite conclusion about the play, and he +answered, with harsh aggression, yes, that Mrs. Harley had agreed to +take the part of Salome; Godolphin's old company had been mostly got +together, and they were to have the first rehearsal the next morning. + +"Should you like me to come some time?" asked Louise. + +"I should like you very much to come," said Maxwell, soberly, but with a +latent doubt of her meaning, which she perceived. + +"I have been thinking," she said, "whether you would like me to call on +Mrs. Harley this evening with you?" + +"What for?" he demanded, suspiciously. + +"Well, I don't know. I thought it might be appropriate." + +Maxwell thought a moment. "I don't think it would be expected. After +all, it isn't a personal thing," he said, with a relenting in his +defiance. + +"No," said Louise. + +They got through the evening without further question. + +They had always had some sort of explicit making-up before, even when +they had only had a tacit falling out, but this time Louise thought +there had better be none of that. They were to rehearse the play every +day that week, and Maxwell said he must be at the theatre the next +morning at eleven. He could not make out to his wife's satisfaction +that he was of much use, but he did not try to convince her. He only +said that they referred things to him now and then, and that generally +he did not seem to know much about them. She saw that his ęsthetic +honesty kept him from pretending to more than this, and she believed he +ought to have greater credit than he claimed. + +Four or five days later she went with him to a rehearsal. By this time +they had got so well forward with their work at the theatre that Maxwell +said it would now be in appreciable shape; but still he warned her not +to expect too much. He never could tell her just what she wanted to know +about Mrs. Harley; all he could say was that her Salome was not ideal, +though it had strong qualities; and he did not try to keep her from +thinking it offensive; that would only have made bad worse. + +It had been snowing overnight, and there was a bright glare of sunshine +on the drifts, which rendered the theatre doubly dark when they stepped +into it from the street. It was a dramatic event for Louise to enter by +the stage-door, and to find Maxwell recognized by the old man in charge +as having authority to do so; and she made as much of the strange +interior as the obscurity and her preoccupation would allow. There was +that immediate bareness and roughness which seems the first +characteristic of the theatre behind the scenes, where the theatre is +one of the simplest and frankest of workshops, in which certain effects +are prepared to be felt before the footlights. Nothing of the glamour of +the front is possible; there is a hard air of business in everything; +and the work that goes to the making of a play shows itself the severest +toil. Figures now came and went in the twilight beyond the reach of the +gas in the door-keeper's booth, but rapidly as if bent upon definite +errands, and with nothing of that loitering gayety which is the imagined +temperament of the stage. + +Louise and Maxwell were to see Grayson first in his private office, and +while their names were taken in, the old door-keeper gave them seats on +the Mourners' Bench, a hard wooden settee in the corridor, which he said +was the place where actors wanting an engagement waited till the manager +sent word that he could see them. The manager did not make the author +and his wife wait, but came for them himself, and led the way back to +his room. When he gave them seats there, Maxwell had the pleasure of +seeing that Louise made an excellent impression with the magnate, of +whom he had never quite lost the awe we feel for the master of our +fortunes, whoever he is. He perceived that her inalienable worldly +splendor added to his own consequence, and that his wife's air of +_grande dame_ was not lost upon a man who could at least enjoy it +artistically. Grayson was very polite to her, and said hopefuller things +about the play than he had yet said to Maxwell, though he had always +been civil about its merits. He had a number of papers before him, and +he asked Louise if she had noticed their friendliness. She said, yes, +she had seen some of those things, but she had supposed they were +authorized, and she did not know how much to value them. + +Grayson laughed and confessed that he did not practice any concealments +with the press when it was a question of getting something to the public +notice. "Of course," he said, "we don't want the piece to come in on +rubbers." + +"What do you mean?" she demanded, with an ignorant joy in the phrase. + +"That's what we call it when a thing hasn't been sufficiently heralded, +or heralded at all. We have got to look after that part of it, you +know." + +"Of course, I am not complaining, though I think all that's dreadful." + +The manager assented partly. Then he said: "There's something curious +about it. You may put up the whole affair yourself, and yet in what's +said you can tell whether there's a real good will that comes from the +writers themselves or not." + +"And you mean that there is this mystical kindness for Mr. Maxwell's +play in the prophecies that all read so much alike to me?" + +"Yes, I do," said the manager, laughing. "They like him because he's new +and young, and is making his way single-handed." + +"Well," said Louise, "those seem good grounds for preference to me, +too;" and she thought how nearly they had been her own grounds for +liking Maxwell. + +Grayson went with them to the stage and found her the best place to sit +and see the rehearsal. He made some one get chairs, and he sat with her +chatting while men in high hats and overcoats and women in bonnets and +fur-edged butterfly-capes came in one after another. Godolphin arrived +among the first, with an ulster which came down to where his pantaloons +were turned up above his overshoes. He caught sight of Louise, and +approached her with outstretched hand, and Grayson gave up his chair to +the actor. Godolphin was very cordial, deferentially cordial, with a +delicate vein of reminiscent comradery running through his manner. She +spoke to him of having at last got his ideal for Salome, and he said, +with a slight sigh and a sort of melancholy absence: "Yes, Miss Havisham +will do it magnificently." Then he asked, with a look of latent +significance: + +"Have you ever seen her?" + +Louise laughed for as darkling a reason. "Only in real life. You know we +live just over and under each other." + +"Ah, true. But I meant, on the stage. She's a great artist. You know +she's the one I wanted for Salome from the start." + +"Then you ought to be very happy in getting her at last." + +"She will do everything for the play," sighed Godolphin. "She'll make up +for all my shortcomings." + +"You won't persuade us that you have any shortcomings, Mr. Godolphin," +said Louise. "You are Haxard, and Haxard is the play. You can't think, +Mr. Godolphin, how deeply grateful we both are to you for your +confidence in my husband's work, your sacrifices--" + +"You overpay me a thousand times for everything, Mrs. Maxwell," said +the actor. "Any one might have been proud and happy to do all I've done, +and more, for such a play. I've never changed my opinion for a moment +that it was _the_ American drama. And now if Miss Havisham only turns +out to be the Salome we want!" + +"If?" returned Louise, and she felt a wild joy in the word. "Why, I +thought there could be no earthly doubt about it." + +"Oh, there isn't. We are all united on that point, I believe, Maxwell?" + +Maxwell shrugged. "I confide in you and Mr. Grayson." + +Godolphin looked at his watch. "It's eleven now, and she isn't here yet. +I would rather not have begun without her, but I think we had better not +delay any longer." He excused himself to Louise, and went and sat down +with his hat on at a small table, lit with a single electric bulb, +dropping like a luminous spider by a thread from the dark above. Other +electric bulbs were grouped before reflectors on either side of the +stage, and these shone on the actors before Godolphin. Back in the +depths of the stage, some scene-painters and carpenters were at work on +large strips of canvas lying unrolled upon the floor or stretched upon +light wooden frames. Across Godolphin's head the dim hollow of the +auditorium showed, pierced by long bars of sunlight full of dancing +motes, which slanted across its gloom from the gallery windows. Women in +long aprons were sweeping the floors and pounding the seats, and a smell +of dust from their labors mixed with the smell of paint and glue and +escaping gas which pervaded the atmosphere of the stage. + +Godolphin made Maxwell come and sit with him at the table; he opened his +prompt-book and directed the rehearsal to begin. The people were mostly +well up in their parts, and the work went smoothly, except for now and +then an impatience in Godolphin which did not seem to come from what was +going forward. + +He showed himself a thorough master of his trade in its more mechanical +details, and there were signal instances of his intelligence in the +higher things of it which might well have put Mrs. Maxwell to shame for +her many hasty judgments of the actor. He was altogether more of a man, +more of a mind, than she had supposed, even when she supposed the best +of him. She perceived that Godolphin grasped the whole meaning of her +husband's work, and interpreted its intentions with perfect accuracy, +not only in his own part of Haxard, but in all the other persons, and +he corrected the playing of each of the rōles as the rehearsal went on. +She saw how he had really formed the other actors upon himself. They +repeated his tones, his attitudes, his mannerisms, in their several +ways. His touch could be felt all through the performance, and his +limitations characterized it. He was very gentle and forbearing with +their mistakes, but he was absolute master all the same. If some one +erred, Godolphin left his place and went and showed how the thing should +be said and done. He carefully addressed the men by their surnames, with +the Mr. always; the women were all Dear to him, according to a +convention of the theatre. He said, "No, dear," and "Yes, dear," and he +was as caressingly deferential to each of them as he was formally +deferential to the men; he required the same final obedience of them, +and it was not always so easy to make them obey. In non-essentials he +yielded at times, as when one of the ladies had overdone a point, and he +demurred. "But I always got a laugh on that, Mr. Godolphin," she +protested. "Oh, well, my dear, hang on to your laugh, then." However he +meant to do Haxard himself, his voice was for simplicity and reality in +others. "Is that the way you would do it, is that the way you would say +it, if it were _you_?" he stopped one of the men in a bit of rant. + +Even of Maxwell he exacted as clear a vision of his own work as he +exacted of its interpreters. He asked the author his notion of points in +dress and person among the different characters, which he had hitherto +only generalized in his mind, and which he was gladly willing, when they +were brought home to him, to leave altogether to Godolphin's judgment. + +The rehearsal had gone well on towards the end of the first act, and +Godolphin was beginning to fidget. From where she sat Louise saw him +take out his watch and lean towards her husband to say something. An +actor who was going through a piece of business perceived that he had +not Godolphin's attention, and stopped. Just then Mrs. Harley came in. + +Godolphin rose and advanced towards her with the prompt-book shut on his +thumb. "You are late, Miss Havisham." + +"Yes," she answered, haughtily, as if in resentment of his tone. She +added in concession, "Unavoidably. But Salome doesn't come on till the +end of the act." + +"I think it best for the whole company to be present from the +beginning," said Godolphin. + +"I quite agree with you," said Mrs. Harley. "Where are we?" she asked, +and then she caught sight of Louise, and came up to her. "How do you do, +Mrs. Maxwell? I don't know whether I'm glad to see you or not. I believe +I'm rather afraid to have you see my Salome; I've an idea you are going +to be very severe with her." + +"I am sure no severity will be needed. You'll see me nodding approval +all the way through," Louise returned. + +"I have always thought, somehow, that you had the part especially under +your protection. I feel that I'm a very bold woman to attempt it." + +In spite of her will to say "Yes, a very bold woman indeed!" Louise +answered: "Then I shall admire your courage, as well as your art." + +She was aware of Godolphin fretting at the colloquy he could not +interrupt, and of Mrs. Harley prolonging it wilfully. "I know you are +sincere, and I am going to make you tell me everything you object to in +me when it's over. Will you?" + +"Of course," Louise answered, gayly; and now Mrs. Harley turned to +Godolphin again: "_Where_ were you?" + + + + +XXIII. + + +Twice during the rehearsal Maxwell came to Louise and asked her if she +were not tired and would not like to go home; he offered to go out and +put her on a car. But both times she made him the same answer: she was +not tired, and would not go away on any account; the second time she +said, with a certain meaning in her look and voice, that she thought she +could stand it if he could. At the end she went up and made her +compliments to Mrs. Harley. "You must enjoy realizing your ideal of a +character so perfectly," she began. + +"Yes? Did you feel that about it?" the actress returned. "It _is_ a +satisfaction. But if one has a strong conception of a part, I don't see +how one can help rendering it strongly. And this Salome, she takes hold +of me so powerfully. Her passion and her will, that won't stop at +anything, seem to pierce through and through me. You can feel that she +wouldn't mind killing a man or two to carry her point." + +"That is certainly what _you_ make one feel about her. And you make her +very living, very actual." + +"You are very good," said Mrs. Harley. "I am so glad you liked it. I was +dreadfully afraid you wouldn't like it." + +"Oh, I couldn't imagine your being afraid of anything," said Louise, +lightly. Her smile was one which the other woman might have known how to +interpret rightly, but her husband alone among men could feel its +peculiar quality. Godolphin beamed with apparent satisfaction in it. + +"Wasn't Salome magnificent?" he said; and he magnanimously turned to the +actress. "You will make everybody forget Haxard. You made _me_ forget +him." + +"_I_ didn't forget him though," said Mrs. Harley. "I was trying all the +time to play up to him--and to Mrs. Maxwell." + +The actor laughed his deep, mellow, hollow laugh, which was a fine work +of art in itself, and said: "Mrs. Maxwell, you must let me present the +other _dramatis personę_ to you," and he introduced the whole cast of +the play, one after another. Each said something of the Salome, how +grand it was, how impassioned, how powerful. Maxwell stood by, +listening, with his eyes on his wife's face, trying to read her thought. + +They were silent most of the way home, and she only talked of +indifferent things. When the door of their apartment shut them in with +themselves alone, she broke out: "Horrible, horrible, horrible! Well, +the play is ruined, ruined! We might as well die; or _I_ might! I +suppose _you_ really liked it!" + +Maxwell turned white with anger. "I didn't try to make her _think_ I +did, anyway. But I knew how you really felt, and I don't believe you +deceived her very much, either. All the same I was ashamed to see you +try." + +"Don't talk to me--don't speak! She knew from every syllable I uttered +that I perfectly loathed it, and I know that she tried to make it as +hateful to me all the way through as she could. She played it _at_ me, +and she knew it _was_ me. It was as if she kept saying all the time, +'How do you like my translation of your Boston girl into Alabama, or +Mississippi, or Arkansas, or wherever I came from? This is the way you +would have acted, if you were _me_!' Yes, that is the hideous part of +it. Her nature has _come off_ on the character, and I shall never see, +or hear, or think, or dream Salome, after this, without having Yolande +Havisham before me. She's spoiled the sweetest thing in my life. She's +made me hate myself; she's made me hate _you_! Will you go out somewhere +and get your lunch? I don't want anything myself, and just now I can't +bear to look at you. Oh, you're not to blame, that I know of, if that's +what you mean. Only go!" + +"I can go out for lunch, certainly," said Maxwell "Perhaps you would +rather I stayed out for dinner, too?" + +"Don't be cruel, dearest. I am trying to control myself--" + +"I shouldn't have thought it. You're not succeeding." + +"No, not so well as you, if you hated this woman's Salome as much as I +did. If it's always been as bad as it was to-day you've controlled +yourself wonderfully well never to give me any hint of it, or prepare me +for it in the least." + +"How could I prepare you? You would have come to it with your own +prepossessions, no matter what I said." + +"Was that why you said nothing?" + +"You would have hated it if she had played it with angelic perfection, +because you hated her." + +"Perhaps you think she really did play it with angelic perfection! Well, +you needn't come back to dinner." + +Louise passed into their room, to lay off her hat and sack. + +"I will not come back at all, if you prefer," Maxwell called after her. + +"I have no preferences in the matter," she mocked back. + + + + +XXIV. + + +Maxwell and Louise had torn at each other's hearts till they were +bleeding, and he wished to come back at once and she wished him to come, +that they might hurt themselves still more savagely; but when this +desire passed, they longed to meet and bind up one another's wounds. +This better feeling brought them together before night-fall, when +Maxwell returned, and Louise, at the sound of his latch-key in the door, +ran to let him in. + +"Mr. Godolphin is here," she said, in a loud, cheery voice, and he +divined that he owed something of his eager welcome to her wish to keep +him from resuming the quarrel unwittingly. "He has just come to talk +over the rehearsal with you, and I wouldn't let him go. I was sure you +would be back soon." + +She put her finger to her lip, with whatever warning intention, and +followed her husband into the presence of the actor, and almost into +his arms, so rapturous was the meeting between them. + +"Well," cried Godolphin, "I couldn't help looking in a moment to talk +with you and Mrs. Maxwell about our Salome. I feel that she will make +the fortune of the piece--of any piece. Doesn't Miss Havisham's +rendition grow upon you? It's magnificent. It's on the grand scale. It's +immense. The more I think about it, the more I'm impressed with it. +She'll carry the house by storm. I've never seen anything like it; and +I'm glad to find that Mrs. Maxwell feels just as I do about it." Maxwell +looked at his wife, who returned his glance with a guiltless eye. "I was +afraid she might feel the loss of things that certainly _are_ lost in +it. I don't say that Miss Havisham's Salome, superb as it is, is _your_ +Salome--or Mrs. Maxwell's. I've always fancied that Mrs. Maxwell had a +great deal to do with that character, and--I don't know why--I've always +thought of her when I've thought of _it_; but at the same time it's a +splendid Salome. She makes it Southern, almost tropical. It isn't the +Boston Salome. You may say that it is wanting in delicacy and the nice +shades; but it's full of passion; there's nothing caviare to the general +in it. The average audience will understand just what the girl that +Miss Havisham gives is after, and she gives her so abundantly that +there's no more doubt of the why than there is of the how. Sometimes I +used to think the house couldn't follow Miss Pettrell in her subtle +touches, but the house, to the topmost tier of the gallery, will get +Miss Havisham's intention." + +Godolphin was standing while he said all this, and Maxwell now asked: +"Won't you sit down?" + +The actor had his overcoat on his arm, and his hat in one hand. He +tapped at his boot with the umbrella he held in the other. "No, I don't +believe I will, thank you. The fact is, I just dropped in a moment to +reassure you if you had misgivings about the Salome, and to give you my +point of view." + +Maxwell did not say anything; he looked at Louise again, and it seemed +to her that he meant her to speak. She said, "Oh, we understood that we +couldn't have all kinds of a Salome in one creation of the part; and I'm +sure no one can see Mrs. Harley in it without feeling her intensity." + +"She's a force," said Godolphin. "And if, as we all decided," he +continued, to Maxwell, "when we talked it over with Grayson, that a +powerful Salome would heighten the effect of Haxard, she is going to +make the success of the piece." + +"_You_ are going to make the success of the piece!" cried Louise. + +"Ah, I sha'n't care if they forget me altogether," said the actor; "I +shall forget myself." He laughed his mellow, hollow laugh, and gave his +hand to Louise and then to Maxwell. "I'm so glad you feel as you do +about it, and I don't wish you to lose your faith in our Salome for a +moment. You've quite confirmed mine." He wrung the hands of each with a +fervor of gratitude that left them with a disquiet which their eyes +expressed to each other when he was gone. + +"What does it mean?" asked Louise. + +Maxwell shook his head. "It's beyond me." + +"Brice," she appealed, after a moment, "do you think I had been saying +anything to set him against her?" + +"No," he returned, instantly. "Why should I suspect you of anything so +base?" + +Her throat was full, but she made out to say, "No, you are too generous, +too good for such a thing;" and now she went on to eat humble-pie with a +self-devotion which few women could practise. "I know that if I don't +like having her I have no one but myself to thank for it. If I had never +written to that miserable Mr. Sterne, or answered his advertisement, he +would never have heard of your play, and nothing that has happened +would have happened." + +"No, you don't know that at all," said Maxwell; and it seemed to her +that she must sink to her knees under his magnanimity. "The thing might +have happened in a dozen different ways." + +"No matter. I am to blame for it when it did happen; and now you will +never hear another word from me. Would you like me to swear it?" + +"That would be rather unpleasant," said Maxwell. + +They both felt a great physical fatigue, and they neither had the wish +to prolong the evening after dinner. Maxwell was going to lock the door +of the apartment at nine o'clock, and then go to bed, when there came a +ring at it. He opened it, and stood confronted with Grayson, looking +very hot and excited. + +"Can I come in a moment?" the manager asked. "Are you alone? Can I speak +with you?" + +"There's no one here but Mrs. Maxwell," said her husband, and he led the +way into the parlor. + +"And if you don't like," Louise confessed to have overheard him, "you +needn't speak before her even." + +"No, no," said the manager, "don't go! We may want your wisdom. We +certainly want all the wisdom we can get on the question. It's about +Godolphin." + +"Godolphin?" they both echoed. + +"Yes. He's given up the piece." + +The manager drew out a letter, which he handed to Maxwell, and which +Louise read with her husband, over his shoulder. It was addressed to +Grayson, and began very formally. + + "DEAR SIR: + + "I wish to resign to you all claim I may have to a joint interest + in Mr. Maxwell's piece, and to withdraw from the company formed for + its representation. I feel that my part in it has been made + secondary to another, and I have finally decided to relinquish it + altogether. I trust that you will be able to supply my place, and I + offer you my best wishes for the success of your enterprise. + + "Yours very truly, + "L. GODOLPHIN." + +The Maxwells did not look at each other; they both looked at the +manager, and neither spoke. + +"You see," said the manager, putting the letter back in its envelope, +"it's Miss Havisham. I saw some signs of what was coming at the +rehearsals, but I didn't think it would take such peremptory shape." + +"Why, but he was here only a few hours ago, praising her to the skies," +said Louise; and she hoped that she was keeping secret the guilty joy +she felt; but probably it was not unknown to her husband. + +"Oh, of course," said Grayson, with a laugh, "that was Godolphin's way. +He may have felt all that he said; or he may have been trying to find +out what Mr. Maxwell thought, and whether he could count upon him in a +move against her." + +"We said nothing," cried Louise, and she blessed heaven that she could +truly say so, "which could possibly be distorted into that." + +"I didn't suppose you had," said the manager. "But now we have got to +act. We have got to do one of two things, and Godolphin knows it; we +have got to let Miss Havisham go, or we have got to let him go. For my +part I would much rather let him go. She is a finer artist every way, +and she is more important to the success of the piece. But it would be +more difficult to replace him than it would be to replace her, and he +knows it. We could get Miss Pettrell at once for Salome, and we should +have to look about for a Haxard. Still, I am disposed to drop Godolphin, +if Mr. Maxwell feels as I do." + +He looked at Maxwell; but Louise lowered her eyes, and would not +influence her husband by so much as a glance. It seemed to her that he +was a long time answering. + +"I am satisfied with Godolphin's Haxard much better than I am with Miss +Havisham's Salome, strong as it is. On the artistic side alone, I +should prefer to keep Godolphin and let her go, if it could be done +justly. Then, I know that Godolphin has made sacrifices and borne losses +on account of the play, and I think that he has a right to a share in +its success, if it has a chance of succeeding. He's jealous of Miss +Havisham, of course; I could see that from the first minute; but he's +earned the first place, and I'm not surprised he wants to keep it. I +shouldn't like to lose it if I were he. I should say that we ought to +make any concession he asks in that way." + +"Very well," said Grayson. "He will ask to have our agreement with Mrs. +Harley broken; and we can say that we were compelled to break it. I feel +as you do, that he has some right on his side. She's a devilish +provoking woman--excuse me, Mrs. Maxwell!--and I've seen her trying to +take the centre from Godolphin ever since the rehearsals began; but I +don't like to be driven by him; still, there are worse things than being +driven. In any case we have to accept the inevitable, and it's only a +question of which inevitable we accept. Good-night. I will see Godolphin +at once. Good-night, Mrs. Maxwell. We shall expect you to do what you +can in consoling your fair neighbor and reconciling _her_ to the +inevitable." Louise did not know whether this was ironical or not, and +she did not at all like the laugh from Maxwell which greeted the +suggestion. + +"_I_ shall have to reconcile Sterne, and I don't believe that will be +half so easy." + +The manager's words were gloomy, but there was an imaginable relief in +his tone and a final cheerfulness in his manner. He left the Maxwells to +a certain embarrassment in each other's presence. Louise was the first +to break the silence that weighed upon them both. + +"Brice, did you decide that way to please me?" + +"I am not such a fool," said Maxwell. + +"Because," she said, "if you did, you did very wrong, and I don't +believe any good could come of it." + +Yet she did not seem altogether averse to the risks involved; and in +fact she could not justly accuse herself of what had happened, however +devoutly she had wished for such a consummation. + + + + +XXV. + + +It was Miss Havisham and not Godolphin who appeared to the public as +having ended the combination their managers had formed. The interviewing +on both sides continued until the interest of the quarrel was lost in +that of the first presentation of the play, when the impression that +Miss Havisham had been ill-used was effaced by the impression made by +Miss Pettrell in the part of Salome. Her performance was not only +successful in the delicacy and refinement which her friends expected of +her, but she brought to the work a vivid yet purely feminine force which +took them by surprise and made the public her own. No one in the house +could have felt, as the Maxwells felt, a certain quality in it which it +would be extremely difficult to characterize without overstating it. +Perhaps Louise felt this more even than her husband, for when she +appealed to him, he would scarcely confess to a sense of it; but from +time to time in the stronger passages she was aware of an echo, to the +ear and to the eye, of a more passionate personality than Miss +Pettrell's. Had Godolphin profited by his knowledge of Miss Havisham's +creation, and had he imparted to Miss Pettrell, who never saw it, hints +of it which she used in her own creation of the part? If he had, just +what was the measure and the nature of his sin? Louise tormented herself +with this question, while a sense of the fact went as often as it came, +and left her in a final doubt of it. What was certain was that if +Godolphin had really committed this crime, of which he might have been +quite unconsciously guilty, Miss Pettrell was wholly innocent of it; +and, indeed, the effect she made might very well have been imagined by +herself, and only have borne this teasing resemblance by pure accident. +Godolphin was justly punished if he were culpable, and he suffered an +eclipse in any case which could not have been greater from Miss +Havisham. There were recalls for the chief actors at every fall of the +curtain, and at the end of the third act, in which Godolphin had really +been magnificent, there began to be cries of "Author! Author!" and a +messenger appeared in the box where the Maxwells sat and begged the +author, in Godolphin's name, to come behind at once. The next thing that +Louise knew the actor was leading her husband on the stage and they +were both bowing to the house, which shouted at them and had them back +once and twice and still shouted, but now with a certain confusion of +voices in its demand, which continued till the author came on a fourth +time, led by the actor as before, and himself leading the heroine of his +piece. Then the storm of applause left no doubt that the will of the +house had been rightly interpreted. + +Louise sat still, with the tears blurring the sight before her. They +were not only proud and happy tears, but they were tears of humble +gratitude that it was Miss Pettrell, and not Mrs. Harley, whom her +husband was leading on to share his triumph. She did not think her own +desert was great; but she could not tax herself with any wrong that she +had not at least tried to repair; she felt that what she had escaped she +could not have suffered, and that Heaven was merciful to her weakness, +if not just to her merit. Perhaps this was why she was so humble and so +grateful. + +There arose in her a vague fear as to what Godolphin might do in the +case of a Salome who was certainly no more subordinated to his Haxard +than Miss Havisham's, or what new demands he might not make upon the +author; but Maxwell came back to her with a message from the actor, +which he wished conveyed with his congratulations upon the success of +the piece. This was to tell her of his engagement to Miss Pettrell, +which had suddenly taken place that day, and which he thought there +could be no moment so fit to impart to her as that of their common +triumph. + +Louise herself went behind at the end of the piece, and made herself +acceptable to both the artists in her cordial good wishes. Neither of +them resented the arch intention with which she said to Godolphin, "I +suppose you won't mind such a beautiful Salome as Miss Pettrell has +given us, now that it's to be all in the family." + +Miss Pettrell answered for him with as complete an intelligence: "Oh, I +shall know how to subdue her to his Haxard, if she ever threatens the +peace of the domestic hearth." + +That Salome has never done so in any serious measure Maxwell argues from +the fact that, though the Godolphins have now been playing his piece +together for a whole year since their marriage, they have not yet been +divorced. + +THE END. + + + * * * * * + + + AN OPEN-EYED CONSPIRACY. $1 00. + + THE LANDLORD AT LION'S HEAD. $1 15. + + STOPS OF VARIOUS QUILLS. Illustrated by HOWARD PYLE. $2 50. + + IMPRESSIONS AND EXPERIENCES. $1 50. + + A PARTING AND A MEETING. llustrated. $1 00. + + THE DAY OF THEIR WEDDING. Illustrated. $1 25. + + MY LITERARY PASSIONS. $1 50. + + A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. $1 50. + + THE COAST OF BOHEMIA. Illustrated. $1 50. + + THE WORLD OF CHANCE. $1 50. + + THE QUALITY OF MERCY. $1 50. + + AN IMPERATIVE DUTY. $1 00. + + THE SHADOW OF A DREAM. $1 00. + + ANNIE KILBURN. $1 50. + + APRIL HOPES. $1 50. + + CRITICISM AND FICTION. With Portrait. $1 00. + + A BOY'S TOWN. Ill'd. $1 25. + + A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 2 Vols., $2 00. + + MODERN ITALIAN POETS. With Portraits. $2 00. + + CHRISTMAS EVERY DAY, and Other Stories. Illustrated. $1 25. + + THE MOUSE-TRAP, and Other Farces. Illustrated. $1 00. + + MY YEAR IN A LOG-CABIN. Illustrated. 50 cents. + + A LITTLE SWISS SOJOURN. Illustrated. 50 cents. + + FARCES: Five o'Clock Tea.--The Mouse-Trap.--A Likely Story.--The + Unexpected Guests.--Evening Dress.--A Letter of Introduction.--The + Albany Depot.--The Garroters. Ill'd. 50 cents each. + + + NEW YORK AND LONDON: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Story of a Play, by W. D. Howells + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF A PLAY *** + +***** This file should be named 20225-8.txt or 20225-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/2/2/20225/ + +Produced by David Edwards, Janet Blenkinship and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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D. Howells. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + div.centered {text-align: center;} /* work around for IE centering with CSS problem part 1 */ + div.centered table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;} /* work around for IE centering with CSS problem part 2 */ + + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + visibility: hidden; + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + + .author {text-align: right; margin-right: 5%;} + + .bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + .bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + .bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + .br {border-right: solid 2px;} + .bbox {border: solid 1px;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + + .caption {font-weight: bold;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Story of a Play, by W. D. Howells + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Story of a Play + A Novel + +Author: W. D. Howells + +Release Date: December 30, 2006 [EBook #20225] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF A PLAY *** + + + + +Produced by David Edwards, Janet Blenkinship and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + + + + + +<h1>THE STORY OF A PLAY</h1> + +<h3>A Novel</h3> + +<h4>BY</h4> + +<h2>W. D. HOWELLS</h2> + +<h4>AUTHOR OF "THE LANDLORD AT LION'S HEAD" "AN OPEN-EYED CONSPIRACY" ETC.</h4> + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img001.jpg" alt="logo" title="" /></div> + +<p class='center'>NEW YORK AND LONDON<br /> +HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS<br /> +1898</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + + +<div class='centered'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents"> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I">CHAPTER I.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#II">CHAPTER II.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#III">CHAPTER III.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#IV">CHAPTER IV.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#V">CHAPTER V.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#VI">CHAPTER VI.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#VII">CHAPTER VII.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#IX">CHAPTER IX.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#X">CHAPTER X.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#XI">CHAPTER XI.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#XII">CHAPTER XII.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#XIII">CHAPTER XIII.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#XIV">CHAPTER XIV.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#XV">CHAPTER XV.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#XVI">CHAPTER XVI.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#XVII">CHAPTER XVII.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#XIX">CHAPTER XIX.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#XX">CHAPTER XX.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#XXI">CHAPTER XXI.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#XXII">CHAPTER XXII.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#XXV">CHAPTER XXV.</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + + + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I.</h2> + + + +<p>The young actor who thought he saw his part in Maxwell's play had so far +made his way upward on the Pacific Coast that he felt justified in +taking the road with a combination of his own. He met the author at a +dinner of the Papyrus Club in Boston, where they were introduced with a +facile flourish of praise from the journalist who brought them together, +as the very men who were looking for each other, and who ought to be +able to give the American public a real American drama. The actor, who +believed he had an ideal of this drama, professed an immediate interest +in the kind of thing Maxwell told him he was trying to do, and asked him +to come the next day, if he did not mind its being Sunday, and talk the +play over with him.</p> + +<p>He was at breakfast when Maxwell came, at about the hour people were +getting home from church, and he asked the author to join him. But +Maxwell had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> already breakfasted, and he hid his impatience of the +actor's politeness as well as he could, and began at the first moment +possible: "The idea of my play is biblical; we're still a very biblical +people." He had thought of the fact in seeing so many worshippers +swarming out of the churches.</p> + +<p>"That is true," said the actor.</p> + +<p>"It's the old idea of the wages of sin. I should like to call it that."</p> + +<p>"The name has been used, hasn't it?"</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't mind; for I want to get a new effect from the old notion, +and it would be all the stronger from familiar association with the +name. I want to show that the wages of sin is more sinning, which is the +very body of death."</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I take a successful man at the acme of his success, and study him +in a succession of scenes that bring out the fact of his prosperity in a +way to strike the imagination of the audience, even the groundlings; +and, of course, I have to deal with success of the most appreciable +sort—a material success that is gross and palpable. I have to use a +large canvas, as big as Shakespeare's, in fact, and I put in a great +many figures."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That's right," said the actor. "You want to keep the stage full, with +people coming and going."</p> + +<p>"There's a lot of coming and going, and a lot of incidents, to keep the +spectator interested, and on the lookout for what's to happen next. The +whole of the first act is working up to something that I've wanted to +see put on the stage for a good while, or ever since I've thought of +writing for the stage, and that is a large dinner, one of the public +kind."</p> + +<p>"Capital!" said the actor.</p> + +<p>"I've seen a good deal of that sort of thing as a reporter; you know +they put us at a table off to one side, and we see the whole thing, a +great deal better than the diners themselves do. It's a banquet, given +by a certain number of my man's friends, in honor of his fiftieth +birthday, and you see the men gathering in the hotel parlor—well, you +can imagine it in almost any hotel—and Haxard is in the foreground. +Haxard is the hero's name, you know."</p> + +<p>"It's a good name," the actor mused aloud. "It has a strong sound."</p> + +<p>"Do you like it? Well, Haxard," Maxwell continued, "is there in the +foreground, from the first moment the curtain rises, receiving his +friends, and shaking hands right and left, and joking and laughing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> with +everybody—a very small joke makes a very large laugh on occasions like +that, and I shall try to give some notion of the comparative size of the +joke and the laugh—and receiving congratulations, that give a notion of +what the dinner is for, and the kind of man he is, and how universally +respected and all that, till everybody has come; and then the doors +between the parlor and the dining-room are rolled back, and every man +goes out with his own wife, or his sister, or his cousin, or his aunt, +if he hasn't got a wife; I saw them do that once, at a big commercial +dinner I reported."</p> + +<p>"Ah, I was afraid it was to be exclusively a man's dinner!" the actor +interrupted.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no," Maxwell answered, with a shade of vexation. "That wouldn't do. +You couldn't have a scene, or, at least, not a whole act, without women. +Of course I understand that. Even if you could keep the attention of the +audience without them, through the importance of the intrigue, still you +would have to have them for the sake of the stage-picture. The drama is +literature that makes a double appeal; it appeals to the sense as well +as the intellect, and the stage is half the time merely a picture-frame. +I had to think that out pretty early."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p> + +<p>The actor nodded. "You couldn't too soon."</p> + +<p>"It wouldn't do to have nothing but a crowd of black coats and white +shirt-fronts on the stage through a whole act. You want color, and a lot +of it, and you can only get it, in our day, with the women's costumes. +Besides, they give movement and life. After the dinner begins they're +supposed to sparkle all through. I've imagined the table set down the +depth of the stage, with Haxard and the nominal host at the head, +fronting the audience, and the people talking back and forth on each +side, and I let the ladies do most of the talking, of course. I mean to +have the dinner served through all the courses, and the waiters coming +and going; the events will have to be hurried, and the eating merely +sketched, at times; but I should keep the thing in pretty perfect form, +till it came to the speaking. I shall have to cut that a good deal, but +I think I can give a pretty fair notion of how they butter the object of +their hospitality on such occasions; I've seen it and heard it done +often enough. I think, perhaps, I shall have the dinner an act by +itself. There are only four acts in the play now, and I'll have to make +five. I want to give Haxard's speech as fully as possible, for that's +what I study the man in, and make my confidences to the audience about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> +him. I shall make him butter himself, but all with the utmost humility, +and brag of everything that he disclaims the merit of."</p> + +<p>The actor rose and reached across the table for the sugar. "That's a +capital notion. That's new. That would make a hit—the speech would."</p> + +<p>"Do you think so?" returned the author. "<i>I</i> thought so. I believe that +in the hands of a good actor the speech could be made tremendously +telling. I wouldn't have a word to give away his character, his nature, +except the words of his own mouth, but I would have them do it so +effectually that when he gets through the audience will be fairly 'onto +him,' don't you know."</p> + +<p>"Magnificent!" said the actor, pouring himself some more cocoa.</p> + +<p>Maxwell continued: "In the third act—for I see that I shall have to +make it the third now—the scene will be in Haxard's library, after he +gets home from the complimentary dinner, at midnight, and he finds a man +waiting for him there—a man that the butler tells him has called +several times, and was so anxious to see him that Mrs. Haxard has given +orders to let him wait. Oh, I ought to go back a little, and explain—"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes, do!" The actor stirred his cocoa with mounting interest. "Yes, +don't leave anything out."</p> + +<p>"I merely meant to say that in the talk in the scene, or the act, before +the dinner—I shall have two acts, but with no wait between them; just +let down the curtain and raise it again—it will come out that Haxard is +not a Bostonian by birth, but has come here since the war from the +Southwest, where he went, from Maine, to grow up with the country, and +is understood to have been a sort of quiescent Union man there; it's +thought to be rather a fine thing the way he's taken on Boston, and +shown so much local patriotism and public spirit and philanthropy, in +the way he's brought himself forward here. People don't know a great +deal about his past, but it's understood to have been very creditable. I +shall have to recast that part a little, and lengthen the delay before +he comes on, and let the guests, or the hosts—for <i>they're</i> giving +<i>him</i> the dinner—have time to talk about him, and free their minds in +honor of him behind his back, before they begin to his face."</p> + +<p>"Never bring your principal character on at once," the actor +interjected.</p> + +<p>"No," Maxwell consented. "I see that wouldn't have done." He went on: +"Well, as soon as Haxard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> turns up the light in his library, the man +rises from the lounge where he has been sitting, and Haxard sees who it +is. He sees that it is a man whom he used to be in partnership with in +Texas, where they were engaged in some very shady transactions. They get +caught in one of them—I haven't decided yet just what sort of +transaction it was, and I shall have to look that point up; I'll get +some law-student to help me—and Haxard, who wasn't Haxard then, pulls +out and leaves his partner to suffer the penalty. Haxard comes North, +and after trying it in various places, he settles here, and marries, and +starts in business and prospers on, while the other fellow takes their +joint punishment in the penitentiary. By the way, it just occurs to me! +I think I'll have it that Haxard has killed a man, a man whom he has +injured; he doesn't mean to kill him, but he has to; and this fellow is +knowing to the homicide, but has been prevented from getting onto +Haxard's trail by the consequences of his own misdemeanors; that will +probably be the best way out. Of course it all has to transpire, all +these facts, in the course of the dialogue which the two men have with +each other in Haxard's library, after a good deal of fighting away from +the inevitable identification on Haxard's part. After the first few<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> +preliminary words with the butler at the door before he goes in to find +the other man—his name is Greenshaw—"</p> + +<p>"That's a good name, too," said the actor.</p> + +<p>"Yes, isn't it? It has a sort of probable sound, and yet it's a made-up +name. Well, I was going to say—"</p> + +<p>"And I'm glad you have it a homicide that Haxard is guilty of, instead +of a business crime of some sort. That sort of crime never tells with an +audience," the actor observed.</p> + +<p>"No," said Maxwell. "Homicide is decidedly better. It's more +melodramatic, and I don't like that, but it will be more appreciable, as +a real sin, to most of the audience; we steal and cheat so much, and we +kill comparatively so little in the North. Well, I was going to say that +I shall have this whole act to consist entirely of the passage between +the two men. I shall let it begin with a kind of shiver creeping over +the spectator, when he recognizes the relation between them, and I hope +I shall be able to make it end with a shudder, for Haxard must see from +the first moment, and he must let the audience see at last, that the +only way for him to save himself from his old crime is to commit a new +one. He must kill the man who saw him kill a man."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That's good," the actor thoughtfully murmured, as if tasting a pleasant +morsel to try its flavor. "Excellent."</p> + +<p>Maxwell laughed for pleasure, and went on: "He arranges to meet the man +again at a certain time and place, and that is the last of Greenshaw. He +leaves the house alone; and the body of an unknown man is found floating +up and down with the tide under the Long Bridge. There are no marks of +violence; he must have fallen off the bridge in the dark, and been +drowned; it could very easily happen. Well, then comes the most +difficult part of the whole thing; I have got to connect the casualty +with Haxard in the most unmistakable way, unmistakable to the audience, +that is; and I have got to have it brought home to him in a supreme +moment of his life. I don't want to have him feel remorse for it; that +isn't the modern theory of the criminal; but I do want him to be anxious +to hide his connection with it, and to escape the consequences. I don't +know but I shall try another dinner-scene, though I am afraid it would +be a risk."</p> + +<p>The actor said, "I don't know. It might be the very thing. The audience +likes a recurrence to a distinctive feature. It's like going back to an +effective strain in music."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes," Maxwell resumed, "slightly varied. I might have a private dinner +this time; perhaps a dinner that Haxard himself is giving. Towards the +end the talk might turn on the case of the unknown man, and the guests +might discuss it philosophically together; Haxard would combat the +notion of a murder, and even of a suicide; he would contend for an +accident, pure and simple. All the fellows would take a turn at the +theory, but the summing-up opinion I shall leave to a legal mind, +perhaps the man who had made the great complimentary speech at the +public dinner to Haxard in the first act. I should have him warm to his +work, and lay it down to Haxard in good round fashion, against his +theory of accident. He could prove to the satisfaction of everybody that +the man who was last seen with the drowned man—or was supposed to have +been seen with him—according to some very sketchy evidence at the +inquest, which never amounted to anything—was the man who pushed him +off the bridge. He could gradually work up his case, and end the +argument with a semi-jocular, semi-serious appeal to Haxard himself, +like, 'Why, suppose it was your own case,' and so forth, and so forth, +and so forth, and then suddenly stop at something he notices queer in +Haxard, who is trying to get<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> to his feet. The rest applaud: 'That's +right! Haxard has the floor,' and so on, and then Haxard slips back into +his chair, and his head falls forward—— I don't like death-scenes on +the stage. They're usually failures. But if this was managed simply, I +think it would be effective."</p> + +<p>The actor left the table and began to walk about the room. "I shall want +that play. I can see my part in Haxard. I know just how I could make up +for him. And the play is so native, so American, that it will go like +wildfire."</p> + +<p>The author heard these words with a swelling heart. He did not speak, +for he could not. He sat still, watching the actor as he paced to and +fro, histrionically rapt in his representation of an actor who had just +taken a piece from a young dramatist. "If you can realize that part as +you've sketched it to me," he said, finally, "I will play it +exclusively, as Jefferson does Rip Van Winkle. There are immense +capabilities in the piece. Yes, sir; that thing will run for years!"</p> + +<p>"Of course," Maxwell found voice to say, "there is one great defect in +it, from the conventional point of view." The actor stopped and looked +at him. "There's no love-business."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p> + +<p>"We must have that. But you can easily bring it in."</p> + +<p>"By the head and shoulders, yes. But I hate love-making on the stage, +almost as much as I do dying. I never see a pair of lovers beyond the +footlights without wanting to kill them." The actor remained looking at +him over his folded arms, and Maxwell continued, with something like a +personal rancor against love-making, while he gave a little, bitter +laugh, "I might have it somehow that Haxard had killed a pair of +stage-lovers, and this was what Greenshaw had seen him do. But that +would have been justifiable homicide."</p> + +<p>The actor's gaze darkened into a frowning stare, as if he did not quite +make out this kind of fooling. "All the world loves a lover," he said, +tentatively.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe it does," said Maxwell, "except as it's stupid, and +loves anything that makes it laugh. It loves a comic lover, and in the +same way it loves a droll drunkard or an amusing madman."</p> + +<p>"We shall have to have some sort of love-business," the actor returned, +with an effect of leaving the right interpretation of Maxwell's peculiar +humor for some other time. "The public wants it. No play would go +without it. You can have it subordinate if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> you like, but you have got +to have it. How old did you say Haxard was?"</p> + +<p>"About fifty. Too old for a lover, unless you could make him in love +with some one else's wife, as he has one of his own already. But that +wouldn't do."</p> + +<p>The actor looked as if he did not know why it would not do, but he said, +"He could have a daughter."</p> + +<p>"Yes, and his daughter could have a lover. I had thought of something of +that kind, and of bringing in their ill-fated passion as an element of +the tragedy. We could have his disgrace break their hearts, and kill two +birds with one stone, and avenge a long-suffering race of playwrights +upon stage-lovers."</p> + +<p>The actor laughed like a man of small humor, mellowly, but hollowly. +"No, no! We must have the love-affair end happily. You can manage that +somehow. Have you got the play roughed out at all?"</p> + +<p>"Not in manuscript. I've only got it roughed out in my mind."</p> + +<p>"Well, I want that play. That's settled. I can't do anything with it +this winter, but I should like to open with it next fall. Do you think +you could have it ready by the end of July?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II.</h2> + + +<p>They sat down and began to talk times and terms. They parted with a +perfect understanding, and Maxwell was almost as much deceived as the +actor himself. He went home full of gay hopes to begin work on the play +at once, and to realize the character of Haxard with the personality of +the actor in his eye. He heard nothing from him till the following +spring, when the actor wrote with all the ardor of their parting moment, +to say that he was coming East for the summer, and meant to settle down +in the region of Boston somewhere, so that they could meet constantly +and make the play what they both wanted. He said nothing to account for +his long silence, and he seemed so little aware of it that Maxwell might +very well have taken it for a simple fidelity to the understanding +between them, too unconscious to protest itself. He answered discreetly, +and said that he expected to pass the summer on the coast somewhere, but +was not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> yet quite certain where he should be; that he had not forgotten +their interview, and should still be glad to let him have the play if he +fancied it. Between this time and the time when the actor appeared in +person, he sent Maxwell several short notes, and two or three telegrams, +sufficiently relevant but not very necessary, and when his engagement +ended in the West, a fortnight after Maxwell was married, he telegraphed +again and then came through without a stop from Denver, where the +combination broke up, to Manchester-by-the-Sea. He joined the little +colony of actors which summers there, and began to play tennis and golf, +and to fish and to sail, almost without a moment's delay. He was not +very fond of any of these things, and in fact he was fond only of one +thing in the world, which was the stage; but he had a theory that they +were recreation, and that if he went in for them he was building himself +up for the season, which began early in September; he had appropriate +costumes for all of them, and no one dressed the part more perfectly in +tennis or golf or sailing or fishing. He believed that he ought to read +up in the summer, too, and he had the very best of the recent books, in +fiction and criticism, and the new drama. He had all of the translations +of Ibsen, and several of Mæterlinck's plays in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> French; he read a good +deal in his books, and he lent them about in the hotel even more. Among +the ladies there he had the repute of a very modern intellect, and of a +person you would never take for an actor, from his tastes. What his +tastes would have been if you had taken him for an actor, they could not +have said, perhaps, but probably something vicious, and he had not a +vice. He did not smoke, and he did not so much as drink tea or coffee; +he had cocoa for breakfast, and at lunch a glass of milk, with water at +dinner. He had a tint like the rose, and when he smiled or laughed, +which was often, from a constitutional amiability and a perfect +digestion, his teeth showed white and regular, and an innocent dimple +punctured either cheek. His name was Godolphin, for he had instinctively +felt that in choosing a name he might as well take a handsome one while +he was about it, and that if he became Godolphin there was no reason why +he should not become Launcelot, too. He did not put on these splendors +from any foible, but from a professional sense of their value in the +bills; and he was not personally characterized by them. As Launcelot +Godolphin he was simpler than he would have been with a simpler name, +and it was his ideal to be modest in everything that personally belonged +to him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> He studied an unprofessional walk, and a very colloquial tone +in speaking. He was of course clean-shaven, but during the summer he let +his mustache grow, though he was aware that he looked better without it. +He was tall, and he carried himself with the vigor of his perfect +health; but on the stage he looked less than his real size, like a +perfectly proportioned edifice.</p> + +<p>Godolphin wanted the Maxwells to come to his hotel in Manchester, but +there were several reasons for their not doing this; the one Maxwell +alleged was that they could not afford it. They had settled for the +summer, when they got home after their brief wedding journey, at a much +cheaper house in Magnolia, and the actor and the author were then only +three miles apart, which Mrs. Maxwell thought was quite near enough. "As +it is," she said, "I'm only afraid he'll be with you every moment with +his suggestions, and won't let you have any chance to work out your own +conceptions."</p> + +<p>Godolphin had not failed to notify the public through the press that Mr. +Brice Maxwell had severed his connection with the Boston <i>Abstract</i>, for +the purpose of devoting himself to a new play for Mr. Launcelot +Godolphin, and he thought it would have been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> an effective touch if it +could have been truthfully reported that Mr. Godolphin and Mr. Maxwell +might be seen almost any day swinging over the roads together in the +neighborhood of Manchester, blind and deaf to all the passing, in their +discussion of the play, which they might almost be said to be +collaborating. But failing Maxwell's consent to anything of the sort, +Godolphin did the swinging over the roads himself, so far as the roads +lay between Manchester and Magnolia. He began by coming in the forenoon, +when he broke Maxwell up fearfully, but he was retarded by a waning of +his own ideal in the matter, and finally got to arriving at that hour in +the afternoon when Maxwell could be found revising his morning's work, +or lying at his wife's feet on the rocks, and now and then irrelevantly +bringing up a knotty point in the character or action for her criticism. +For these excursions Godolphin had equipped himself with a gray corduroy +sack and knickerbockers, and a stick which he cut from the alder +thicket; he wore russet shoes of ample tread, and very thick-ribbed +stockings, which became his stalwart calves.</p> + +<p>Nothing could be handsomer than the whole effect he made in this +costume, and his honest face was a pleasure to look at, though its +intelligence was of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> kind so wholly different from the intelligence of +Maxwell's face, that Mrs. Maxwell always had a struggle with herself +before she could allow that it was intelligence at all. He was very +polite to her; he always brought her flowers, and he opened doors, and +put down windows, and leaped to his feet for every imaginable occasion +of hers, in a way that Maxwell never did, and somehow a way that the +polite men of her world did not, either. She had to school herself to +believe him a gentleman, and she would not accept a certain vivid +cleanliness he had as at all aristocratic; she said it was too fresh, +and he ought to have carried a warning placard of "Paint." She found +that Godolphin had one great and constant merit: he believed in +Maxwell's genius as devoutly as she did herself. This did not prevent +him from coming every day with proposals for changes in the play, more +or less structural. At one time he wished the action laid in some other +country and epoch, so as to bring in more costume and give the carpenter +something to do; he feared that the severity of the <i>mise en scène</i> +would ruin the piece. At another time he wanted lines taken out of the +speeches of the inferior characters and put into his own, to fatten the +part, as he explained. At other times he wished to have paraphrases of +passages<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> that he had brought down the house with in other plays written +into this; or scenes transposed, so that he would make a more effective +entrance here or there. There was no end to his inventions for spoiling +the simplicity and truthfulness of Maxwell's piece, which he yet +respected for the virtues in it, and hoped the greatest things from.</p> + +<p>One afternoon he arrived with a scheme for a very up-to-date scene in +the last act; have it a supper instead of a dinner, and then have a +skirt-dancer introduced, as society people had been having Carmencita. +"When Haxard dies, you know," he explained, "it would be tremendously +effective to have the woman catch him in her arms, and she would be a +splendid piece of color in the picture, with Haxard's head lying in her +lap, as the curtain comes down with a run."</p> + +<p>At this suggestion Mrs. Maxwell was too indignant to speak; her husband +merely said, with his cold smile, "Yes; but I don't see what it would +have to do with the rest of the play."</p> + +<p>"You could have it," said Godolphin, "that he was married to a Mexican +during his Texas episode, and this girl was their daughter." Maxwell +still smiled, and Godolphin deferred to his wife: "But perhaps Mrs. +Maxwell would object to the skirt-dance?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, no," she answered, ironically, "I shouldn't mind having it, with +Carmencita in society for a precedent. But," she added, "the incident +seems so out of keeping with the action and the temperament of the play, +and everything. If I were to see such a thing on the stage, merely as an +impartial spectator, I should feel insulted."</p> + +<p>Godolphin flushed. "I don't see where the insult would come in. You +mightn't like it, but it would be like anything else in a play that you +were not personally concerned in."</p> + +<p>"No, excuse me, Mr. Godolphin. I think the audience is as much concerned +in the play as the actor or the author, and if either of these fails in +the ideal, or does a bit of clap-trap when they have wrought the +audience up in expectation of something noble, then they insult the +audience—or all the better part of it."</p> + +<p>"The better part of the audience never fills the house," said the actor.</p> + +<p>"Very well. I hope my husband will never write for the worse part."</p> + +<p>"And I hope I shall never play to it," Godolphin returned, and he looked +hurt at the insinuation of her words.</p> + +<p>"It isn't a question of all that," Maxwell interposed,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> with a worried +glance at his wife. "Mr. Godolphin has merely suggested something that +can be taken into the general account; we needn't decide it now. By the +way," he said to the actor, "have you thought over that point about +changing Haxard's crime, or the quality of it? I think it had better not +be an intentional murder; that would kill the audience's sympathy with +him from the start, don't you think? We had better have it what they +call a rencontre down there, where two gentlemen propose to kill each +other on sight. Greenshaw's hold on him would be that he was the only +witness of the fight, and that he could testify to a wilful murder if he +chose. Haxard's real crime must be the killing of Greenshaw."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Godolphin, and he entered into the discussion of the effect +this point would have with the play. Mrs. Maxwell was too much vexed to +forgive him for making the suggestion which he had already dropped, and +she left the room for fear she should not be able to govern herself at +the sight of her husband condescending to temporize with him. She +thought that Maxwell's willingness to temporize, even when it involved +no insincerity, was a defect in his character; she had always thought +that, and it was one of the things that she meant to guard him against<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> +with all the strength of her zeal for his better self. When Godolphin +was gone at last, she lost no time in coming back to Maxwell, where he +sat with the manuscript of his play before him, apparently lost in some +tangle of it. She told him abruptly that she did not understand how, if +he respected himself, if he respected his own genius, he could consider +such an idea as Godolphin's skirt-dance for an instant.</p> + +<p>"Did I consider it?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"You made him think so."</p> + +<p>"Well," returned Maxwell, and at her reproachful look he added, +"Godolphin never thought I was considering it. He has too much sense, +and he would be astonished and disgusted if I took him in earnest and +did what he wanted. A lot of actors get round him over there, and they +fill him up with all sorts of stage notions, and what he wants of me is +that I shall empty him of them and yet not put him to shame about them. +But if you keep on in that way you took with him he'll throw me over."</p> + +<p>"Well, let him!" cried Mrs. Maxwell. "There are twenty other actors who +would jump at the chance to get such a play."</p> + +<p>"Don't you believe it, my dear. Actors don't jump at plays, and +Godolphin is the one man for me.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> He's young, and has the friendly +regard from the public that a young artist has, and yet he isn't +identified with any part in particular, and he will throw all his force +into creating this, as he calls it."</p> + +<p>"I can't bear to have him use that word, Brice. <i>You</i> created it."</p> + +<p>"The word doesn't matter. It's merely a technical phrase. I shouldn't +know where to turn if he gave it up."</p> + +<p>"Pshaw! You could go to a manager."</p> + +<p>"Thank you; I prefer an actor. Now, Louise, you must not be so abrupt +with Godolphin when he comes out with those things."</p> + +<p>"I can't help it, dearest. They are insulting to you, and insulting to +common-sense. It's a kindness to let him know how they would strike the +public. I don't pretend to be more than the average public."</p> + +<p>"He doesn't feel it a kindness the way you put it."</p> + +<p>"Then you don't like me to be sincere with him! Perhaps you don't like +me to be sincere with <i>you</i> about your play?"</p> + +<p>"Be as sincere with me as you like. But this—this is a matter of +business, and I'd rather you wouldn't."</p> + +<p>"Rather I wouldn't say anything at all?" demanded Louise.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I didn't say so, and you know I didn't; but if you can't get on without +ruffling Godolphin, why, perhaps—"</p> + +<p>"Very well, then, I'll leave the room the next time he comes. That will +be perfectly simple; and it will be perfectly simple to do as most other +people would—not concern myself with the play in any way from this out. +I dare say you would prefer that, too, though I didn't quite expect it +to come to that before our honeymoon was out."</p> + +<p>"Oh, now, my dear!"</p> + +<p>"You know it's so. But I can do it! I might have expected it from a man +who was so perfectly self-centred and absorbed. But I was such a fool—" +Her tears came and her words stopped.</p> + +<p>Maxwell leaned forward with his thin face between his hands. This made +him miserable, personally, but he was not so miserable but his artistic +consciousness could take note of the situation as a very good one, and +one that might be used effectively on the stage. He analyzed it +perfectly in that unhappy moment. She was jealous of his work, which she +had tolerated only while she could share it, and if she could not share +it, while some other was suffered to do so, it would be cruel for her. +But he knew that he could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> not offer any open concession now without +making bad worse, and he must wait till the right time for it came. He +had so far divined her, without formulating her, that he knew she would +be humiliated by anything immediate or explicit, but would later accept +a tacit repentance from him; and he instinctively forebore.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III.</h2> + + +<p>For the present in her resentment of his willingness to abase his genius +before Godolphin, or even to hold it in abeyance, Mrs. Maxwell would not +walk to supper with her husband in the usual way, touching his shoulder +with hers from time to time, and making herself seem a little lower in +stature by taking the downward slope of the path leading from their +cottage to the hotel. But the necessity of appearing before the people +at their table on as perfect terms with him as ever had the effect that +conduct often has on feeling, and she took his arm in going back to +their cottage, and leaned tenderly upon him.</p> + +<p>Their cottage was one of the farthest from the hotel, and the smallest +and quietest. In fact there was yet no one in it but themselves, and +they dwelt there in an image of home, with the sole use of the veranda +and the parlor, where Maxwell had his manuscripts spread about on the +table as if he owned the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> place. A chambermaid came over from the hotel +in the morning to put the cottage in order, and then they could be quite +alone there for the rest of the day.</p> + +<p>"Shall I light the lamp for you, Brice?" his wife asked, as they mounted +the veranda steps.</p> + +<p>"No," he said, "let us sit out here," and they took the arm-chairs that +stood on the porch, and swung to and fro in silence for a little while. +The sea came and went among the rocks below, marking its course in the +deepening twilight with a white rope of foam, and raving huskily to +itself, with now and then the long plunge of some heavier surge against +the bowlders, and a hoarse shout. The Portland boat swam by in the +offing, a glitter of irregular lights, and the lamps on the different +points of the Cape blinked as they revolved in their towers. "This is +the kind of thing you can get only in a novel," said Maxwell, musingly. +"You couldn't possibly give the feeling of it in a play."</p> + +<p>"Couldn't you give the feeling of the people looking at it?" suggested +his wife, and she put out her hand to lay it on his.</p> + +<p>"Yes, you could do that," he assented, with pleasure in her notion; "and +that would be better. I suppose that is what would be aimed at in a +description<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> of the scene, which would be tiresome if it didn't give the +feeling of the spectator."</p> + +<p>"And Godolphin would say that if you let the carpenter have something to +do he would give the scene itself, and you could have the effect of it +at first hand."</p> + +<p>Maxwell laughed. "I wonder how much they believe in those contrivances +of the carpenter themselves. They have really so little to do with the +dramatic intention; but they have been multiplied so since the stage +began to make the plays that the actors are always wanting them in. I +believe the time will come when the dramatist will avoid the occasion or +the pretext for them."</p> + +<p>"That will be after Godolphin's time," said Mrs. Maxwell.</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know," returned Maxwell. "If Godolphin should happen to +imagine doing without them he would go all lengths."</p> + +<p>"Or if you imagined it and let him suppose he had. He never imagines +anything of himself."</p> + +<p>"No, he doesn't. And yet how perfectly he grasps the notion of the thing +when it is done! It is very different from literature, acting is. And +yet literature is only the representation of life."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, acting is the representation of life at second-hand, then, and it +ought to be willing to subordinate itself. What I can't bear in +Godolphin is his setting himself up to be your artistic equal. He is no +more an artist than the canvas is that the artist paints a picture on."</p> + +<p>Maxwell laughed. "Don't tell him so; he won't like it."</p> + +<p>"I will tell him so some day, whether he likes it or not."</p> + +<p>"No, you mustn't; for it isn't true. He's just as much an artist in his +way as I am in mine, and, so far as the public is concerned, he has +given more proofs."</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>his</i> public!"</p> + +<p>"It won't do to despise any public, even the theatre-going public." +Maxwell added the last words with a faint sigh.</p> + +<p>"It's always second-rate," said his wife, passionately. "Third-rate, +fourth-rate! Godolphin was quite right about that. I wish you were +writing a novel, Brice, instead of a play. Then you would be really +addressing refined people."</p> + +<p>"It kills me to have you say that, Louise."</p> + +<p>"Well, I won't. But don't you see, then, that you must stand up for art +all the more unflinchingly if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> you intend to write plays that will +refine the theatre-going public, or create a new one? That is why I +can't endure to have you even seem to give way to Godolphin."</p> + +<p>"You must stand it so long as I only seem to do it. He's far more +manageable than I expected him to be. It's quite pathetic how docile he +is, how perfectly ductile! But it won't do to browbeat him when he comes +over here a little out of shape. He's a curious creature," Maxwell went +on with a relish in Godolphin, as material, which his wife suffered with +difficulty. "I wonder if he could ever be got into a play. If he could +he would like nothing better than to play himself, and he would do it to +perfection; only it would be a comic part, and Godolphin's mind is for +the serious drama." Maxwell laughed. "All his artistic instincts are in +solution, and it needs something like a chemical agent to precipitate +them, or to give them any positive character. He's like a woman!"</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said Mrs. Maxwell.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I mean all sorts of good things by that. He has the sensitiveness +of a woman."</p> + +<p>"Is that a good thing? Then I suppose he was so piqued by what I said +about his skirt-dance that he will renounce you."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't believe he will. I managed to smooth him up after you went +out."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Maxwell sighed. "Yes, you are very patient, and if you are patient, +you are good. You are better than I am."</p> + +<p>"I don't see the sequence exactly," said Maxwell.</p> + +<p>They were both silent, and she seemed to have followed his devious +thought in the same muse, for when he spoke again she did not reproach +him with an equal inconsequence. "I don't know whether I could write a +novel, and, besides, I think the drama is the supreme literary form. It +stands on its own feet. It doesn't have to be pushed along, or pulled +along, as the novel does."</p> + +<p>"Yes, of course, it's grand. That's the reason I can't bear to have you +do anything unworthy of it."</p> + +<p>"I know, Louise," he said, tenderly, and then again they did not speak +for a little while.</p> + +<p>He emerged from their silence, at a point apparently very remote, with a +sigh. "If I could only know just what the feelings of a murderer really +were for five minutes, I could out-Shakespeare Shakespeare in that play. +But I shall have to trust to the fall of man, and the general depravity +of human nature, I suppose. After all, there's the potentiality of every +kind of man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> in every man. If you've known what it is to hate, you've +known what it is to kill."</p> + +<p>"I felt once as if I had killed <i>you</i>," she said, and then he knew that +she was thinking of a phase of their love which had a perpetual +fascination for them both. "But I never hated you."</p> + +<p>"No; I did the hating," he returned, lightly.</p> + +<p>"Ah, don't say so, dear," she entreated, half in earnest.</p> + +<p>"Well, have it all to yourself, then," he said; and he rose and went +indoors, and lighted the lamp, and she saw him get out the manuscript of +his play, while she sat still, recalling the time when she had tried to +dismiss him from her thoughts upon a theory of his unworthiness. He had +not yet spoken of love to her then, but she felt as if she had refused +to listen to him, and her remorse kept his image before her in an +attitude of pathetic entreaty for at least a hearing. She knew that she +had given him reason, if she had not given him courage, to believe that +she cared for him; but he was too proud to renew the tacit approaches +from which she had so abruptly retreated, and she had to invite them +from him.</p> + +<p>When she began to do this with the arts so imperceptible to the +single-mindedness of a man, she was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> not yet sure whether she could +endure to live with him or not; she was merely sure that she could not +live without him, or, to be more specific, without his genius, which she +believed no one else appreciated as she did. She believed that she +understood his character better than any one else, and would know how to +supplement it with her own. She had no ambition herself, but she could +lend him a more telescopic vision in his, and keep his aims high, if his +self-concentration ever made him short-sighted. He would write plays +because he could not help it, but she would inspire him to write them +with the lofty sense of duty she would have felt in writing them if she +had his gifts.</p> + +<p>She was as happy in their engagement and as unhappy as girls usually are +during their courtship. It is the convention to regard those days as +very joyous, but probably no woman who was honest about the fact would +say that they were so from her own experience. Louise found them full of +excitement and an interest from which she relaxed at times with such a +sense of having strained forward to their end that she had a cold +reluctance from Maxwell, and though she never dreamed of giving him up +again, she sometimes wished she had never seen him. She was eager to +have it all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> over, and be married and out of the way, for one thing +because she knew that Maxwell could never be assimilated to her +circumstance, and she should have no rest till she was assimilated to +his. When it came to the dinners and lunches, which the Hilary kinship +and friendship made in honor of her engagement, she found that Maxwell +actually thought she could make excuse of his work to go without him, +and she had to be painfully explicit before she could persuade him that +this would not do at all. He was not timid about meeting her friends, as +he might very well have been; but, in comparison with his work, he +apparently held them of little moment, and at last he yielded to her +wishes rather than her reasons. He made no pretence of liking those +people, but he gave them no more offence than might have been expected. +Among the Hilary cousins there were several clever women, who enjoyed +the quality of Maxwell's somewhat cold, sarcastic humor, and there were +several men who recognized his ability, though none of them liked him +any better than he liked them. He had a way of regarding them all at +first as of no interest, and then, if something kindled his imagination +from them, of showing a sudden technical curiosity, which made the +ladies, at least, feel as if he were dealing with them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> as so much +material. They professed to think that it was only a question of time +when they should all reappear in dramatic form, unless Louise should +detect them in the manuscript before they were put upon the stage and +forbid his using them. If it were to be done before marriage they were +not sure that she would do it, or could do it, for it was plain to be +seen that she was perfectly infatuated with him. The faults they found +in him were those of manner mostly, and they perceived that these were +such as passion might forgive to his other qualities. There were some +who said that they envied her for being so much in love with him, but +these were not many; and some did not find him good-looking, or see what +could have taken her with him.</p> + +<p>Maxwell showed himself ignorant of the observances in every way, and if +Louise had not rather loved him the more for what he made her suffer +because of them, she must certainly have given him up at times. He had +never, to her thinking, known how to put a note properly on paper; his +letters were perfectly fascinating, but they lacked a final charm in +being often written on one side of half-sheets, and numbered in the +upper right-hand corner, like printer's copy. She had to tell him that +he must bring his mother to call<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> upon her; and then he was so long +doing it that Louise imagined a timidity in his mother which he was too +proud to own, and made her own mother go with her to see Mrs. Maxwell in +the house which she partly let out in lodgings on a very modest street. +It really did not matter about any of those things though, and she and +Maxwell's mother got on very well after the first plunge, though the +country doctor's widow was distinctly a country person, with the narrow +social horizons of a villager whose knowledge of the city was confined +to the compass of her courageous ventures in it.</p> + +<p>To her own mother Louise feigned to see nothing repulsive in the +humility of these. She had been rather fastidiously worldly, she had +been even aggressively worldly, in her preference for a luxurious and +tasteful setting, and her mother now found it hard to bear her contented +acceptance of the pervading commonness of things at Mrs. Maxwell's. +Either her senses were holden by her fondness for Maxwell, or else she +was trying to hoodwink her mother by an effect of indifference; but Mrs. +Hilary herself was certainly not obtuse to that commonness. If she did +not rub it into Louise, which would have done no good, she did rub it +into Louise's father, though that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> could hardly have been said to do any +good either. Her report of the whole affair made him writhe, but when +she had made him writhe enough she began to admit some extenuating +circumstances. If Mrs. Maxwell was a country person, she was not +foolish. She did not chant, in a vain attempt to be genteel in her +speech; she did not expand unduly under Mrs. Hilary's graciousness, and +she did not resent it. In fact, the graciousness had been very skilfully +managed, and Mrs. Maxwell had not been allowed to feel that there was +any condescension to her. She got on with Louise very well; if Mrs. +Maxwell had any overweening pride in her son, she kept it as wholly to +herself as any overweening pride she might have had in her son's choice.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Hilary did not like her daughter's choice, but she had at last +reached such resignation concerning it as the friends of a hopeless +invalid may feel when the worst comes. She had tried to stop the affair +when there was some hope or some use in trying, and now she determined +to make the best of it. The worst was that Maxwell was undoubtedly of +different origin and breeding, and he would always, in society, subject +Louise to a consciousness of his difference if he did nothing more. But +when you had said this, you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> seemed to have said all there was to say +against him. The more the Hilarys learned about the young fellow the +more reason they had to respect him. His life, on its level, was +blameless. Every one who knew him spoke well of him, and those who knew +him best spoke enthusiastically; he had believers in his talent and in +his character. In a society so barometrical as ours, even in a city +where it was the least barometrical, the obstacles to the acceptance of +Maxwell were mainly subjective. They were formed not so much of what +people would say as of what Mrs. Hilary felt they had a right to say, +and, in view of the necessities of the case, she found herself realizing +that if they did not say anything to her it would be much as if they had +not said anything at all. She dealt with the fact before her frankly, +and in the duties which it laid upon her she began to like Maxwell +before Hilary did. Not that Hilary disliked him, but there was something +in the young fellow taking his daughter away from him, in that cool +matter-of-fact way, as if it were quite in the course of nature that he +should, instead of being abashed and overwhelmed by his good fortune, +which left Hilary with a misgiving lest he might realize it less and +less as time went on.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p> + +<p>Hilary had no definite ambition for her in marriage, but his vague +dreams for her were not of a young man who meant to leave off being a +newspaper writer to become a writer of plays. He instinctively wished +her to be of his own order of things; and it had pleased him when he +heard from his wife's report that Louise had seen the folly of her fancy +for the young journalist whom a series of accidents had involved with +their lives, and had decided to give him up. When the girl decided +again, more tacitly, that she could not give him up, Hilary submitted, +as he would have submitted to anything she wished. To his simple +idolatry of her she was too good for anything on earth, and if he were +to lose her, he found that after all he had no great choice in the +matter. As soon as her marriage appeared inevitable, he agreed with his +wife that their daughter must never have any unhappiness of their +making; and they let her reverse without a word the purpose of going to +spend the winter abroad which they had formed at her wish when she +renounced Maxwell.</p> + +<p>All this was still recent in point of time, and though marriage had +remanded it to an infinite distance apparently with the young people, it +had not yet taken away the importance or the charm of the facts and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> the +feelings that had seemed the whole of life before marriage. When Louise +turned from her retrospect she went in through the window that opened on +the veranda and stood beside her husband, where he sat with his +manuscript before him, frowning at it in the lamplight that made her +blink a little after the dark outside. She put her hand on his head, and +carried it down his cheek over his mouth, so that he might kiss its +palm.</p> + +<p>"Going to work much longer, little man?" she asked, and she kissed the +top of his head in her turn. It always amused her to find how smooth and +soft his hair was. He flung his pen away and threw himself back in his +chair. "Oh, it's that infernal love business!" he said.</p> + +<p>She sat down and let her hands fall on her lap. "Why, what makes it so +hard?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know. But it seems as if I were <i>fighting</i> it, as the +actors say, all the way. It doesn't go of itself at all. It's forced, +from the beginning."</p> + +<p>"Why do you have it in, then?"</p> + +<p>"I have to have it in. It has to be in every picture of life, as it has +to be in every life. Godolphin is perfectly right. I talked with him +about leaving it out to-day, but I had to acknowledge that it wouldn't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> +do. In fact, I was the first to suggest that there must be some sort of +love business when I first talked the play over with him. But I wish +there hadn't. It makes me sick every time I touch it. The confounded +fools don't know what to do with their love."</p> + +<p>"They might get married with it," Louise suggested.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe they have sense enough to think of that," said her +husband. "The curse of their origin is on them, I suppose. I tried to +imagine them when I was only fit to imagine a man hating a woman with +all his might."</p> + +<p>Louise laughed out her secure delight. "If the public could only know +why your lovers were such feeble folk it would make the fortune of the +play."</p> + +<p>Maxwell laughed, too. "Yes, fancy Pinney getting hold of a fact like +that and working it up with all his native delicacy in the Sunday +edition of the <i>Events</i>!"</p> + +<p>Pinney was a reporter of Maxwell's acquaintance, who stood to Louise for +all that was most terrible in journalistic enterprise. "Don't!" she +shrieked.</p> + +<p>Maxwell went on. "He would have both our portraits in, and your father's +and mother's, and my mother's; and your house on Commonwealth Avenue, +and our meek mansion on Pinckney Street. He would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> make it a work of +art, Pinney would, and he would believe that we were all secretly +gratified with it, no matter how we pretended to writhe under it." He +laughed and laughed, and then suddenly he stopped and was very grave.</p> + +<p>"I know what you're thinking of now," said his wife.</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"Whether you couldn't use <i>our</i> affair in the play?"</p> + +<p>"You're a witch! Yes, I was! I was thinking it wouldn't do."</p> + +<p>"Stuff! It <i>will</i> do, and you must use it. Who would ever know it? And I +shall not care how blackly you show me up. I deserve it. If I was the +cause of your hating love so much that you failed with your lovers on +the old lines, I certainly ought to be willing to be the means of your +succeeding on lines that had never been tried before."</p> + +<p>"Generous girl!" He bent over—he had not to bend far—and kissed her. +Then he rose excitedly and began to walk the floor, with his hands in +his pockets, and his head dropped forward. He broke into speech: "I +could disguise it so that nobody would ever dream of it. I'll just take +a hint from ourselves. How would it do to have had the girl<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> actually +reject him? It never came to that with us; and instead of his being a +howling outside swell that was rather condescending to her, suppose I +have him some sort of subordinate in her father's business? It doesn't +matter much what; it's easy to arrange such a detail. She could be in +love with him all the time, without even knowing it herself, or, at +least, not knowing it when he offers himself; and she could always be +vaguely hoping or expecting that he would come to time again."</p> + +<p>"That's what I did," said his wife, "and you hadn't offered yourself +either."</p> + +<p>Maxwell stopped, with an air of discomfiture and disappointment. "You +wouldn't like me to use that point, then?"</p> + +<p>"What a simpleton! Of course I should! I shouldn't care if all the world +knew it."</p> + +<p>"Ah, well, we won't give it to Pinney, anyway; but I really think it +could be done without involving our own facts. I should naturally work +farther and farther away from them when the thing got to spinning. Just +take a little color from them now and then. I might have him hating her +all the way through, or, supposing he hated her, and yet doing all sorts +of nice little things, and noble big things for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> her, till it came out +about her father's crime, and then—" He stopped again with a certain +air of distaste.</p> + +<p>"That would be rather romantic, wouldn't it?" his wife asked.</p> + +<p>"That was what I was thinking," he answered. "It would be confoundedly +romantic."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll tell you," said Louise; "you could have them squabbling all +the way through, and doing hateful things to one another."</p> + +<p>"That would give it the cast of comedy."</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"And that wouldn't do either."</p> + +<p>"Not if it led up to the pathos and prettiness of their reconciliation +in the end? Shakespeare mixes the comic and the tragic all through!"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, I know that—"</p> + +<p>"And it would be very effective to leave the impression of their +happiness with the audience, so that they might have strength to get on +their rubbers and wraps after the tremendous ordeal of your Haxard +death-scene."</p> + +<p>"Godolphin wouldn't stand that. He wants the gloom of Haxard's death to +remain in unrelieved inkiness at the end. He wants the people to go +away<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> thinking of Godolphin, and how well he did the last gasp. He +wouldn't stand any love business there. He would rather not have any in +the play."</p> + +<p>"Very well, if you're going to be a slave to Godolphin—"</p> + +<p>"I'm not going to be a slave to Godolphin, and if I can see my way to +make the right use of such a passage at the close I'll do it even if it +kills the play or Godolphin."</p> + +<p>"Now you're shouting," said Louise. She liked to use a bit of slang when +it was perfectly safe—as in very good company, or among those she +loved; at other times she scrupulously shunned it.</p> + +<p>"But I can do it somehow," Maxwell mused aloud. "Now I have the right +idea, I can make it take any shape or color I want. It's magnificent!"</p> + +<p>"And who thought of it?" she demanded.</p> + +<p>"Who? Why, <i>I</i> thought of it myself."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you little wretch!" she cried, in utter fondness, and she ran at +him and drove him into a corner. "Now, say that again and I'll tickle +you."</p> + +<p>"No, no, no!" he laughed, and he fought away the pokes and thrusts she +was aiming at him. "We both thought of it together. It was mind +transference!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span></p> + +<p>She dropped her hands with an instant interest in the psychological +phenomena. "Wasn't it strange? Or, no, it wasn't, either! If our lives +are so united in everything, the wonder is that we don't think more +things and say more things together. But now I want you to own, Brice, +that I was the first to speak about your using our situation!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, you were, and I was the first to think of it. But that's perfectly +natural. You always speak of things before you think, and I always think +of things before I speak."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't care," said Louise, by no means displeased with the +formulation. "I shall always say it was perfectly miraculous. And I want +you to give me credit for letting you have the idea after you had +thought of it."</p> + +<p>"Yes, there's nothing mean about you, Louise, as Pinney would say. By +Jove, I'll bring Pinney in! I'll have Pinney interview Haxard concerning +Greenshaw's disappearance."</p> + +<p>"Very well, then, if you bring Pinney in, you will leave me out," said +Louise. "I won't be in the same play with Pinney."</p> + +<p>"Well, I won't bring Pinney in, then," said Maxwell. "I prefer you to +Pinney—in a play. But I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> have got to have in an interviewer. It will be +splendid on the stage, and I'll be the first to have him." He went and +sat down at his table.</p> + +<p>"You're not going to work any more to-night!" his wife protested.</p> + +<p>"No, just jot down a note or two, to clinch that idea of ours in the +right shape." He dashed off a few lines with pencil in his play at +several points, and then he said: "There! I guess I shall get some bones +into those two flabby idiots to-morrow. I see just how I can do it." He +looked up and met his wife's adoring eyes.</p> + +<p>"You're wonderful, Brice!" she said.</p> + +<p>"Well, don't tell me so," he returned, "or it might spoil me. Now I +wouldn't tell you how good you were, on any account."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, do, dearest!" she entreated, and a mist came into her eyes. "I +don't think you praise me enough."</p> + +<p>"How much ought I to praise you?"</p> + +<p>"You ought to say that you think I'll never be a hinderance to you."</p> + +<p>"Let me see," he said, and he pretended to reflect. "How would it do to +say that if I ever come to anything worth while, it'll be because you +made me?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, Brice! But would it be true?" She dropped on her knees at his side.</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know. Let's hope it would," and with these words he +laughed again and put his arms round her. Presently she felt his arm +relax, and she knew that he had ceased to think about her and was +thinking about his play again.</p> + +<p>She pulled away, and "Well?" she asked.</p> + +<p>He laughed at being found out so instantly. "That was a mighty good +thing your father said when you went to tell him of our engagement."</p> + +<p>"It was <i>very</i> good. But if you think I'm going to let you use <i>that</i> +you're very much mistaken. No, Brice! Don't you touch papa. He wouldn't +like it; he wouldn't understand it. Why, what a perfect cormorant you +are!"</p> + +<p>They laughed over his voracity, and he promised it should be held in +check as to the point which he had thought for a moment might be worked +so effectively into the play.</p> + +<p>The next morning Louise said to her husband: "I can see, Brice, that you +are full of the notion of changing that love business, and if I stay +round I shall simply bother. I'm going down to lunch with papa and +mamma, and get back here in the after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>noon, just in time to madden +Godolphin with my meddling."</p> + +<p>She caught the first train after breakfast, and in fifteen minutes she +was at Beverly Farms. She walked over to her father's cottage, where she +found him smoking his cigar on the veranda.</p> + +<p>He was alone; he said her mother had gone to Boston for the day; and he +asked: "Did you walk from the station? Why didn't you come back in the +carriage? It had just been there with your mother."</p> + +<p>"I didn't see it. Besides, I might not have taken it if I had. As the +wife of a struggling young playwright, I should have probably thought it +unbecoming to drive. But the struggle is practically over, you'll be +happy to know."</p> + +<p>"What? Has he given it up?" asked her father.</p> + +<p>"Given it up! He's just got a new light on his love business!"</p> + +<p>"I thought his love business had gone pretty well with him," said +Hilary, with a lingering grudge in his humor.</p> + +<p>"This is another love business!" Louise exclaimed. "The love business in +the play. Brice has always been so disgusted with it that he hasn't +known what to do. But last night we thought it out together, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> I've +left him this morning getting his hero and heroine to stand on their +legs without being held up. Do you want to know about it?"</p> + +<p>"I think I can get on without," said Hilary.</p> + +<p>Louise laughed joyously. "Well, you wouldn't understand what a triumph +it was if I told you. I suppose, papa, you've no idea how Philistine you +are. But you're nothing to mamma!"</p> + +<p>"I dare say," said Hilary, sulkily. But she looked at him with eyes +beaming with gayety, and he could see that she was happy, and he was +glad at heart. "When does Maxwell expect to have his play done?" he +relented so far as to ask.</p> + +<p>"Why, it's done now, and has been for a month, in one sense, and it +isn't done at all in another. He has to keep working it over, and he has +to keep fighting Godolphin's inspirations. He comes over from Manchester +with a fresh lot every afternoon."</p> + +<p>"I dare say Maxwell will be able to hold his own," said Hilary, but not +so much proudly as dolefully.</p> + +<p>She knew he was braving it out about the theatre, and that secretly he +thought it undignified, and even disreputable, to be connected with it, +or to be in such close relations with an actor as Maxwell seemed to be +with this fellow who talked of taking his play. Hilary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> could go back +very easily to the time in Boston when the theatres were not allowed +open on Saturday night, lest they should profane the approaching +Sabbath, and when you would no more have seen an actor in society than +an elephant. He had not yet got used to meeting them, and he always felt +his difference, though he considered himself a very liberal man, and was +fond of the theatre—from the front.</p> + +<p>He asked now, "What sort of chap is he, really?" meaning Godolphin, and +Louise did her best to reassure him. She told him Godolphin was young +and enthusiastic; and he had an ideal of the drama; and he believed in +Brice; and he had been two seasons with Booth and Barrett; and now he +had made his way on the Pacific Coast, and wanted a play that he could +take the road with. She parroted those phrases, which made her father's +flesh creep, and she laughed when she saw it creeping, for sympathy; her +own had crept first.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, at last, "he won't expect you and Maxwell to take the +road too with it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh no, we shall only be with him in New York. He won't put the play on +there first; they usually try a new play in the country."</p> + +<p>"Oh, do they?" said Hilary, with a sense that his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> daughter's knowledge +of the fact was disgraceful to her.</p> + +<p>"Yes. Shall I tell you what they call that? Trying it on a dog!" she +shrieked, and Hilary had to laugh, too. "It's dreadful," she went on. +"Then, if it doesn't kill the dog, Godolphin will bring it to New York, +and put it on for a run—a week or a month—as long as his money holds +out. If he believes in it, he'll fight it." Her father looked at her for +explanation, and she said, with a gleeful perception of his suffering, +"He'll keep it on if he has to play to paper every night. That is, to +free tickets."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Hilary. "And are you to be there the whole time with him?"</p> + +<p>"Why, not necessarily. But Brice will have to be there for the +rehearsals; and if we are going to live in New York—"</p> + +<p>Hilary sighed. "I wish Maxwell was going on with his newspaper work; I +might be of use to him in that line, if he were looking forward to an +interest in a newspaper; but I couldn't buy him a theatre, you know."</p> + +<p>Louise laughed. "He wouldn't let you buy him anything, papa; Brice is +awfully proud. Now, I'll tell you, if you want to know, just how we +expect to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> manage in New York; Brice and I have been talking it all +over; and it's all going to be done on that thousand dollars he saved up +from his newspaper work, and we're not going to touch a cent of my money +till that is gone. Don't you call that pretty business-like?"</p> + +<p>"Very," said Hilary, and he listened with apparent acquiescence to the +details of a life which he divined that Maxwell had planned from his own +simple experience. He did not like the notion of it for his daughter, +but he could not help himself, and it was a consolation to see that she +was in love with it.</p> + +<p>She went back from it to the play itself, and told her father that now +Maxwell had got the greatest love business for it that there ever was. +She would not explain just what it was, she said, because her father +would get a wrong notion of it if she did. "But I have a great mind to +tell you something else," she said, "if you think you can behave +sensibly about it, papa. Do you suppose you can?"</p> + +<p>Hilary said he would try, and she went on: "It's part of the happiness +of having got hold of the right kind of love business now, and I don't +know but it unconsciously suggested it to both of us, for we both +thought of the right thing at the same time; but in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> beginning you +couldn't have told it from a quarrel." Her father started, and Louise +began to laugh. "Yes, we had quite a little tiff, just like <i>real</i> +married people, about my satirizing one of Godolphin's inspirations to +his face, and wounding his feelings. Brice is so cautious and so +gingerly with him; and he was vexed with me, and told me he wished I +wouldn't do it; and that vexed me, and I said I wouldn't have anything +to do with his play after this; and I didn't speak to him again till +after supper. I said he was self-centred, and he <i>is</i>. He's always +thinking about his play and its chances; and I suppose I would rather +have had him think more about me now and then. But I've discovered a way +now, and I believe it will serve the same purpose. I'm going to enter so +fully into his work that I shall be part of it; and when he is thinking +of that he will be thinking of me without knowing it. Now, you wouldn't +say there was anything in that to cry about, would you? and yet you see +I'm at it!" and with this she suddenly dropped her face on her father's +shoulder.</p> + +<p>Hilary groaned in his despair of being able to imagine an injury +sufficiently atrocious to inflict on Maxwell for having brought this +grief upon his girl. At the sound of his groan, as if she perfectly +inter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>preted his meaning in it, she broke from a sob into a laugh. "Will +you never," she said, dashing away the tears, "learn to let me cry, +simply because I am a goose, papa, and a goose must weep without reason, +because she feels like it? I won't have you thinking that I am not the +happiest person in the world; and I was, even when I was suffering so +because I had to punish Brice for telling me I had done wrong. And if +you think I'm not, I will never tell you anything more, for I see you +can't be trusted. Will you?"</p> + +<p>He said no to her rather complicated question, and he was glad to +believe that she was really as happy as she declared, for if he could +not have believed it, he would have had to fume away an intolerable deal +of exasperation. This always made him very hot and uncomfortable, and he +shrank from it, but he would have done it if it had been necessary. As +it was, he got back to his newspaper again with a sufficiently light +heart, when Louise gave him a final kiss, and went indoors and put +herself in authority for the day, and ordered what she liked for +luncheon. The maids were delighted to have her, and she had a welcome +from them all, which was full of worship for her as a bride whose +honeymoon was not yet over.</p> + +<p>She went away before her mother got home, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> she made her father own, +before she left him, that he had never had such a lovely day since he +could remember. He wanted to drive over to Magnolia with her; but she +accused him of wanting to go so that he could spy round a little, and +satisfy himself of the misery of her married life; and then he would not +insist.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV.</h2> + + +<p>Louise kept wondering, the whole way back, how Maxwell had managed the +recasting of the love-business, and she wished she had stayed with him, +so that he could have appealed to her at any moment on the points that +must have come up all the time. She ought to have coached him more fully +about it, and told him the woman's side of such a situation, as he never +could have imagined how many advances a woman can make with a man in +such an affair and the man never find it out. She had not made any +advances herself when she wished to get him back, but she had wanted to +make them; and she knew he would not have noticed it if she had done the +boldest sort of things to encourage him, to let him know that she liked +him; he was so simple, in his straightforward egotism, beside her +sinuous unselfishness.</p> + +<p>She began to think how she was always contriving little sacrifices to +his vanity, his modesty, and he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> always accepting them with a serene +ignorance of the fact that they were offered; and at this she strayed +off on a little by-way in her revery, and thought how it was his mind, +always, that charmed her; it was no ignoble fondness she felt; no poor, +grovelling pleasure in his good looks, though she had always seen that +in a refined sort he had a great deal of manly beauty. But she had held +her soul aloof from all that, and could truly say that what she adored +in him was the beauty of his talent, which he seemed no more conscious +of than of his dreamy eyes, the scornful sweetness of his mouth, the +purity of his forehead, his sensitive nostrils, his pretty, ineffective +little chin. She had studied her own looks with reference to his, and +was glad to own them in no wise comparable, though she knew she was more +graceful, and she could not help seeing that she was a little taller; +she kept this fact from herself as much as possible. Her features were +not regular, like his, but she could perceive that they had charm in +their irregularity; she could only wonder whether he thought that line +going under her chin, and suggesting a future double chin in the little +fold it made, was so very ugly. He seemed never to have thought of her +looks, and if he cared for her, it was for some other reason, just as +she cared for him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> She did not know what the reason could be, but +perhaps it was her sympathy, her appreciation, her cheerfulness; Louise +believed that she had at least these small merits.</p> + +<p>The thought of them brought her back to the play again, and to the +love-business, and she wondered how she could have failed to tell him, +when they were talking about what should bring the lovers together, +after their prefatory quarrel, that simply willing it would do it. She +knew that after she began to wish Maxwell back, she was in such a frenzy +that she believed her volition brought him back; and now she really +believed that you could hypnotize fate in some such way, and that your +longings would fulfil themselves if they were intense enough. If he +could not use that idea in this play, then he ought to use it in some +other, something psychological, symbolistic, Maeterlinckish.</p> + +<p>She was full of it when she dismounted from the barge at the hotel and +hurried over to their cottage, and she was intolerably disappointed when +she did not find him at work in the parlor.</p> + +<p>"Brice! Brice!" she shouted, in the security of having the whole cottage +to herself. She got no answer, and ran up to their room, overhead. He +was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> not there, either, and now it seemed but too probable that he had +profited by her absence to go out for a walk alone, after his writing, +and fallen from the rocks, and been killed—he was so absent-minded. She +offered a vow to Heaven that if he were restored to her she would never +leave him again, even for a half-day, as long as either of them lived. +In reward for this she saw him coming from the direction of the beach, +where nothing worse could have befallen him than a chill from the water, +if the wind was off shore and he had been taking a bath.</p> + +<p>She had not put off her hat yet, and she went out to meet him; she could +not kiss him at once, if she went to meet him, but she could wait till +she got back to the cottage, and then kiss him. It would be a trial to +wait, but it would be a trial to wait for him to come in, and he might +stroll off somewhere else, unless she went to him. As they approached +each other she studied his face for some sign of satisfaction with his +morning's work. It lighted up at sight of her, but there remained an +inner dark in it to her eye.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter?" she asked, as she put her hand through his arm, +and hung forward upon it so that she could look up into his face. "How +did you get on with the love-business?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, I think I've got that all right," he answered, with a certain +reservation. "I've merely blocked it out, of course."</p> + +<p>"So that you can show it to Godolphin?"</p> + +<p>"I guess so."</p> + +<p>"I see that you're not sure of it. We must go over it before he comes. +He hasn't been here yet?"</p> + +<p>"Not yet."</p> + +<p>"Why are you so quiet, Brice? Is anything the matter? You look tired."</p> + +<p>"I'm not particularly tired."</p> + +<p>"Then you are worried. What is it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, you would have to know, sooner or later." He took a letter from his +pocket and gave it to her. "It came just after I had finished my +morning's work."</p> + +<p>She pulled it out of the envelope and read:</p> + + +<blockquote><p class='author'> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"<span class="smcap">Manchester-by-the-Sea</span>, Friday.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>: I beg leave to relinquish any claim that you may +feel I have established to the play you have in hand. As it now stands, +I do not see my part in it, and I can imagine why you should be +reluctant to make further changes in it, in order to meet my +requirements.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p> + +<p>"If I can be of any service to you in placing the piece, I shall be glad +to have you make use of me.</p> + +<p class='center'> +"Yours truly,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">"<span class="smcap">Launcelot Godolphin</span>."</span><br /> +</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>"You blame <i>me</i>!" she said, after a blinding moment, in which the letter +darkened before her eyes, and she tottered in her walk. She gave it back +to him as she spoke.</p> + +<p>"What a passion you have for blaming!" he answered, coldly. "If I fixed +the blame on you it wouldn't help."</p> + +<p>"No," Louise meekly assented, and they walked along towards their +cottage. They hardly spoke again before they reached it and went in. +Then she asked, "Did you expect anything like this from the way he +parted with you yesterday?"</p> + +<p>Maxwell gave a bitter laugh. "From the way we parted yesterday I was +expecting him early this afternoon, with the world in the palm of his +hand, to lay it at my feet. He all but fell upon my neck when he left +me. I suppose his not actually doing it was an actor's intimation that +we were to see each other no more."</p> + +<p>"I wish you had nothing to do with actors!" said Louise.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p> + +<p>"<i>They</i> appear to have nothing to do with me," said Maxwell. "It comes +to the same thing."</p> + +<p>They reached the cottage, and sat down in the little parlor where she +had left him so hopefully at work in the morning, where they had talked +his play over so jubilantly the night before.</p> + +<p>"What are you going to do?" she asked, after an abysmal interval.</p> + +<p>"Nothing. What is there to do?"</p> + +<p>"You have a right to an explanation; you ought to demand it."</p> + +<p>"I don't need any explanation. The case is perfectly clear. Godolphin +doesn't want my play. That is all."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Brice!" she lamented. "I am so dreadfully sorry, and I know it was +my fault. Why don't you let me write to him, and explain—"</p> + +<p>Maxwell shook his head. "He doesn't want any explanation. He doesn't +want the play, even. We must make up our minds to that, and let him go. +Now we can try it with your managers."</p> + +<p>Louise felt keenly the unkindness of his calling them her managers, but +she was glad to have him unkind to her; deep within her Unitarianism she +had the Puritan joy in suffering for a sin; her treatment<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> of +Godolphin's suggestion of a skirt-dance, while very righteous in itself, +was a sin against her husband's interest, and she would rather he were +unkind to her than not. The sooner she was punished for it and done with +it, the better; in her unscientific conception of life, the consequences +of a sin ended with its punishment. If Maxwell had upbraided her with +the bitterness she merited, it would have been to her as if it were all +right again with Godolphin. His failure to do so left the injury +unrepaired, and she would have to do something. "I suppose you don't +care to let me see what you've written to-day?"</p> + +<p>"No, not now," said Maxwell, in a tone that said, "I haven't the heart +for it."</p> + +<p>They sat awhile without speaking, and then she ventured, "Brice, I have +an idea, but I don't know what you will think of it. Why not take +Godolphin's letter on the face of it, and say that you are very sorry he +must give up the play, and that you will be greatly obliged to him if he +can suggest some other actor? That would be frank, at least."</p> + +<p>Maxwell broke into a laugh that had some joy in it. "Do you think so? It +isn't my idea of frankness exactly."</p> + +<p>"No, of course not. You always say what you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> mean, and you don't change. +That is what is so beautiful in you. You can't understand a nature that +is one thing to-day and another thing to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I think I can," said Maxwell, with a satirical glance.</p> + +<p>"Brice!" she softly murmured; and then she said, "Well, I don't care. He +<i>is</i> just like a woman."</p> + +<p>"You didn't like my saying so last night."</p> + +<p>"That was a different thing. At any rate, it's I that say so now, and I +want you to write that to him. It will bring him back flying. Will you?"</p> + +<p>"I'll think about it," said Maxwell; "I'm not sure that I want Godolphin +back, or not at once. It's a great relief to be rid of him, in a certain +way, though a manager might be worse slavery. Still, I think I would +like to try a manager. I have never shown this play to one, and I know +the Odeon people in Boston, and, perhaps—"</p> + +<p>"You are saying that to comfort me."</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't comfort you for worlds, my dear. I am saying this to +distress you. But since I have worked that love-business over, it seems +to me much less a one-part play, and if I could get a manager to take a +fancy to it I could have my own way with it much better; at least, he +wouldn't want me to take all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> the good things out of the other +characters' mouths and stuff them into Haxard's."</p> + +<p>"Do you really think so?"</p> + +<p>"I really thought so before I got Godolphin's letter. That made him seem +the one and only man for me."</p> + +<p>"Yes," Louise assented, with a sad intelligence.</p> + +<p>Maxwell seemed to have got some strength from confronting his calamity. +At any rate, he said, almost cheerfully, "I'll read you what I wrote +this morning," and she had to let him, though she felt that it was +taking her at a moment when her wish to console him was so great that +she would not be able to criticise him. But she found that he had done +it so well there was no need of criticism.</p> + +<p>"You are wonderful, Brice!" she said, in a transport of adoration, which +she indulged as simply his due. "You are miraculous! Well, this is the +greatest triumph yet, even of <i>your</i> genius. How you have seized the +whole idea! And so subtly, so delicately! And so completely disguised! +The girl acts just as a girl <i>would</i> have acted. How could you know it?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I've seen it," he suggested, demurely.</p> + +<p>"No, no, you <i>didn't</i> see it! That is the amusing part of it. You were +as blind as a bat all the time,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> and you never had the least suspicion; +you've told me so."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, I've seen it retrospectively."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps that way. But I don't believe you've seen it at all. You've +divined it; and that's where your genius is worth all the experience in +the world. The girl is twice as good as the man, and you never +experienced a girl's feelings or motives. You divined them. It's pure +inspiration. It's the prophet in you!"</p> + +<p>"You'll be stoning me next," said Maxwell. "I don't think the man is so +very bad, even if I didn't divine him."</p> + +<p>"Yes, for a poor creature of experience and knowledge, he will do very +well. But he doesn't compare with the girl."</p> + +<p>"I hadn't so good a model."</p> + +<p>She hugged him for saying that. "You pay the prettiest compliments in +the world, even if you don't pick up handkerchiefs."</p> + +<p>Their joy in the triumph of his art was unalloyed by the hope of +anything outside of it, of any sort of honor or profit from it, though +they could not keep the thought of these out very long.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said, after one of the delicious silences<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> that divided their +moments of exaltation. "There won't be any trouble about getting your +play taken, <i>now</i>."</p> + +<p>After supper they strolled down for the sunset and twilight on the +rocks. There, as the dusk deepened, she put her wrap over his shoulders +as well as her own, and pulled it together in front of them both. "I am +not going to have you taking cold, now, when you need all your health +for your work more than ever. That love-business seems to me perfect +just as it is, but I know you won't be satisfied till you have put the +very last touch on it."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I see all sorts of things I can do to it. Louise!"</p> + +<p>"Well, what?"</p> + +<p>"Don't you see that the love-business is the play now? I have got to +throw away all the sin-interest, all the Haxard situation, or keep them +together as they are, and write a new play altogether, with the light, +semi-comic motive of the love-business for the motive of the whole. It's +out of tone with Haxard's tragedy, and it can't be brought into keeping +with it. The sin-interest will kill the love-business, or the +love-business will kill the sin-interest. Don't you see?"</p> + +<p>"Why, of course! You must make this light affair<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> now, and when it's +opened the way for you with the public you can bring out the old play," +she assented, and it instantly became the old play in both their minds; +it became almost the superannuated play. They talked it over in this new +aspect, and then they went back to the cottage, to look at the new play +as it shadowed itself forth in the sketch Maxwell had made. He read the +sketch to her again, and they saw how it could be easily expanded to +three or four acts, and made to fill the stage and the evening.</p> + +<p>"And it will be the most original thing that ever was!" she exulted.</p> + +<p>"I don't think there's been anything exactly like it before," he +allowed.</p> + +<p>From time to time they spoke to each other in the night, and she asked +if he were asleep, and he if she were asleep, and then they began to +talk of the play again. Towards morning they drowsed a little, but at +their time of life the loss of a night's sleep means nothing, and they +rose as glad as they had lain down.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you, Brice," she said, the first thing, "you must have it +that they have been engaged, and you can call the play 'The Second +Chapter,' or something more alliterative. Don't you think that would be +a good name?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It would make the fortune of any play," he answered, "let alone a play +of such merit as this."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, sha'n't you always say that I did something towards it?"</p> + +<p>"I shall say you did everything towards it. You originated the idea, and +named it, and I simply acted as your amanuensis, as it were, and wrote +it out mostly from your dictation. It shall go on the bills, 'The Second +Chapter,' a demi-semi-serious comedy by Mrs. Louise Hilary Maxwell—in +letters half a foot high—and by B. Maxwell—in very small lower case, +that can't be read without the aid of a microscope."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Brice! If you make him talk that way to her, it will be perfectly +killing."</p> + +<p>"I dare say the audience will find it so."</p> + +<p>They were so late at breakfast, and sat there so long talking, for +Maxwell said he did not feel like going to work quite so promptly as +usual, that it was quite ten o'clock when they came out of the +dining-room, and then they stayed awhile gossiping with people on the +piazza of the hotel before they went back to their cottage. When they +came round the corner in sight of it they saw the figure of a man pacing +back and forth on the veranda, with his head dropped forward, and +swinging a stick thoughtfully<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> behind him. Louise pulled Maxwell +convulsively to a halt, for the man was Godolphin.</p> + +<p>"What do you suppose it means?" she gasped.</p> + +<p>"I suppose he will tell us," said Maxwell, dryly. "Don't stop and stare +at him. He has got eyes all over him, and he's clothed with +self-consciousness as with a garment, and I don't choose to let him +think that his being here is the least important or surprising."</p> + +<p>"No, of course not. That would be ridiculous," and she would have liked +to pause for a moment's worship of her husband's sense, which appeared +to her almost as great as his genius. But it seemed to her an +inordinately long time before they reached the cottage-gate, and +Godolphin came half-way down the walk to meet them.</p> + +<p>He bowed seriously to her, and then said, with dignity, to her husband, +"Mr. Maxwell, I feel that I owe you an apology—or an explanation, +rather—for the abrupt note I sent you yesterday. I wish to assure you +that I had no feeling in the matter, and that I am quite sincere in my +offer of my services."</p> + +<p>"Why, you're very good, Mr. Godolphin," said Maxwell. "I knew that I +could fully rely on your kind offer. Won't you come in?" He offered the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> +actor his hand, and they moved together towards the cottage; Louise had +at once gone before, but not so far as to be out of hearing.</p> + +<p>"Why, thank you, I <i>will</i> sit down a moment. I found the walk over +rather fatiguing. It's going to be a hot day." He passed his +handkerchief across his forehead, and insisted upon placing a chair for +Mrs. Maxwell before he could be made to sit down, though she said that +she was going indoors, and would not sit. "You understand, of course, +Mr. Maxwell, that I should still like to have your play, if it could be +made what I want?"</p> + +<p>Maxwell would not meet his wife's eye in answering. "Oh, yes; the only +question with me is, whether I can make it what you want. That has been +the trouble all along. I know that the love-business in the play, as it +stood, was inadequate. But yesterday, just before I got your note, I had +been working it over in a perfectly new shape. I wish, if you have a +quarter of an hour to throw away, you'd let me show you what I've +written. Perhaps you can advise me."</p> + +<p>"Why, I shall be delighted to be of any sort of use, Mr. Maxwell," said +Godolphin, with softened state; and he threw himself back in his chair +with an air of eager readiness.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I will get your manuscript, Brice," said Louise, at a motion her +husband made to rise. She ran in and brought it out, and then went away +again. She wished to remain somewhere within earshot, but, upon the +whole, she decided against it, and went upstairs, where she kept herself +from eavesdropping by talking with the chambermaid, who had come over +from the hotel.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>V.</h2> + + +<p>Louise did not come down till she heard Godolphin walking away on the +plank. She said to herself that she had shipwrecked her husband once by +putting in her oar, and she was not going to do it again. When the +actor's footfalls died out in the distance she descended to the parlor, +where she found Maxwell over his manuscript at the table.</p> + +<p>She had to call to him, "Well?" before he seemed aware of her presence.</p> + +<p>Even then he did not look round, but he said, "Godolphin wants to play +Atland."</p> + +<p>"The lover?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. He thinks he sees his part in it."</p> + +<p>"And do you?"</p> + +<p>"How do I know?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I am glad I let him get safely away before I came back, for I +certainly couldn't have held in when he proposed that, if I had been +here. I don't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> understand you, Brice! Why do you have anything more to +do with him? Why do you let him touch the new play? Was he ever of the +least use with the old one?"</p> + +<p>Maxwell lay back in his chair with a laugh. "Not the least in the +world." The realization of the fact amused him more and more. "I was +just thinking how everything he ever got me to do to it," he looked down +at the manuscript, "was false and wrong. They talk about a knowledge of +the stage as if the stage were a difficult science, instead of a very +simple piece of mechanism whose limitations and possibilities any one +can seize at a glance. All that their knowledge of it comes to is +clap-trap, pure and simple. They brag of its resources, and tell you the +carpenter can do anything you want nowadays, but if you attempt anything +outside of their tradition they are frightened. They think that their +exits and their entrances are great matters, and that they must come on +with such a speech, and go off with such another; but it is not of the +least consequence how they come or go if they have something interesting +to say or do."</p> + +<p>"Why don't you say these things to Godolphin?"</p> + +<p>"I do, and worse. He admits their truth with a candor and an +intelligence that are dismaying. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> has a perfect conception of +Atland's part, and he probably will play it in a way to set your teeth +on edge."</p> + +<p>"Why do you let him? Why don't you keep your play and offer it to a +manager or some actor who will know how to do it?" demanded Louise, with +sorrowful submission.</p> + +<p>"Godolphin will know how to do it, even if he isn't able to. And, +besides, I should be a fool to fling him away for any sort of promising +uncertainty."</p> + +<p>"He was willing to fling you away!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, but I'm not so important to him as he is to me. He's the best I +can do for the present. It's a compromise all the way through—a cursed +spite from beginning to end. Your own words don't represent your ideas, +and the more conscience you put into the work the further you get from +what you thought it would be. Then comes the actor with the infernal +chemistry of his personality. He imagines the thing perfectly, not as +you imagined it, but as you wrote it, and then he is no more able to +play it as he imagined it than you were to write it as you imagined it. +What the public finally gets is something three times removed from the +truth that was first in the dramatist's mind. But I'm very lucky to have +Godolphin back again."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I hope you're not going to let him see that you think so."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no! I'm going to keep him in a suppliant attitude throughout, and +I'm going to let you come in and tame his spirit, if he—kicks."</p> + +<p>"Don't be vulgar, Brice," said Louise, and she laughed rather forlornly. +"I don't see how you have the heart to joke, if you think it's so bad as +you say."</p> + +<p>"I haven't. I'm joking without any heart." He stood up. "Let us go and +take a bath."</p> + +<p>She glanced at him with a swift inventory of his fagged looks, and said, +"Indeed, you shall not take a bath this morning. You couldn't react +against it. You won't, will you?"</p> + +<p>"No, I'll only lie on the sand, if you can pick me out a good warm spot, +and watch you."</p> + +<p>"I shall not bathe, either."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, I'll watch the other women." He put out his hand and took +hers.</p> + +<p>She felt his touch very cold. "You are excited I can see. I wish—"</p> + +<p>"What? That I was not an intending dramatist?"</p> + +<p>"That you didn't have such excitements in your life. They will kill +you."</p> + +<p>"They are all that will keep me alive."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p> + +<p>They went down to the beach, and walked back and forth on its curve +several times before they dropped in the sand at a discreet distance +from several groups of hotel acquaintance. People were coming and going +from the line of bath-houses that backed upon the low sand-bank behind +them, with its tufts of coarse silvery-green grasses. The Maxwells bowed +to some of the ladies who tripped gayly past them in their airy costumes +to the surf, or came up from it sobered and shivering. Four or five +young fellows, with sun-blackened arms and legs, were passing ball near +them. A pony-carriage drove by on the wet sand; a horseman on a +crop-tailed roan thumped after it at a hard trot. Dogs ran barking +vaguely about, and children with wooden shovels screamed at their play. +Far off shimmered the sea, of one pale blue with the sky. The rooks were +black at either end of the beach; a line of sail-boats and dories swung +across its crescent beyond the bathers, who bobbed up and down in the +surf, or showed a head here and there outside of it.</p> + +<p>"What a singular spectacle," said Maxwell. "The casting off of the +conventional in sea-bathing always seems to me like the effect of those +dreams where we appear in society insufficiently dressed, and wonder +whether we can make it go."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes, isn't it?" His wife tried to cover all the propositions with one +loosely fitting assent.</p> + +<p>"I'm surprised," Maxwell went on, "that some realistic wretch hasn't put +this sort of thing on the stage. It would be tremendously effective; if +he made it realistic enough it would be attacked by the press as +improper and would fill the house. Couldn't we work a sea-bathing scene +into the 'Second Chapter'? It would make the fortune of the play, and it +would give Godolphin a chance to show his noble frame in something like +the majesty of nature. Godolphin would like nothing better. We could +have Atland rescue Salome, and Godolphin could flop round among the +canvas breakers for ten minutes, and come on for a recall with the +heroine, both dripping real water all over the stage."</p> + +<p>"Don't be disgusting, Brice," said his wife, absently. She had her head +half turned from him, watching a lady who had just come out of her +bath-house and was passing very near them on her way to the water. +Maxwell felt the inattention in his wife's tone and looked up.</p> + +<p>The bather returned their joint gaze steadily from eyes that seemed, as +Maxwell said, to smoulder under their long lashes, and to question her +effect upon them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> in a way that he was some time finding a phrase for. +He was tormented to make out whether she were a large person or not; +without her draperies he could not tell. But she moved with splendid +freedom, and her beauty expressed a maturity of experience beyond her +years; she looked young, and yet she looked as if she had been taking +care of herself a good while. She was certainly very handsome, Louise +owned to herself, as the lady quickened her pace, and finally ran down +to the water and plunged into a breaker that rolled in at the right +moment in uncommon volume.</p> + +<p>"Well?" she asked her husband, whose eyes had gone with hers.</p> + +<p>"We ought to have clapped."</p> + +<p>"Do you think she is an actress?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. I never saw her before. She seemed to turn the sunshine +into lime-light as she passed. Why! that's rather pretty, isn't it? And +it's a verse. I wonder what it is about these people. The best of them +have nothing of the stage in them—at least, the men haven't. I'm not +sure, though, that the women haven't. There are lots of women off the +stage who are actresses, but they don't seem so. They're personal; this +one was impersonal. She<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> didn't seem to regard me as a man; she regarded +me as a house. Did you feel that?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, that was it, I suppose. But she regarded you more than she did me, +I think."</p> + +<p>"Why, of course. You were only a matinée."</p> + +<p>They sat half an hour longer in the sand, and then he complained that +the wind blew all the warmth out of him as fast as the sun shone it into +him. She felt his hand next her and found it still cold; after a glance +round she furtively felt his forehead.</p> + +<p>"You're still thinking," she sighed. "Come! We must go back."</p> + +<p>"Yes. That girl won't be out of the water for half an hour yet; and we +couldn't wait to see her clothed and in her right mind afterwards."</p> + +<p>"What makes you think she's a girl?" asked his wife, as they moved +slowly off.</p> + +<p>He did not seem to have heard her question. He said, "I don't believe I +can make the new play go, Louise; I haven't the strength for it. There's +too much good stuff in Haxard; I can't throw away what I've done on it."</p> + +<p>"That is just what I was thinking, Brice! It would be too bad to lose +that. The love-business as you've remodeled it is all very well. But it +<i>is</i> light; it's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> comedy; and Haxard is such splendid tragedy. I want +you to make your first impression in that. You can do comedy afterwards; +but if you did comedy first, the public would never think your tragedy +was serious."</p> + +<p>"Yes, there's a law in that. A clown mustn't prophesy. If a prophet +chooses to joke, now and then, all well and good. I couldn't begin now +and expand that love-business into a whole play. It must remain an +episode, and Godolphin must take it or leave it. Of course he'll want +Atland emaciated to fatten Haxard, as he calls it. But Atland doesn't +amount to much, as it is, and I don't believe I could make him; it's +essentially a passive part; Salome must make the chief effect in that +business, and I think I'll have her a little more serious, too. It'll be +more in keeping with the rest."</p> + +<p>"I don't see why she shouldn't be serious. There's nothing ignoble in +what she does."</p> + +<p>"No. It can be very impassioned."</p> + +<p>Louise thought of the smouldering eyes of that woman, and she wondered +if they were what suggested something very impassioned to Maxwell; but +with all the frankness between them, she did not ask him.</p> + +<p>On their way to the cottage they saw one of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> hotel bell-boys coming +out. "Just left a telegram in there for you," he called, as he came +towards them.</p> + +<p>Louise began, "Oh, dear, I hope there's nothing the matter with papa! Or +your mother."</p> + +<p>She ran forward, and Maxwell followed at his usual pace, so that she had +time to go inside and come out with the despatch before he mounted the +veranda steps.</p> + +<p>"You open it!" she entreated, piteously, holding it towards him.</p> + +<p>He pulled it impatiently open, and glanced at the signature. "It's from +Godolphin;" and he read, "Don't destroy old play. Keep new love-business +for episode. Will come over this afternoon." Maxwell smiled. "More mind +transference."</p> + +<p>Louise laughed in hysterical relief. "Now you can make him do just what +you want."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI.</h2> + + +<p>Maxwell, now, at least, knew that he had got his play going in the right +direction again. He felt a fresh pleasure in returning to the old lines +after his excursion in the region of comedy, and he worked upon them +with fresh energy. He rehabilitated the love-business as he and his wife +had newly imagined it, and, to disguise the originals the more +effectively, he made the girl, whom he had provisionally called Salome, +more like himself than Louise in certain superficial qualities, though +in an essential nobleness and singleness, which consisted with a great +deal of feminine sinuosity and subtlety, she remained a portrait of +Louise. He was doubtful whether the mingling of characteristics would +not end in unreality, but she was sure it would not; she said he was so +much like a woman in the traits he had borrowed from himself that Salome +would be all the truer for being like him; or, at any rate, she would be +finer, and more ideal.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> She said that it was nonsense, the way people +regarded women as altogether different from men; she believed they were +very much alike; a girl was as much the daughter of her father as of her +mother; she alleged herself as proof of the fact that a girl was often a +great deal more her father's daughter, and she argued that if Maxwell +made Salome quite in his own spiritual image, no one would dream of +criticising her as unwomanly. Then he asked if he need only make Atland +in her spiritual image to have him the manliest sort of fellow. She said +that was not what she meant, and, in any case, a man could have feminine +traits, and be all the nicer for them, but, if a woman had masculine +traits, she would be disgusting. At the same time, if you drew a man +from a woman, he would be ridiculous.</p> + +<p>"Then you want me to model Atland on myself, too," said Maxwell.</p> + +<p>She thought a moment. "Yes, I do. If Salome is to be taken mostly from +me, I couldn't bear to have him like anybody but you. It would be +indelicate."</p> + +<p>"Well, now, I'll tell you what, I'm not going to stand it," said +Maxwell. "I am going to make Atland like Pinney."</p> + +<p>But she would not be turned from the serious as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>pect of the affair by +his joking. She asked, "Do you think it would intensify the situation if +he were not equal to her? If the spectator could be made to see that she +was throwing herself away on him, after all?"</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't that leave the spectator a little too inconsolable? You don't +want the love-business to double the tragedy, you want to have it +relieved, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, that is true. You must make him worth all the sacrifice. I +couldn't stand it if he wasn't."</p> + +<p>Maxwell frowned, as he always did when he became earnest, and said with +a little sigh, "He must be passive, negative, as I said; you must simply +feel that he is <i>good</i>, and that she will be safe with him, after the +worst has happened to her father. And I must keep the interest of the +love-business light, without letting it become farcical. I must get +charm, all I can, into her character. You won't mind my getting the +charm all from you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Brice, what sweet things you say to me! I wish everybody could know +how divine you are."</p> + +<p>"The women would all be making love to me, and I should hate that. One +is quite enough."</p> + +<p>"<i>Am</i> I quite enough?" she entreated.</p> + +<p>"You have been up to the present time."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And do you think I shall always be?" She slid from her chair to her +knees on the floor beside him, where he sat at his desk, and put her +arms round him.</p> + +<p>He did not seem to know it. "Look here, Louise, I have got to connect +this love-business with the main action of the play, somehow. It won't +do simply to have it an episode. How would it do to have Atland know all +the time that Haxard has killed Greenshaw, and be keeping it from +Salome, while she is betraying her love for him?"</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't that be rather tawdry?" Louise let her arms slip down to her +side, and looked up at him, as she knelt.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it would," he owned.</p> + +<p>He looked very unhappy about it, and she rose to her feet, as if to give +it more serious attention. "Brice, I want your play to be thoroughly +honest and true from beginning to end, and not to have any sort of +catchpenny effectivism in it. You have planned it so nobly that I can't +bear to have you lower the standard the least bit; and I think the +honest and true way is to let the love-business be a pleasant fact in +the case, as it might very well be. Those things <i>do</i> keep going on in +life alongside of the greatest misery, the greatest unhappiness."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well," said Maxwell, "I guess you are right about the love-business. +I'll treat it frankly for what it is, a fact in the case. That will be +the right way, and that will be the strong way. It will be like life. I +don't know that you are bound to relate things strictly to each other in +art, any more than they are related in life. There are all sorts of +incidents and interests playing round every great event that seem to +have no more relation to it than the rings of Saturn have to Saturn. +They form the atmosphere of it. If I can let Haxard's wretchedness be +seen at last through the atmosphere of his daughter's happiness!"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said, "that will be quite enough." She knew that they had +talked up to the moment when he could best begin to work, and now left +him to himself.</p> + +<p>Within a week he got the rehabilitated love-business in place, and the +play ready to show to Godolphin again. He had managed to hold the actor +off in the meantime, but now he returned in full force, with suggestions +and misgivings which had first to be cleared away before he could give a +clear mind to what Maxwell had done. Then Maxwell could see that he was +somehow disappointed, for he began to talk as if there were no +understanding between them for his taking the play. He praised it +warmly, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> he said that it would be hard to find a woman to do the +part of Salome.</p> + +<p>"That is the principal part in the piece now, you know," he added.</p> + +<p>"I don't see how," Maxwell protested. "It seems to me that her character +throws Haxard's into greater relief than before, and gives it more +prominence."</p> + +<p>"You've made the love-business too strong, I think. I supposed you would +have something light and graceful to occupy the house in the suspense +between the points in Haxard's case. If I were to do him, I should be +afraid that people would come back from Salome to him with more or less +of an effort, I don't say they would, but that's the way it strikes me +now; perhaps some one else would look at it quite differently."</p> + +<p>"Then, as it is, you don't want it?"</p> + +<p>"I don't say that. But it seems to me that Salome is the principal +figure now. I think that's a mistake."</p> + +<p>"If it's a fact, it's a mistake. I don't want to have it so," said +Maxwell, and he made such effort as he could to swallow his disgust.</p> + +<p>Godolphin asked, after a while, "In that last scene between her and her +father, and in fact in all the scenes between them, couldn't you give +more of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> strong speeches to him? She's a great creation now, but +isn't she too great for Atland?"</p> + +<p>"I've kept Atland under, purposely, because the part is necessarily a +negative one, and because I didn't want him to compete with Haxard at +all."</p> + +<p>"Yes, that is all right; but as it is, <i>she</i> competes with Haxard."</p> + +<p>After Godolphin had gone, Louise came down, and found Maxwell in a +dreary muse over his manuscript. He looked up at her with a lack-lustre +eye, and said, "Godolphin is jealous of Salome now. What he really wants +is a five-act monologue that will keep him on the stage all the time. He +thinks that as it is, she will take all the attention from him."</p> + +<p>Louise appeared to reflect. "Well, isn't there something in that?"</p> + +<p>"Good heavens! I should think you were going to play Haxard, too!"</p> + +<p>"No; but of course you can't have two characters of equal importance in +your play. Some one has to be first, and Godolphin doesn't want an +actress taking all the honors away from him."</p> + +<p>"Then why did you pretend to like the way I had done it," Maxwell +demanded, angrily, "if you think she will take the honors from him?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I didn't say that I did. All that I want is that you should ask +yourself whether she would or not."</p> + +<p>"Are <i>you</i> jealous of her?"</p> + +<p>"Now, my dear, if you are going to be unreasonable, I will not talk with +you."</p> + +<p>Nothing maddened Maxwell so much as to have his wife take this tone with +him, when he had followed her up through the sinuosities that always +began with her after a certain point. Short of that she was as frank and +candid as a man, and he understood her, but beyond that the eternal +womanly began, and he could make nothing of her. She evaded, and came +and went, and returned upon her course, and all with as good a +conscience, apparently, as if she were meeting him fairly and squarely +on the question they started with. Sometimes he doubted if she really +knew that she was behaving insincerely, or whether, if she knew it, she +could help doing it. He believed her to be a more truthful nature than +himself, and it was insufferable for her to be less so, and then accuse +him of illogicality.</p> + +<p>"I have no wish to talk," he said, smothering his rage, and taking up a +page of manuscript.</p> + +<p>"Of course," she went on, as if there had been no break in their good +feeling, "I know what a goose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> Godolphin is, and I don't wonder you're +vexed with him, but you know very well that I have nothing but the good +of the play in view as a work of art, and I should say that if you +couldn't keep Salome from rivalling Haxard in the interest of the +spectator, you had better go back to the idea of making two plays of it. +I think that the 'Second Chapter' would be a very good thing to begin +with."</p> + +<p>"Why, good heavens! you said just the contrary when we decided to drop +it."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but that was when I thought you would be able to subdue Salome."</p> + +<p>"There never was any question of subduing Salome; it was a question of +subduing Atland!"</p> + +<p>"It's the same thing; keeping the love-business in the background."</p> + +<p>"I give it up!" Maxwell flung down his manuscript in sign of doing so. +"The whole thing is a mess, and you seem to delight in tormenting me +about it. How am I to give the love-business charm, and yet keep it in +the background?"</p> + +<p>"I should think you could."</p> + +<p>"How?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I was afraid you would give Salome too much prominence."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Didn't you know whether I had done so or not? You knew what I had done +before Godolphin came!"</p> + +<p>"If Godolphin thinks she is too prominent, you ought to trust his +instinct."</p> + +<p>Maxwell would not answer her. He went out, and she saw him strolling +down the path to the rocks. She took the manuscript and began to read it +over.</p> + +<p>He did not come back, and when she was ready to go to supper she had to +go down to the rocks for him. His angry fit seemed to have passed, but +he looked abjectly sad, and her heart ached at sight of him. She said, +cheerfully, "I have been reading that love-business over again, Brice, +and I don't find it so far out as I was afraid it was. Salome is a +little too <i>prononcée</i>, but you can easily mend that. She is a +delightful character, and you have given her charm—too much charm. I +don't believe there's a truer woman in the whole range of the drama. She +is perfect, and that is why I think you can afford to keep her back a +little in the passages with Haxard. Of course, Godolphin wants to shine +there. You needn't give him her speeches, but you can put them somewhere +else, in some of the scenes with Atland; it won't make any difference +how much she outshines <i>him</i>, poor fellow."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span></p> + +<p>He would not be entreated at once, but after letting her talk on to much +the same effect for awhile, he said, "I will see what can be done with +it. At present I am sick of the whole thing."</p> + +<p>"Yes, just drop it for the present," she said. "I'm hungry, aren't you?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't know it was time."</p> + +<p>She was very tender with him, walking up to the hotel, and all that +evening she kept him amused, so that he would not want to look at his +manuscript. She used him, as a wife is apt to use her husband when he is +fretted and not very well, as if he were her little boy, and she did +this so sweetly that Maxwell could not resent it.</p> + +<p>The next morning she let him go to his play again, and work all the +morning. He ended about noon, and told her he had done what she wanted +done to the love-business, he thought, but he would not show it to her, +for he said he was tired of it, and would have to go over it with +Godolphin, at any rate, when he came in the afternoon. They went to the +beach, but the person with the smouldering eyes failed to appear, and in +fact they did not see her again at Magnolia, and they decided that she +must have been passing a few days at one of the other hotels, and gone +away.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p> + +<p>Godolphin arrived in the sunniest good-humor, as if he had never had any +thought of relinquishing the play, and he professed himself delighted +with the changes Maxwell had made in the love-business. He said the +character of Salome had the true proportion to all the rest now; and +Maxwell understood that he would not be jealous of the actress who +played the part, or feel her a dangerous rival in the public favor. He +approved of the transposition of the speeches that Maxwell had made, or +at least he no longer openly coveted them for Haxard.</p> + +<p>What was more important to Maxwell was that Louise seemed finally +contented with the part, too, and said that now, no matter what +Godolphin wanted, she would never let it be touched again. "I am glad +you have got that 'impassioned' rubbish out. I never thought that was in +character with Salome."</p> + +<p>The artistic consciousness of Maxwell, which caught all the fine +reluctances and all the delicate feminine preferences of his wife, was +like a subtle web woven around him, and took everything, without his +willing it, from within him as well as from without, and held it +inexorably for future use. He knew the source of the impassioned rubbish +which had displeased his wife; and he had felt while he was employing it +that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> he was working in a commoner material than the rest of Salome's +character; but he had experimented with it in the hope that she might +not notice it. The fact that she had instantly noticed it, and had +generalized the dislike which she only betrayed at last, after she had +punished him sufficiently, remained in the meshes of the net he wore +about his mind, as something of value, which he could employ to +exquisite effect if he could once find a scheme fit for it.</p> + +<p>In the meantime it would be hard to say whether Godolphin continued more +a sorrow or a joy to Maxwell, who was by no means always of the same +mind about him. He told his wife sometimes, when she was pitying him, +that it was a good discipline for him to work with such a man, for it +taught him a great deal about himself, if it did not teach him much +else. He said that it tamed his overweening pride to find that there was +artistic ability employing itself with literature which was so unlike +literary ability. Godolphin conceived perfectly of the literary +intention in the fine passages of the play, and enjoyed their beauty, +but he did not value them any more than the poorest and crudest verbiage +that promised him a point. In fact, Maxwell found that in two or three +places the actor was making a wholly wrong version of his words,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> and +maturing in his mind an effect from his error that he was rather loath +to give up, though when he was instructed as to their true meaning, he +saw how he could get a better effect out of it. He had an excellent +intelligence, but this was employed so entirely in the study of +impression that significance was often a secondary matter with him. He +had not much humor, and Maxwell doubted if he felt it much in others, +but he told a funny story admirably, and did character-stuff, as he +called it, with the subtlest sense; he had begun in sketches of the +variety type. Sometimes Maxwell thought him very well versed in the +history and theory of the drama; but there were other times when his +ignorance seemed almost creative in that direction. He had apparently no +feeling for values; he would want a good effect used, without regard to +the havoc it made of the whole picture, though doubtless if it could +have been realized to him, he would have abhorred it as thoroughly as +Maxwell himself. He would come over from Manchester one day with a +notion for the play so bad that it almost made Maxwell shed tears; and +the next with something so good that Maxwell marvelled at it; but +Godolphin seemed to value the one no more than the other. He was a +creature of moods the most extreme; his faith in Max<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>well was as +profound as his abysmal distrust of him; and his frank and open nature +was full of suspicion. He was like a child in the simplicity of his +selfishness, as far as his art was concerned, but in all matters aside +from it he was chaotically generous. His formlessness was sometimes +almost distracting; he presented himself to the author's imagination as +mere human material, waiting to be moulded in this shape or that. From +day to day, from week to week, Maxwell lived in a superficial +uncertainty whether Godolphin had really taken his play, or would ever +produce it; yet at the bottom of his heart he confided in the promises +which the actor lavished upon him in both the written and the spoken +word. They had an agreement carefully drawn up as to all the business +between them, but he knew that Godolphin would not be held by any clause +of it that he wished to break; he did not believe that Godolphin +understood what it bound him to, either when he signed it or afterward; +but he was sure that he would do not only what was right, but what was +noble, if he could be taken at the right moment. Upon the whole, he +liked him; in a curious sort, he respected and honored him; and he +defended him against Mrs. Maxwell when she said Godolphin was wearing +her husband's life out, and that if he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> made the play as greatly +successful as "Hamlet," or the "Trip to Chinatown," he would not be +worth what it cost them both in time and temper.</p> + +<p>They lost a good deal of time and temper with the play, which was almost +a conjugal affair with them, and the struggle to keep up a show of gay +leisure before the summering world up and down the coast told upon Mrs. +Maxwell's nerves. She did not mind the people in the hotel so much; they +were very nice, but she did not know many of them, and she could not +care for them as she did for her friends who came up from Beverly Farms +and over from Manchester. She hated to call Maxwell from his work at +such times, not only because she pitied him, but because he came to help +her receive her friends with such an air of gloomy absence and open +reluctance; and she had hated still worse to say he was busy with his +play, the play he was writing for Mr. Godolphin. Her friends were +apparently unable to imagine anyone writing a play so seriously, and +they were unable to imagine Mr. Godolphin at all, for they had never +heard of him; the splendor of his unknown name took them more than +anything else. As for getting Maxwell to return their visits with her, +when men had come with the ladies who called upon her, she could only +manage it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> if he was so fagged with working at his play that he was too +weak to resist her will, and even then he had to be torn from it almost +by main force. He behaved so badly in the discharge of some of these +duties to society, and was, to her eye at least, so bored and worried by +them that she found it hard to forgive him, and made him suffer for it +on the way home till she relented at the sight of his thin face, the +face that she loved, that she had thought the world well lost for. After +the third or fourth time she made him go with her she gave it up and +went alone, though she was aware that it might look as if they were not +on good terms. She only obliged him after that to go with her to her +father's, where she would not allow any shadow of suspicion to fall upon +their happiness, and where his absent-mindedness would be accounted for. +Her mother seemed to understand it better than her father, who, she +could see, sometimes inwardly resented it as neglect. She also exacted +of Maxwell that he should not sit silent through a whole meal at the +hotel, and that, if he did not or could not talk, he should keep looking +at her, and smiling and nodding, now and then. If he would remember to +do this she would do all the talking herself. Sometimes he did not +remember, and then she trod on his foot in vain.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span></p> + +<p>The droll side of the case often presented itself for her relief, and, +after all, she knew beforehand that this was the manner of man she was +marrying, and she was glad to marry him. She was happier than she had +ever dreamed of being. She was one of those women who live so largely in +their sympathies that if these were employed she had no thought of +herself, and not to have any thought of one's self is to be blessed. +Maxwell had no thought of anything but his work, and that made his +bliss; if she could have no thought but of him in his work, she could +feel herself in Heaven with him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII.</h2> + + +<p>July and August went by, and it was time for Godolphin to take the road +again. By this time Maxwell's play was in as perfect form as it could be +until it was tried upon the stage and then overhauled for repairs. +Godolphin had decided to try it first in Toronto, where he was going to +open, and then to give it in the West as often as he could. If it did as +well as he expected he would bring it on for a run in New York about the +middle of December. He would want Maxwell at the rehearsals there, but +for the present he said he preferred to stage-manage it himself; they +had talked it up so fully that he had all the author's intentions in +mind.</p> + +<p>He came over from Manchester the day before his vacation ended to take +leave of the Maxwells. He was in great spirits with the play, but he +confessed to a misgiving in regard to the lady whom he had secured for +the part of Salome. He said there was only one woman he ever saw fit to +do that part, but when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> he named the actress the Maxwells had to say +they had never heard of her before. "She is a Southerner. She is very +well known in the West," Godolphin said.</p> + +<p>Louise asked if she had ever played in Boston, and when he said she had +not, Louise said "Oh!"</p> + +<p>Maxwell trembled, but Godolphin seemed to find nothing latent in his +wife's offensive tone, and after a little further talk they all parted +on the friendliest terms. The Maxwells did not hear from him for a +fortnight, though he was to have tried the play in Toronto at least a +week earlier. Then there came a telegram from Midland:</p> + +<blockquote><p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"<i>Tried play here last night. Went like wildfire.</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Will write.</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 8em;"><i><span class="smcap">Godolphin</span>.</i></span><br /> +</p></blockquote> + +<p>The message meant success, and the Maxwells walked the air. The +production of the piece was mentioned in the Associated Press despatches +to the Boston papers, and though Mrs. Maxwell studied these in vain for +some verbal corroboration of Godolphin's jubilant message, she did not +lose faith in it, nor allow her husband to do so. In fact, while they +waited for Godolphin's promised letter, they made use of their leisure +to count the chickens which had begun to hatch. The actor had agreed to +pay the author at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> rate of five dollars an act for each performance +of the play, and as it was five acts long a simple feat of arithmetic +showed that the nightly gain from it would be twenty-five dollars, and +that if it ran every night and two afternoons, for matinées, the weekly +return from it would be two hundred dollars. Besides this, Godolphin had +once said, in a moment of high content with the piece, that if it went +as he expected it to go he would pay Maxwell over and above this +twenty-five dollars a performance five per cent. of the net receipts +whenever these passed one thousand dollars. His promise had not been put +in writing, and Maxwell had said at the time that he should be satisfied +with his five dollars an act, but he had told his wife of it, and they +had both agreed that Godolphin would keep it. They now took it into the +account in summing up their gains, and Mrs. Maxwell thought it +reasonable to figure at least twenty-five dollars more from it for each +time the play was given; but as this brought the weekly sum up to four +hundred dollars, she so far yielded to her husband as to scale the total +at three hundred dollars, though she said it was absurd to put it at any +such figure. She refused, at any rate, to estimate their earnings from +the season at less than fifteen thousand dollars. It was useless for +Maxwell<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> to urge that Godolphin had other pieces in his repertory, +things that had made his reputation, and that he would naturally want to +give sometimes. She asked him whether Godolphin himself had not +voluntarily said that if the piece went as he expected he would play +nothing else as long as he lived, like Jefferson with Rip Van Winkle; +and here, she said, it had already, by his own showing, gone at once +like wildfire. When Maxwell pleaded that they did not know what wildfire +meant she declared that it meant an overwhelming house and unbridled +rapture in the audience; it meant an instant and lasting triumph for the +play. She began to praise Godolphin, or, at least, to own herself +mistaken in some of her decrials of him. She could not be kept from +bubbling over to two or three ladies at the hotel, where it was quickly +known what an immense success the first performance of Maxwell's play +had been. He was put to shame by several asking him when they were to +have it in Boston, but his wife had no embarrassment in answering that +it would probably be kept the whole winter in New York, and not come to +Boston till some time in the early spring.</p> + +<p>She was resolved, now, that he should drive over to Beverly Farms with +her, and tell her father and mother about the success of the play. She +had instantly tel<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>egraphed them on getting Godolphin's despatch, and she +began to call out to her father as soon as she got inside the house, and +saw him coming down the stairs in the hall, "<i>Now</i>, what do you say, +papa? Isn't it glorious? Didn't I tell you it would be the greatest +success? Did you ever hear anything like it? Where's mamma? If she +shouldn't be at home, I don't know what I shall do!"</p> + +<p>"She's here," said her father, arriving at the foot of the stairs, where +Louise embraced him, and then let him shake hands with her husband. +"She's dressing. We were just going over to see you."</p> + +<p>"Well, you've been pretty deliberate about it! Here it's after lunch, +and I telegraphed you at ten o'clock." She went on to bully her father +more and more, and to flourish Maxwell's triumph in his face. "We're +going to have three hundred dollars a week from it at the very least, +and fifteen thousand dollars for the season. What do you think of that? +Isn't that pretty good, for two people that had nothing in the world +yesterday? What do you say <i>now</i>, papa?"</p> + +<p>There were all sorts of lurking taunts, demands, reproaches, in these +words, which both the men felt, but they smiled across her, and made as +if they were superior to her simple exultation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I should say you had written the play yourself, Louise," said her +father.</p> + +<p>"No," answered her husband, "Godolphin wrote the play; or I've no doubt +he's telling the reporters so by this time."</p> + +<p>Louise would not mind them. "Well, I don't care! I want papa to +acknowledge that I was right, for once. Anybody could believe in Brice's +genius, but I believed in his star, and I always knew that he would get +on, and I was all for his giving up his newspaper work, and devoting +himself to the drama; and now the way is open to him, and all he has got +to do is to keep on writing."</p> + +<p>"Come now, Louise," said her husband.</p> + +<p>"Well," her father interposed, "I'm glad of your luck, Maxwell. It isn't +in my line, exactly, but I don't believe I could be any happier, if it +were. After all, it's doing something to elevate the stage. I wish +someone would take hold of the pulpit."</p> + +<p>Maxwell shrugged. "I'm not strong enough for that, quite. And I can't +say that I had any conscious intention to elevate the stage with my +play."</p> + +<p>"But you had it unconsciously, Brice," said Louise, "and it can't help +having a good effect on life, too."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It will teach people to be careful how they murder people," Maxwell +assented.</p> + +<p>"Well, it's a great chance," said Hilary, with the will to steer a +middle course between Maxwell's modesty and Louise's overweening pride. +"There really isn't anything that people talk about more. They discuss +plays as they used to discuss sermons. If you've done a good play, +you've done a good thing."</p> + +<p>His wife hastened to make answer for him. "He's done a <i>great</i> play, and +there are no ifs or ans about it." She went on to celebrate Maxwell's +achievement till he was quite out of countenance, for he knew that she +was doing it mainly to rub his greatness into her father, and he had so +much of the old grudge left that he would not suffer himself to care +whether Hilary thought him great or not. It was a relief when Mrs. +Hilary came in. Louise became less defiant in her joy then, or else the +effect of it was lost in Mrs. Hilary's assumption of an entire +expectedness in the event. Her world was indeed so remote from the world +of art that she could value success in it only as it related itself to +her family, and it seemed altogether natural to her that her daughter's +husband should take its honors. She was by no means a stupid woman; for +a woman born and married to wealth, with all the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> advantages that go +with it, she was uncommonly intelligent; but she could not help looking +upon æsthetic honors of any sort as in questionable taste. She would +have preferred position in a son-in-law to any distinction appreciable +to the general, but wanting that it was fit he should be distinguished +in the way he chose. In her feeling it went far to redeem the drama that +it should be related to the Hilarys by marriage, and if she had put her +feeling into words, which always oversay the feelings, they would have +been to the effect that the drama had behaved very well indeed, and +deserved praise. This is what Mrs. Hilary's instinct would have said, +but, of course, her reason would have said something quite different, +and it was her reason that spoke to Maxwell, and expressed a pleasure in +his success that was very gratifying to him. He got on with her better +than with Hilary, partly because she was a woman and he was a man, and +partly because, though she had opposed his marriage with Louise more +steadily than her husband, there had been no open offence between them. +He did not easily forgive a hurt to his pride, and Hilary, with all his +good will since, and his quick repentance at the time, had never made it +quite right with Maxwell for treating him rudely once, when he came to +him so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> helplessly in the line of his newspaper work. They were always +civil to each other, and they would always be what is called good +friends; they had even an air of mutual understanding, as regarded +Louise and her exuberances. Still, she was so like her father in these, +and so unlike her mother, that it is probable the understanding between +Hilary and Maxwell concerning her was only the understanding of men, and +that Maxwell was really more in sympathy with Mrs. Hilary, even about +Louise, even about the world. He might have liked it as much as she, if +he had been as much of it, and he thought so well of it as a world that +he meant to conquer one of the chief places in it. In the meantime he +would have been very willing to revenge himself upon it, to satirize it, +to hurt it, to humble it—but for his own pleasure, not the world's +good.</p> + +<p>Hilary wanted the young people to stay the afternoon, and have dinner, +but his wife perceived that they wished to be left alone in their +exultation, and she would not let him keep them beyond a decent moment, +or share too much in their joy. With only that telegram from Godolphin +they could not be definite about anything but their future, which +Louise, at least, beheld all rose color. Just what size or shape<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> their +good fortune had already taken they did not know, and could not, till +they got the letter Godolphin had promised, and she was in haste to go +back to Magnolia for that, though it could not arrive before the next +morning at the earliest. She urged that he might have written before +telegraphing, or when he came from the theatre after the play was given. +She was not satisfied with the reception of her news, and she said so to +Maxwell, as soon as they started home.</p> + +<p>"What did you want?" he retorted, in a certain vexation. "They were as +cordial as they could be."</p> + +<p>"Cordial is not enough. You can't expect anything like uproar from +mamma, but she took it too much as a matter of course, and I <i>did</i> +suppose papa would be a little more riotous."</p> + +<p>"If you are going to be as exacting as that with people," Maxwell +returned, "you are going to disappoint yourself frightfully; and if you +insist, you will make them hate you. People can't share your happiness +any more than they can share your misery; it's as much as they can do to +manage their own."</p> + +<p>"But I did think my own father and mother might have entered into it a +little more," she grieved. "Well, you are right, Brice, and I will try +to hold in after this. It wasn't for myself I cared."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I know," said Maxwell, so appreciatively that she felt all her loss +made up to her, and shrunk closer to him in the buggy he was driving +with a lax, absent-minded rein. "But I think a little less Fourth of +July on my account would be better."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you are wise, and I shall not say another word about it to +anybody; just treat it as a common every-day event."</p> + +<p>He laughed at what was so far from her possibilities, and began to tell +her of the scheme for still another play that had occurred to him while +they were talking with her father. She was interested in the scheme, but +more interested in the involuntary workings of his genius, and she +celebrated that till he had to beg her to stop, for she made him ashamed +of himself even in the solitude of the woodland stretches they were +passing through. Then he said, as if it were part of the same strain of +thought, "You have to lose a lot of things in writing a play. Now, for +instance, that beautiful green light there in the woods." He pointed to +a depth of the boscage where it had almost an emerald quality, it was so +vivid, so intense. "If I were writing a story about two lovers in such a +light, and how it bathed their figures and illumined their faces, I +could make the reader feel it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> just as I did. I could make them see it. +But if I were putting them in a play, I should have to trust the +carpenter and the scene-painter for the effect; and you know what broken +reeds they are."</p> + +<p>"Yes," she sighed, "and some day I hope you will write novels. But now +you've made such a success with this play that you must do some others, +and when you've got two or three going steadily you can afford to take +up a novel. It would be wicked to turn your back on the opportunity +you've won."</p> + +<p>He silently assented and said, "I shall be all the the better novelist +for waiting a year or two."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>VIII.</h2> + + +<p>There was no letter from Godolphin in the morning, but in the course of +the forenoon there came a newspaper addressed in his handwriting, and +later several others. They were Midland papers, and they had each, +heavily outlined in ink, a notice of the appearance of Mr. Launcelot +Godolphin in a new play written expressly for him by a young Boston +<i>littérateur</i>. Mr. Godolphin believed the author to be destined to make +his mark high in the dramatic world, he said in the course of a long +interview in the paper which came first, an evening edition preceeding +the production of the piece, and plainly meant to give the public the +right perspective. He had entered into a generous expression of his own +feelings concerning it, and had given Maxwell full credit for the lofty +conception of an American drama, modern in spirit, and broad in purpose. +He modestly reserved to himself such praise as might be due for the +hints his life-long<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> knowledge of the stage had enabled him to offer the +dramatist. He told how they had spent the summer near each other on the +north shore of Massachusetts, and had met almost daily; and the reporter +got a picturesque bit out of their first meeting at the actor's hotel, +in Boston, the winter before, when the dramatist came to lay the scheme +of the play before Godolphin, and Godolphin made up his mind before he +had heard him half through, that he should want the piece. He had +permitted himself a personal sketch of Maxwell, which lost none of its +original advantages in the diction of the reporter, and which +represented him as young, slight in figure, with a refined and delicate +face, bearing the stamp of intellectual force; a journalist from the +time he left school, and one of the best exponents of the formative +influences of the press in the training of its votaries. From time to +time it was hard for Maxwell to make out whose words the interview was +couched in, but he acquitted Godolphin of the worst, and he certainly +did not accuse him of the flowery terms giving his patriotic reasons for +not producing the piece first in Toronto as he had meant to do. It +appeared that, upon second thoughts, he had reserved this purely +American drama for the opening night of his engagement in one of the +most dis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>tinctively American cities, after having had it in daily +rehearsal ever since the season began.</p> + +<p>"I should think they had Pinney out there," said Maxwell, as he and his +wife looked over the interview, with their cheeks together.</p> + +<p>"Not at all!" she retorted. "It isn't the least like Pinney," and he was +amazed to find that she really liked the stuff. She said that she was +glad, now, that she understood why Godolphin had not opened with the +play in Toronto, as he had promised, and she thoroughly agreed with him +that it ought first to be given on our own soil. She was dashed for a +moment when Maxwell made her reflect that they were probably the losers +of four or five hundred dollars by the delay; then she said she did not +care, that it was worth the money. She did not find the personal account +of Maxwell offensive, though she contended that it did not do him full +justice, and she cut out the interview and pasted it in a book, where +she was going to keep all the notices of his play and every printed fact +concerning it. He told her she would have to help herself out with some +of the fables, if she expected to fill her book, and she said she did +not care for that, either, and probably it was just such things as this +interview that drew attention to the play, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> must have made it go +like wildfire that first night in Midland. Maxwell owned that it was but +too likely, and then he waited hungrily for further word of his play, +while she expected the next mail in cheerful faith.</p> + +<p>It brought them four or five morning papers, and it seemed from these +that a play might have gone like wildfire, and yet not been seen by a +very large number of people. The papers agreed in a sense of the +graceful compliment paid their city by Mr. Godolphin, who was always a +favorite there, in producing his new piece at one of their theatres, and +confiding it at once to the judgment of a cultivated audience, instead +of trying it first in a subordinate place, and bringing it on with a +factitious reputation worked up from all sorts of unknown sources. They +agreed, too, that his acting had never been better; that it had great +smoothness, and that it rose at times into passion, and was full of his +peculiar force. His company was well chosen, and his support had an even +excellence which reflected great credit upon the young star, who might +be supposed, if he had followed an unwise tradition, to be willing to +shine at the expense of his surroundings. His rendition of the rôle of +Haxard was magnificent in one journal, grand in another, superb in a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> +third, rich, full and satisfying in a fourth, subtle and conscientious +in a fifth. Beyond this, the critics ceased to be so much of one mind. +They were, by a casting vote, adverse to the leading lady, whom the +majority decided an inadequate Salome, without those great qualities +which the author had evidently meant to redeem a certain coquettish +lightness in her; the minority held that she had grasped the rôle with +intelligence, and expressed with artistic force a very refined intention +in it. The minority hinted that Salome was really the great part in the +piece, and that in her womanly endeavor to win back the lover whom she +had not at first prized at his true worth, while her heart was wrung by +sympathy with her unhappy father in the mystery brooding over him, she +was a far more interesting figure than the less complex Haxard; and they +intimated that Godolphin had an easier task in his portrayal. They all +touched more or less upon the conduct of the subordinate actors in their +parts, and the Maxwells, in every case, had to wade through their +opinions of the playing before they got to their opinions of the play, +which was the only vital matter concerned.</p> + +<p>Louise would have liked to read them, as she had read the first, with +her arm across Maxwell's shoulder,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> and, as it were, with the same eye +and the same mind, but Maxwell betrayed an uneasiness under the +experiment which made her ask: "Don't you <i>like</i> to have me put my arm +round you, Brice?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes," he answered, impatiently, "I like to have you put your arm +around me on all proper occasions; but—it isn't favorable to collected +thought."</p> + +<p>"Why, <i>I</i> think it is," she protested with pathos, and a burlesque of +her pathos. "I never think half so well as when I have my arm around +you. Then it seems as if I thought with your mind. I feel so judicial."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I feel too emotional, under the same conditions, and think with +<i>your</i> mind. At any rate, I can't stand it; and we can't both sit in the +same chair either. Now, you take one of the papers and go round to the +other side of the table. I want to have all my faculties for the +appreciation of this noble criticism; it's going to be full of +instruction."</p> + +<p>He made her laugh, and she feigned a pout in obeying him; but, +nevertheless, in her heart she felt herself postponed to the interest +that was always first in him, and always before his love.</p> + +<p>"And don't talk," he urged, "or keep calling out, or reading passages +ahead. I want to get all the sense there doesn't seem to be in this +thing."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p> + +<p>In fact the critics had found themselves confronted with a task which is +always confusing to criticism, in the necessity of valuing a work of art +so novel in material that it seems to refuse the application of +criterions. As he followed their struggles in the endeavor to judge his +work by such canons of art as were known to them, instead of taking it +frankly upon the plane of nature and of truth, where he had tried to put +it, and blaming or praising him as he had failed or succeeded in this, +he was more and more bowed down within himself before the generous +courage of Godolphin in rising to an appreciation of his intention. He +now perceived that he was a man of far more uncommon intelligence than +he had imagined him, and that in taking his play Godolphin had shown a +zeal for the drama which was not likely to find a response in criticism, +whatever its fate with the public might be. The critics frankly owned +that in spite of its defects the piece had a cordial reception from the +audience; that the principal actors were recalled again and again, and +they reported that Godolphin had spoken both for the author and himself +in acknowledging the applause, and had disclaimed all credit for their +joint success. This made Maxwell ashamed of the suspicion he had +harbored that Godolphin would give the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> impression of a joint +authorship, at the least. He felt that he had judged the man narrowly +and inadequately, and he decided that as soon as he heard from him, he +would write and make due reparation for the tacit wrong he had done him.</p> + +<p>Upon the whole he had some reason to be content with the first fortune +of his work, whatever its final fate might be. To be sure, if the +audience which received it was enthusiastic, it was confessedly small, +and it had got no more than a foothold in the public favor. It must +remain for further trial to prove it a failure or a success. His eye +wandered to the column of advertised amusements for the pleasure of +seeing the play announced there for the rest of the week. There was a +full list of the pieces for the time of Godolphin's stay; but it seemed +that neither at night nor at morning was Maxwell's play to be repeated. +The paper dropped from his hand.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter?" his wife asked, looking up from her own paper. +"This poor man is the greatest possible goose. He doesn't seem to know +what he is talking about, even when he praises you. But of course he has +to write merely from a first impression. Do you want to change papers?"</p> + +<p>Maxwell mechanically picked his up, and gave it to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> her. "The worst of +it is," he said, with the sardonic smile he had left over from an +unhappier time of life, "that he won't have an opportunity to revise his +first impression."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>He told her, but she could not believe him till she had verified the +fact by looking at the advertisements in all the papers.</p> + +<p>Then she asked: "What in the world <i>does</i> he mean?"</p> + +<p>"Not to give it there any more, apparently. He hasn't entered upon the +perpetual performance of the piece. But if he isn't like Jefferson, +perhaps he's like Rip; he don't count this time. Well, I might have +known it! Why did I ever trust one of that race?" He began to walk up +and down the room, and to fling out, one after another, the expressions +of his scorn and his self-scorn. "They have no idea of what good faith +is, except as something that brings down the house when they register a +noble vow. But I don't blame him; I blame myself. What an ass, what an +idiot, I was! Why, <i>he</i> could have told me not to believe in his +promises; he is a perfectly honest man, and would have done it, if I had +appealed to him. He didn't expect me to believe in them, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> from the +wary way I talked, I don't suppose he thought I did. He hadn't the +measure of my folly; I hadn't, myself!"</p> + +<p>"Now, Brice!" his wife called out to him, severely, "I won't have you +going on in that way. When I denounced Godolphin you wouldn't listen to +me; and when I begged and besought you to give him up, you always said +he was the only man in the world for you, till I got to believing it, +and I believe it now. Why, dearest," she added, in a softer tone, "don't +you see that he probably had his programme arranged all beforehand, and +couldn't change it, just because your play happened to be a hit? I'm +sure he paid you a great compliment by giving it the first night. Now, +you must just wait till you hear from him, and you may be sure he will +have a good reason for not repeating it there."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Godolphin would never lack for a good reason. And I can tell you +what his reason in this case will be: that the thing was practically a +failure, and that he would have lost money if he had kept it on."</p> + +<p>"Is that what is worrying you? I don't believe it was a failure. I think +from all that the papers say, and the worst that they say, the piece was +a distinct success. It was a great success with nice people, you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> can +see that for yourself, and it will be a popular success, too; I know it +will, as soon as it gets a chance. But you may be sure that Godolphin +has some scheme about it, and that if he doesn't give it again in +Midland, it's because he wants to make people curious about it, and hold +it in reserve, or something like that. At any rate, I think you ought to +wait for his letter before you denounce him."</p> + +<p>Maxwell laughed again at these specious arguments, but he could not +refuse to be comforted by them, and he had really nothing to do but to +wait for Godolphin's letter. It did not come the next mail, and then his +wife and he collated his dispatch with the newspaper notices, and tried +to make up a judicial opinion from their combined testimony concerning +the fate of the play with the audience. Their scrutiny of the telegram +developed the fact that it must have been sent the night of the +performance, and while Godolphin was still warm from his recalls and +from the congratulations of his friends; it could not have reached them +so soon as it did in the morning if it had been sent to the office then; +it was not a night message, but it had probably lain in the office over +night. In this view it was not such valuable testimony to the success of +the play as it had seemed before. But a second<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> and a third reading of +the notices made them seem friendlier than at first. The Maxwells now +perceived that they had first read them in the fever of their joy from +Godolphin's telegram, and that their tempered approval had struck cold +upon them because they were so overheated. They were really very +favorable, after all, and they witnessed to an interest in the play +which could not be ignored. Very likely the interest in it was partly +from the fact that Godolphin had given it, but apart from this it was +evident that the play had established a claim of its own. The mail, +which did not bring a letter from Godolphin, brought another copy of +that evening paper which had printed the anticipatory interview with +him, and this had a long and careful consideration of the play in its +editorial columns, apparently written by a lover of the drama, as well +as a lover of the theatre. Very little regard was paid to the +performance, but a great deal to the play, which was skilfully analyzed, +and praised and blamed in the right places. The writer did not attempt +to forecast its fate, but he said that whatever its fate with the public +might be, here, at least, was a step in the direction of the drama +dealing with facts of American life—simply, vigorously, and honestly. +It had faults of construction, but the faults were not the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> faults of +weakness. They were rather the effects of a young talent addressing +itself to the management of material too rich, too abundant for the +scene, and allowing itself to touch the borders of melodrama in its will +to enforce some tragic points of the intrigue. But it was not mawkish +and it was not romantic. In its highest reaches it made you think, by +its stern and unflinching fidelity to the implications, of Ibsen; but it +was not too much to say that it had a charm often wanting to that +master. It was full of the real American humor; it made its jokes, as +Americans did, in the very face of the most disastrous possibilities; +and in the love-passages it was delicious. The whole episode of the love +between Haxard's daughter, Salome, and Atland was simply the sweetest +and freshest bit of nature in the modern drama. It daringly portrayed a +woman in circumstances where it was the convention to ignore that she +ever was placed, and it lent a grace of delicate comedy to the somber +ensemble of the piece, without lowering the dignity of the action or +detracting from the sympathy the spectator felt for the daughter of the +homicide; it rather heightened this.</p> + +<p>Louise read the criticism aloud, and then she and Maxwell looked at each +other. It took their breath away; but Louise got her breath first. "Who +in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> world would have dreamed that there was any one who could write +such a criticism, <i>out there</i>?"</p> + +<p>Maxwell took the paper, and ran the article over again. Then he said, +"If the thing did nothing more than get itself appreciated in that way, +I should feel that it had done enough. I wonder who the fellow is! Could +it be a woman?"</p> + +<p>There was, in fact, a feminine fineness in the touch, here and there, +that might well suggest a woman, but they finally decided against the +theory: Louise said that a woman writer would not have the honesty to +own that the part Salome played in getting back her lover was true to +life, though every woman who saw it would know that it was. She examined +the wrapper of the newspaper, and made sure that it was addressed in +Godolphin's hand, and she said that if he did not speak of the article +in his letter, Maxwell must write out to the newspaper and ask who had +done it.</p> + +<p>Godolphin's letter came at last, with many excuses for his delay. He +said he had expected the newspaper notices to speak for him, and he +seemed to think that they had all been altogether favorable to the play. +It was not very consoling to have him add that he now believed the piece +would have run the whole week in Midland, if he had kept it on; but he +had arranged<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> merely to give it a trial, and Maxwell would understand +how impossible it was to vary a programme which had once been made out. +One thing was certain, however: the piece was an assured success, and a +success of the most flattering and brilliant kind, and Godolphin would +give it a permanent place in his <i>répertoire</i>. There was no talk of his +playing nothing else, and there was no talk of putting the piece on for +a run, when he opened in New York. He said he had sent Maxwell a paper +containing a criticism in the editorial columns, which would serve to +show him how great an interest the piece had excited in Midland, though +he believed the article was not written by one of the regular force, but +was contributed from the outside by a young fellow who had been +described to Godolphin as a sort of Ibsen crank. At the close, he spoke +of certain weaknesses which the piece had developed in the performance, +and casually mentioned that he would revise it at these points as he +found the time; it appeared to him that it needed overhauling, +particularly in the love episode; there was too much of that, and the +interest during an entire act centred so entirely upon Salome that, as +he had foreseen, the rôle of Haxard suffered.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="IX" id="IX"></a>IX.</h2> + + +<p>The Maxwells stared at each other in dismay when they had finished this +letter, which Louise had opened, but which they had read together, she +looking over his shoulder. All interest in the authorship of the article +of the Ibsen crank, all interest in Godolphin's apparent forgetfulness +of his solemn promises to give the rest of his natural life to the +performance of the piece, was lost in amaze at the fact that he was +going to revise it to please himself, and to fashion Maxwell's careful +work over in his own ideal of the figure he should make in it to the +public. The thought of this was so petrifying that even Louise could not +at once find words for it, and they were both silent, as people +sometimes are, when a calamity has befallen them, in the hope that if +they do not speak it will turn out a miserable dream.</p> + +<p>"Well, Brice," she said at last, "you certainly never expected <i>this</i>!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No," he answered with a ghastly laugh; "this passes my most sanguine +expectations, even of Godolphin. Good Heaven! Fancy the botch he will +make of it!"</p> + +<p>"You mustn't let him touch it. You must demand it back, peremptorily. +You must telegraph!"</p> + +<p>"What a mania you have for telegraphing," he retorted. "A special +delivery postage-stamp will serve every purpose. He isn't likely to do +the piece again for a week, at the earliest." He thought for awhile, and +then he said: "In a week he'll have a chance to change his mind so +often, that perhaps he won't revise and overhaul it, after all."</p> + +<p>"But he mustn't think that you would suffer it for an instant," his wife +insisted. "It's an indignity that you should not submit to; it's an +outrage!"</p> + +<p>"Very likely," Maxwell admitted, and he began to walk the floor, with +his head fallen, and his fingers clutched together behind him. The sight +of his mute anguish wrought upon his wife and goaded her to more and +more utterance.</p> + +<p>"It's an insult to your genius, Brice, dear, and you must resent it. I +am sure I have been as humble about the whole affair as any one could +be, and I should be the last person to wish you to do anything<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> rash. I +bore with Godolphin's suggestions, and I let him worry you to death with +his plans for spoiling your play, but I certainly didn't dream of +anything so high-handed as his undertaking to work it over himself, or I +should have insisted on your breaking with him long ago. How patient you +have been through it all! You've shown so much forbearance, and so much +wisdom, and so much delicacy in dealing with his preposterous ideas, and +then, to have it all thrown away! It's too bad!"</p> + +<p>Maxwell kept walking hack and forth, and Louise began again at a new +point.</p> + +<p>"I was willing to have it remain simply a <i>succès d'estime</i>, as far as +Midland was concerned, though I think you were treated abominably in +that, for he certainly gave you reason to suppose that he would do it +every night there. He says himself that it would have run the whole +week; and you can see from that article how it was growing in public +favor all the time. What has become of his promise to play nothing else, +I should like to know? And he's only played it once, and now he proposes +to revise it himself!"</p> + +<p>Still Maxwell walked on and she continued:</p> + +<p>"I don't know what I shall say to my family. They can never understand +such a thing, never! Papa<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> couldn't conceive of giving a promise and not +keeping it, much less giving a promise just for the <i>pleasure</i> of +breaking it. What shall I tell them, Brice? I can't bear to say that +Godolphin is going to make your play over, unless I can say at the same +time that you've absolutely forbidden him to do so. That's why I wanted +you to telegraph. I wanted to say you had telegraphed."</p> + +<p>Maxwell stopped in his walk and gazed at her, but she could feel that he +did not see her, and she said:</p> + +<p>"I don't know that it's actually necessary for me to say anything at +present. I can show them the notices, or that article alone. It's worth +all the rest put together, and then we can wait, and see if we hear +anything more from Godolphin. But now I don't want you to lose any more +time. You must write to him at once, and absolutely forbid him to touch +your play. Will you?"</p> + +<p>Her husband returned from his wanderings of mind and body, and as he +dropped upon the lounge at her side, he said, gently, "No, I don't think +I'll write at all, Louise."</p> + +<p>"Not write at all! Then you're going to let him tamper with that +beautiful work of yours?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I'm going to wait till I hear from him again. Godolphin is a good +fellow—"</p> + +<p>"Oh!"</p> + +<p>"And he won't be guilty of doing me injustice. Besides," and here +Maxwell broke off with a laugh that had some gayety in it, "he couldn't. +Godolphin is a fine actor, and he's going to be a great one, but his +gifts are not in the line of literature."</p> + +<p>"I should think not!"</p> + +<p>"He couldn't change the piece any more than if he couldn't read or +write. And if he could, when it came to touching it, I don't believe he +would, because the fact would remind him that it wasn't fair. He has to +realize things in the objective way before he can realize them at all. +That's the stage. If they can have an operator climbing a real +telegraph-pole to tap the wire and telegraph the girl he loves that he +is dead, so that she can marry his rich rival and go to Europe and +cultivate her gift for sculpture, they feel that they have got real +life."</p> + +<p>Louise would not be amused, or laugh with her husband at this. "Then +what in the world does Godolphin mean?" she demanded.</p> + +<p>"Why, being interpreted out of actor's parlance, he means that he wishes +he could talk the play over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> with me again and be persuaded that he is +wrong about it."</p> + +<p>"I must say," Louise remarked, after a moment for mastering the +philosophy of this, "that you take it very strangely, Brice."</p> + +<p>"I've thought it out," said Maxwell.</p> + +<p>"And what are you going to do?"</p> + +<p>"I am going to wait the turn of events. My faith in Godolphin is +unshaken—such as it is."</p> + +<p>"And what is going to be our attitude in regard to it?"</p> + +<p>"Attitude? With whom?"</p> + +<p>"With our friends. Suppose they ask us about the play, and how it is +getting along. And my family?"</p> + +<p>"I don't think it will be necessary to take any attitude. They can think +what they like. Let them wait the turn of events, too. If we can stand +it, they can."</p> + +<p>"No, Brice," said his wife. "That won't do. We might be silently patient +ourselves, but if we left them to believe that it was all going well, we +should be living a lie."</p> + +<p>"What an extraordinary idea!"</p> + +<p>"I've told papa and mamma—we've both told them,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> though I did the +talking, you can say—that the play was a splendid success, and +Godolphin was going to give it seven or eight times a week; and now if +it's a failure—"</p> + +<p>"It <i>isn't</i> a failure!" Maxwell retorted, as if hurt by the notion.</p> + +<p>"No matter! If he's only going to play it once a fortnight or so, and is +going to tinker it up to suit himself without saying by-your-leave to +you, I say we're occupying a false position, and that's what I mean by +living a lie."</p> + +<p>Maxwell looked at her in that bewilderment which he was beginning to +feel at the contradictions of her character. She sometimes told outright +little fibs which astonished him; society fibs she did not mind at all; +but when it came to people's erroneously inferring this or that from her +actions, she had a yearning for the explicit truth that nothing else +could appease. He, on the contrary, was indifferent to what people +thought, if he had not openly misled them. Let them think this, or let +them think that; it was altogether their affair, and he did not hold +himself responsible; but he was ill at ease with any conventional lie on +his conscience. He hated to have his wife say to people, as he sometimes +overheard her saying, that he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> out, when she knew he had run +upstairs with his writing to escape them; she contended that it was no +harm, since it deceived nobody.</p> + +<p>Now he said, "Aren't you rather unnecessarily complex?"</p> + +<p>"No, I'm not. And I shall tell papa as soon as I see him just how the +case stands. Why, it would be dreadful if we let him believe it was all +going well, and perhaps tell others that it was, and we knew all the +time that it wasn't. He would hate that, and he wouldn't like us for +letting him."</p> + +<p>"Hadn't you better give the thing a chance to go right? There hasn't +been time yet."</p> + +<p>"No, dearest, I feel that since I've bragged so to papa, I ought to eat +humble-pie before him as soon as possible."</p> + +<p>"Yes. Why should you make me eat it, too?"</p> + +<p>"I can't help that; I would if I could. But, unfortunately, we are one."</p> + +<p>"And you seem to be the one. Suppose I should ask you not to eat +humble-pie before your father?"</p> + +<p>"Then, of course, I should do as you asked. But I hope you won't."</p> + +<p>Maxwell did not say anything, and she went on, tenderly, entreatingly, +"And I hope you'll never allow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> me to deceive myself about anything you +do. I should resent it a great deal more than if you had positively +deceived me. Will you promise me, if anything sad or bad happens, that +you don't want me to know because it will make me unhappy or +disagreeable, you'll tell me at once?"</p> + +<p>"It won't be necessary. You'll find it out."</p> + +<p>"No, do be serious, dearest. <i>I</i> am <i>very</i> serious. Will you?"</p> + +<p>"What is the use of asking such a thing as that? It seems to me that +I've invited you to a full share of the shame and sorrow that Godolphin +has brought upon me."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you have," said Louise, thoughtfully. "And you may be sure that I +appreciate it. Don't you like to have me share it?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know. I might like to get at it first myself."</p> + +<p>"Ah, you didn't like my opening Godolphin's letter when it came!"</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't mind, now, if you would answer it."</p> + +<p>"I shall be only too glad to answer it, if you will let me answer it as +it deserves."</p> + +<p>"That needs reflection."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="X" id="X"></a>X.</h2> + + +<p>The weather grew rough early in September, and all at once, all in a +moment, as it were, the pretty watering-place lost its air of summer +gayety. The sky had an inner gray in its blue; the sea looked cold. A +few hardy bathers braved it out on select days in the surf, but they +were purple and red when they ran up to the bath-houses, and they came +out wrinkled, and hurried to their hotels, where there began to be a +smell of steam-heat and a snapping of radiators in the halls. The barges +went away laden to the stations, and came back empty, except at night, +when they brought over the few and fewer husbands whose wives were +staying down simply because they hated to go up and begin the social +life of the winter. The people who had thronged the grassy-bordered +paths of the village dwindled in number; the riding and driving on the +roads was less and less; the native life showed itself more in the +sparsity of the sojourners.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> The sweet fern in the open fields, and the +brakes and blackberry-vines among the bowlders, were blighted with the +cold wind; even the sea-weed swaying at the foot of the rocks seemed to +feel a sharper chill than that of the brine. A storm came, and strewed +the beach with kelp, and blew over half the bath-houses; and then the +hardiest lingerer ceased to talk of staying through October. There began +to be rumors at the Maxwells' hotel that it would close before the month +was out; some ladies pressed the landlord for the truth, and he +confessed that he expected to shut the house by the 25th. This spread +dismay; but certain of the boarders said they would go to the other +hotels, which were to keep open till October. The dependent cottages had +been mostly emptied before; those who remained in them, if they did not +go away, came into the hotel. The Maxwells themselves did this at last, +for the sake of the warmth and the human companionship around the +blazing hearth-fires in the parlors. They got a room with a stove in it, +so that he could write; and there was a pensive, fleeting coziness in it +all, with the shrinking numbers in the vast dining-room grouped at two +or three tables for dinner, and then gathered in the light of the +evening lamps over the evening papers. In these conditions there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> came, +if not friendship, an intensification of acquaintance, such as is +imaginable of a company of cultured castaways. Ladies who were not quite +socially certain of one another in town gossiped fearlessly together; +there was whist among the men; more than once it happened that a young +girl played or sang by request, and not, as so often happens where a +hotel is full, against the general desire. It came once to a wish that +Mr. Maxwell would read something from his play; but no one had the +courage to ask him. In society he was rather severe with women, and his +wife was not sorry for that; she made herself all the more approachable +because of it. But she discouraged the hope of anything like reading +from him; she even feigned that he might not like to do it without +consulting Mr. Godolphin, and if she did not live a lie concerning the +status of his play, she did not scruple to tell one, now and then.</p> + +<p>That is, she would say it was going beyond their expectations, and this +was not so fabulous as it might seem, for their expectations were not so +high as they had been, and Godolphin was really playing the piece once +or twice a week. They heard no more from him by letter, for Maxwell had +decided that it would be better not to answer his missive from Midland; +but he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> was pretty faithful in sending the newspaper notices whenever he +played, and so they knew that he had not abandoned it. They did not know +whether he had carried out his threat of overhauling it; and Maxwell +chose to remain in ignorance of the fact till Godolphin himself should +speak again. Unless he demanded the play back he was really helpless, +and he was not ready to do that, for he hoped that when the actor +brought it on to New York he could talk with him about it, and come to +some understanding. He had not his wife's belief in the perfection of +the piece; it might very well have proved weak in places, and after his +first indignation at the notion of Godolphin's revising it, he was +willing to do what he could to meet his wishes. He did not so much care +what shape it had in these remote theatres of the West; the real test +was New York, and there it should appear only as he wished.</p> + +<p>It was a comfort to his wife when he took this stand, and she vowed him +to keep it; she would have made him go down on his knees and hold up his +right hand, which was her notion of the way an oath was taken in court, +but she did not think he would do it, and he might refuse to seal any +vow at all if she urged it.</p> + +<p>In the meanwhile she was not without other conso<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>lations. At her +insistence he wrote to the newspaper which had printed the Ibsen crank's +article on the play, and said how much pleasure it had given him, and +begged his thanks to the author. They got a very pretty letter back from +him, adding some praises of the piece which he said he had kept out of +print because he did not want to seem too gushing about it; and he +ventured some wary censures of the acting, which he said he had +preferred not to criticise openly, since the drama was far more +important to him than the theatre. He believed that Mr. Godolphin had a +perfect conception of the part of Haxard, and a thorough respect for the +piece, but his training had been altogether in the romantic school; he +was working out of it, but he was not able at once to simplify himself. +This was in fact the fault of the whole company. The girl who did Salome +had moments of charming reality, but she too suffered from her +tradition, and the rest went from bad to worse. He thought that they +would all do better as they familiarized themselves with the piece, and +he deeply regretted that Mr. Godolphin had been able to give it only +once in Midland.</p> + +<p>At this Mrs. Maxwell's wounds inwardly bled afresh, and she came little +short of bedewing the kind letter with her tears. She made Maxwell +answer it at once,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> and she would not let him deprecate the writer's +worship of him as the first American dramatist to attempt something in +the spirit of the great modern masters abroad. She contended that it +would be as false to refuse this tribute as to accept one that was not +due him, and there could be no doubt but it was fully and richly +merited. The critic wrote again in response to Maxwell, and they +exchanged three or four letters.</p> + +<p>What was even more to Louise was the admirable behavior of her father +when she went to eat humble-pie before him. He laughed at the notion of +Godolphin's meddling with the play, and scolded her for not taking her +husband's view of the case, which he found entirely reasonable, and the +only reasonable view of it. He argued that Godolphin simply chose to +assert in that way a claim to joint authorship, which he had all along +probably believed he had, and he approved of Maxwell's letting him have +his head in the matter, so far as the West was concerned. If he +attempted to give it with any alterations of his own in the East, there +would be time enough to stop him. Louise seized the occasion to confirm +herself in her faith that her father admired Maxwell's genius as much as +she did herself; and she tried to remember just the words he used in +praising it, so that she could repeat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> them to Maxwell. She also +committed to memory his declaration that the very fact of Godolphin's +playing the piece every now and then was proof positive that he would be +very reluctant to part with it, if it came to that. This seemed to her +very important, and she could hardly put up with Maxwell's sardonic +doubt of it.</p> + +<p>Before they left Magnolia there came a letter from Godolphin himself, +wholly different in tone from his earlier letter. He said nothing now of +overhauling the piece, which he felt was gradually making its way. He +was playing it at various one-night stands in the Northwest, preparatory +to bringing it to Chicago and putting it on for a week, and he asked if +Maxwell could not come out and see it there. He believed they were all +gradually getting down to it, and the author's presence at the +rehearsals would be invaluable. He felt more and more that they had a +fortune in it, and it only needed careful working to realize a bonanza. +He renewed his promises, in view of his success so far, to play it +exclusively if the triumph could be clinched by a week's run in such a +place as Chicago. He wrote from Grand Rapids, and asked Maxwell to reply +to him at Oshkosh.</p> + +<p>"Tell him you'll come, of course," said his wife.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span></p> + +<p>Maxwell shook his head. "He doesn't mean this any more than he meant to +revise the thing himself. He probably finds that he can't do that, and +wants me to do it. But if I did it he might take it off after the first +night in Chicago if the notices were unfavorable."</p> + +<p>"But they won't be," she argued. "I <i>know</i> they won't."</p> + +<p>"I should simply break him up from the form he's got into, if I went to +the rehearsals. He must keep on doing it in his own way till he comes to +New York."</p> + +<p>"But think of the effect it will have in New York if you should happen +to make it go in Chicago."</p> + +<p>"It won't have the slightest effect. When he brings it East, it will +have to make its way just as if it had never been played anywhere +before."</p> + +<p>A bright thought occurred to Louise. "Then tell him that if he will +bring it on to Boston you will superintend all the rehearsals. And I +will go with you to them."</p> + +<p>Maxwell only laughed at this. "Boston wouldn't serve any better than +Chicago, as far as New York is concerned. We shall have to build a +success from the ground up there, if we get one. It might run a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> whole +winter in Boston, and then we should probably begin with half a house in +New York, or a third. The only advantage of trying it anywhere before, +is that the actors will be warm in their parts. Besides, do you suppose +Godolphin could get a theatre in Boston out of the order of his +engagement there next spring?"</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"Simply because every night at every house is taken six months +beforehand."</p> + +<p>"Who would ever have dreamt," said Louise, ruefully, "that simply +writing a play would involve any one in all these exasperating business +details."</p> + +<p>"Nobody can get free of business," Maxwell returned.</p> + +<p>"Then I will tell you," she brightened up to say. "Why not sell him the +piece outright, and wash your hands of it?"</p> + +<p>"Because he wouldn't buy it outright, and if I washed my hands of it he +could do what he pleased with it. If he couldn't tinker it up himself he +could hire some one else to do it, and that would be worse yet."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, the only thing for us to do is to go on to New York, and +wait there till Godolphin comes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> I suppose papa and mamma would like to +have us stay through October with them in Boston, but I don't see much +sense in that, and I don't choose to have the air of living on them. I +want to present an unbroken front of independence from the beginning, as +far as inquiring friends are concerned; and in New York we shall be so +lost to sight that nobody will know how we are living. You can work at +your new play while we're waiting, and we can feel that the onset in the +battle of life has sounded."</p> + +<p>Maxwell laughed, as she meant him, at the mock heroics of her phrase, +and she pulled off his hat, and rubbed his hair round on his skull in +exultation at having arrived at some clear understanding. "I wouldn't +have hair like silk," she jeered.</p> + +<p>"And I wouldn't have hair like corn-silk," he returned. "At least not on +my own head."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it <i>is</i> coarse. And it's yours quite as much as mine," she said, +thoughtfully. "We <i>do</i> belong to each other utterly, don't we? I never +thought of it in that light before. And now our life has gone into your +work, already! I can't tell you, Brice, how sweet it is to think of that +love-business being our own! I shall be so proud of it on the stage! But +as long as we live no one but ourselves must know<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> anything about it. Do +you suppose they will?" she asked, in sudden dismay.</p> + +<p>He smiled. "Should you care?"</p> + +<p>She reflected a moment. "No!" she shouted, boldly. "What difference?"</p> + +<p>"Godolphin would pay any sum for the privilege of using the fact as an +advertisement. If he could put it into Pinney's hands, and give him +<i>carte blanche</i>, to work in all the romance he liked—"</p> + +<p>"Brice!" she shrieked.</p> + +<p>"Well, we needn't give it away, and if <i>we</i> don't, nobody else will."</p> + +<p>"No, and we must always keep it sacredly secret. Promise me one thing!"</p> + +<p>"Twenty!"</p> + +<p>"That you will let me hold your hand all through the first performance +of that part. Will you?"</p> + +<p>"Why, we shall be set up like two brazen images in a box for all the +first-nighters to stare at and the society reporters to describe. What +would society journalism say to your holding my hand throughout the +tender passages? It would be onto something personal in them in an +instant."</p> + +<p>"No; now I will show you how we will do." They were sitting in a nook of +the rocks, in the pallor of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> the late September sunshine, with their +backs against a warm bowlder. "Now give me your hand."</p> + +<p>"Why, you've got hold of it already."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, so I have! Well, I'll just grasp it in mine firmly, and let +them both rest on your knee, so; and fling the edge of whatever I'm +wearing on my shoulders over them, or my mantle, if it's hanging on the +back of the chair, so"—she flung the edge of her shawl over their +clasped hands to illustrate—"and nobody will suspect the least thing. +Suppose the sea was the audience—a sea of faces you know; would any one +dream down there that I was squeezing your hand at all the important +moments, or you squeezing mine?"</p> + +<p>"I hope they wouldn't think me capable of doing anything so indelicate +as squeezing a lady's hand," said Maxwell. "I don't know what they might +think of you, though, if there was any such elaborate display of +concealment as you've got up here."</p> + +<p>"Oh, this is merely rehearsing. Of course, I shall be more adroit, more +careless, when I really come to it. But what I mean is that when we +first see it together, the love-business, I shall want to feel that you +are feeling every instant just as I do. Will you?"</p> + +<p>"I don't see any great objection to that. We shall<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> both be feeling very +anxious about the play, if that's what you mean."</p> + +<p>"That's what I mean in one sense," Louise allowed. "Sha'n't you be very +anxious to see how they have imagined Salome and Atland?"</p> + +<p>"Not so anxious as about how Godolphin has 'created' Haxard."</p> + +<p>"I care nothing about that. But if the woman who does <i>me</i> is vulgar, or +underbred, or the least bit coarse, and doesn't keep the character just +as sweet and delicate as you imagined it, I don't know what I shall do +to her."</p> + +<p>"Nothing violent, I hope," Maxwell suggested languidly.</p> + +<p>"I am not so sure," said Louise. "It's a dreadfully intimate affair with +me, and if I didn't like it I should hiss, anyway."</p> + +<p>Maxwell laughed long and loud. "What a delightful thing that would be +for society journalism. 'At one point the wife of the author was +apparently unable to control her emotions, and she was heard to express +her disapprobation by a prolonged sibilation. All eyes were turned upon +the box where she sat with her husband, their hands clasped under the +edge of her mantle.' No, you mustn't hiss, my dear; but if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> you find +Salome getting too much for you you can throw a dynamite bomb at the +young woman who is doing her. I dare say we shall want to blow up the +whole theatre before the play is over."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't believe we shall. I know the piece will go splendidly if +the love-business is well done. But you can understand, can't you, just +how I feel about Salome?"</p> + +<p>"I think I can, and I am perfectly sure that you will be bitterly +disappointed in her, no matter how she's done, unless you do her +yourself."</p> + +<p>"I wish I could!"</p> + +<p>"Then the other people might be disappointed."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XI" id="XI"></a>XI.</h2> + + +<p>The Maxwells went to New York early in October, and took a little +furnished flat for the winter on the West Side, between two streets +among the Eighties. It was in a new apartment-house, rather fine on the +outside, and its balconies leaned caressingly towards the tracks of the +Elevated Road, whose trains steamed back and forth under them night and +day. At first they thought it rather noisy, but their young nerves were +strong, and they soon ceased to take note of the uproar, even when the +windows were open.</p> + +<p>The weather was charming, as the weather of the New York October is apt +to be. The month proved much milder than September had been at Magnolia. +They were not very far from Central Park, and they went for whole +afternoons into it. They came to have such a sense of ownership in one +of the seats in the Ramble, that they felt aggrieved when they found +anybody had taken it, and they resented other people's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> intimacy with +the squirrels, which Louise always took a pocketful of nuts to feed; the +squirrels got a habit of climbing into her lap for them. Sometimes +Maxwell hired a boat and rowed her lazily about on the lake, while he +mused and she talked. Sometimes, to be very lavish, they took places in +the public carriage which plied on the drives of the Park, and went up +to the tennis-grounds beyond the reservoirs, and watched the players, or +the art-students sketching the autumn scenery there. They began to know, +without acquaintance, certain attached or semi-attached couples; and no +doubt they passed with these for lovers themselves, though they felt a +vast superiority to them in virtue of their married experience; they +looked upon them, though the people were sometimes their elders, as very +young things, who were in the right way, but were as yet deplorably +ignorant how happy they were going to be. They almost always walked back +from these drives, and it was not so far but they could walk over to the +North River for the sunset before their dinner, which they had late when +they did that, and earlier when they did not do it. Dinner was rather a +matter of caprice with them. Sometimes they dined at a French or Italian +<i>table d'hôte</i>; sometimes they foraged for it before they came in from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> +their sunset, or their afternoon in the park. When dinner consisted +mainly of a steak or chops, with one of the delicious salads their +avenue abounded in, and some improvisation of potatoes, and coffee +afterward, it was very easy to get it up in half an hour. They kept one +maid, who called herself a Sweden's girl, and Louise cooked some of the +things herself. She did not cook them so well as the maid, but Maxwell +never knew what he was eating, and he thought it all alike good.</p> + +<p>In their simple circumstances, Louise never missed the affluence that +had flattered her whole life in her father's house. It seemed to her as +if she had not lived before her marriage—as if she had always lived as +she did now. She made the most of her house-keeping, but there was not a +great deal of that, at the most. She knew some New York people, but it +was too early yet for them to be back to town, and, besides, she doubted +if she should let them know where she was; for society afflicted +Maxwell, and she could not care for it unless he did. She did not wish +to do anything as yet, or be anything apart from him; she was timid +about going into the street without him. She wished to be always with +him, and always talking to him; but it soon came to his imploring her +not to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> talk when she was in the room where he was writing; and he often +came to the table so distraught that the meal might have passed without +a word but for her.</p> + +<p>He valued her all she could possibly have desired in relation to his +work, and he showed her how absolutely he rested upon her sympathy, if +not her judgment, in it. He submitted everything to her, and forbore, +and changed, and amended, and wrote and rewrote at her will; or when he +revolted, and wrote on in defiance of her, he was apt to tear the work +up. He destroyed a good deal of good literature in this way, and more +than once it happened that she had tacitly changed her mind and was of +his way of thinking when it was too late. In view of such a chance she +made him promise that he would always show her what he had written, even +when he had written wholly against her taste and wish. He was not to let +his pride keep him from doing this, though, as a general thing, she took +a good deal of pride in his pride, having none herself, as she believed. +Whether she had or not, she was very wilful, and rather prepotent; but +she never bore malice, as the phrase is, when she got the worst of +anything, though she might have been quite to blame. She had in all +things a high ideal of conduct, which she expected her husband to live +up to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> when she was the prey of adverse circumstances. At other times +she did her share of the common endeavor.</p> + +<p>All through the month of October he worked at the new play, and from +time to time they heard from the old play, which Godolphin was still +giving, here and there, in the West. He had not made any reply to +Maxwell's letter of regret that he could not come to the rehearsals at +Chicago, but he sent the notices marked in the newspapers, at the +various points where he played, and the Maxwells contented themselves as +they could with these proofs of an unbroken amity. They expected +something more direct and explicit from him when he should get to +Chicago, where his engagement was to begin the first week in November. +In the meantime the kind of life they were living had not that stressful +unreality for Louise that it had for Maxwell on the economic side. For +the first time his regular and serious habits of work did not mean the +earning of money, but only the chance of earning money. Ever since he +had begun the world for himself, and he had begun it very early, there +had been some income from his industry; however little it was, it was +certain; the salary was there for him at the end of the week when he +went to the cashier's desk. His mother and he had both done so well and +so wisely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> in their several ways of taking care of themselves, that +Maxwell had not only been able to live on his earnings, but he had been +able to save out of them the thousand dollars which Louise bragged of to +her father, and it was this store which they were now consuming, not +rapidly, indeed, but steadily, and with no immediate return in money to +repair the waste. The fact kept Maxwell wakeful at night sometimes, and +by day he shuddered inwardly at the shrinkage of his savings, so much +swifter than their growth, though he was generously abetted by Louise in +using them with frugality. She could always have had money from her +father, but this was something that Maxwell would not look forward to. +There could be no real anxiety for them in the situation, but for +Maxwell there was care. He might be going to get a great deal out of the +play he was now writing, but as yet it was in no form to show to a +manager or an actor; and he might be going to get a great deal out of +his old play, but so far Godolphin had made no sign that he remembered +one of the most essential of the obligations which seemed all to rest so +lightly upon him. Maxwell hated to remind him of it, and in the end he +was very glad that he never did, or that he had not betrayed the +slightest misgiving of his good faith.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span></p> + +<p>One morning near the end of the month, when he was lower in his spirits +than usual from this cause, there came a letter from the editor of the +Boston <i>Abstract</i> asking him if he could not write a weekly letter from +New York for his old newspaper. It was a temptation, and Maxwell found +it a hardship that his wife should have gone out just then to do the +marketing for the day; she considered this the duty of a wife, and she +fulfilled it often enough to keep her sense of it alive, but she much +preferred to forage with him in the afternoon; that was poetry, she +said, and the other was prose. He would have liked to talk the +proposition over with her; to realize the compliment while it was fresh, +to grumble at it a little, and to be supported in his notion that it +would be bad business just then for him to undertake a task that might +draw him away from his play too much; to do the latter well would take a +great deal of time. Yet he did not feel quite that he ought to refuse +it, in view of the uncertainties of the future, and it might even be +useful to hold the position aside from the money it would bring him; the +New York correspondent of the Boston <i>Abstract</i> might have a claim upon +the attention of the managers which a wholly unaccredited playwright +could not urge; there was no question<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> of their favor with Maxwell; he +would disdain to have that, even if he could get it, except by the +excellence, or at least the availability of his work.</p> + +<p>Louise did not come in until much later than usual, and then she came in +looking very excited. "Well, my dear," she began to call out to him as +soon as the door was opened for her, "I have seen that woman again!"</p> + +<p>"What woman?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"You know. That smouldering-eyed thing in the bathing-dress." She added, +in answer to his stupefied gaze: "I don't mean that she was in the +bathing-dress still, but her eyes were smouldering away just as they +were that day on the beach at Magnolia."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Maxwell, indifferently. "Where did you see her?"</p> + +<p>"On the avenue, and I know she lives in the neighborhood somewhere, +because she was shopping here on the avenue, and I could have easily +followed her home if she had not taken the Elevated for down town."</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you take it, too? It might have been a long way round, but +it would have been certain. I've been wanting you here badly. Just tell +me what you think of that."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span></p> + +<p>He gave her the editor's letter, and she hastily ran it through. "I +wouldn't think of it for a moment," she said. "Were there any letters +for me?"</p> + +<p>"It isn't a thing to be dismissed without reflection," he began.</p> + +<p>"I thought you wanted to devote yourself entirely to the drama?"</p> + +<p>"Of course."</p> + +<p>"And you've always said there was nothing so killing to creative work as +any sort of journalism."</p> + +<p>"This wouldn't take more than a day or two each week, and twenty-five +dollars a letter would be convenient while we are waiting for our cards +to turn up."</p> + +<p>"Oh, very well! If you are so fickle as all that, <i>I</i> don't know what to +say to you." She put the letter down on the table before him, and went +out of the room.</p> + +<p>He tried to write, but with the hurt of what he felt her unkindness he +could not, and after a certain time he feigned an errand into their +room, where she had shut herself from him, and found her lying down. +"Are you sick?" he asked, coldly.</p> + +<p>"Not at all," she answered. "I suppose one may lie down without being +sick, as you call it. I should say ill, myself."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I'm so glad you're not sick that I don't care what you call it."</p> + +<p>He was going out, when she spoke again: "I didn't know you cared +particularly, you are always so much taken up with your work. I suppose, +if you wrote those letters for the <i>Abstract</i>, you need never think of +me at all, whether I was ill or well."</p> + +<p>"You would take care to remind me of your existence from time to time, I +dare say. You haven't the habit of suffering in silence a great deal."</p> + +<p>"You would like it better, of course, if I had."</p> + +<p>"A great deal better, my dear. But I didn't know that you regarded my +work as self-indulgence altogether. I have flattered myself now and then +that I was doing it for you, too."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, very likely. But if you had never seen me you would be doing it +all the same."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid so. I seem to have been made that way. I'm sorry you don't +approve. I supposed you did once."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I do approve—highly." He left her, and she heard him getting his +hat and stick in the little hallway, as if he were going out of doors. +She called to him, "What I wonder is how a man so self-centred that he +can't look at his wife for days together, can<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> tell whether another +woman's eyes are smouldering or not."</p> + +<p>Maxwell paused, with his hand on the knob, as if he were going to make +some retort, but, perhaps because he could think of none, he went out +without speaking.</p> + +<p>He stayed away all the forenoon, walking down the river along the +squalid waterside avenues; he found them in sympathy with the squalor in +himself which always followed a squabble with his wife. At the end of +one of the westward streets he found himself on a pier flanked by vast +flotillas of canal-boats. As he passed one of these he heard the sound +of furious bickering within, and while he halted a man burst from the +gangway and sprang ashore, followed by the threats and curses of a +woman, who put her head out of the hatch to launch them after him.</p> + +<p>The incident turned Maxwell faint; he perceived that the case of this +unhappy man, who tried to walk out of earshot with dignity, was his own +in quality, if not in quantity. He felt the shame of their human +identity, and he reached home with his teeth set in a hard resolve to +bear and forbear in all things thereafter, rather than share ever again +in misery like that, which dishonored his wife even more than it +dishon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>ored him. At the same time he was glad of a thought the whole +affair suggested to him, and he wondered whether he could get a play out +of it. This was the notion of showing the evil eventuation of good. +Their tiffs came out of their love for each other, and no other quarrels +could have the bitterness that these got from the very innermost +sweetness of life. It would be hard to show this dramatically, but if it +could be done the success would be worth all the toil it would cost.</p> + +<p>At his door he realized with a pang that he could not submit the notion +to his wife now, and perhaps never. But the door was pulled open before +he could turn his latch-key in the lock, and Louise threw her arms round +his neck.</p> + +<p>"Oh, dearest, guess!" she commanded between her kisses.</p> + +<p>"Guess what?" he asked, walking her into the parlor with his arms round +her. She kept her hands behind her when he released her, and they stood +confronted.</p> + +<p>"What should you consider the best news—or not news exactly; the best +thing—in the world?"</p> + +<p>"Why, I don't know. Has the play been a great success in Chicago?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Better than that!" she shouted, and she brought an open letter from +behind her, and flourished it before him, while she went on +breathlessly: "It's from Godolphin, and of course I opened it at once, +for I thought if there was anything worrying in it, I had better find it +out while you were gone, and prepare you for it. He's sent you a check +for $300—twelve performances of the play—and he's written you the +sweetest letter in the world, and I take back everything I ever said +against him! Here, shall I read it? Or, no, you'll want to read it +yourself. Now, sit down at your desk, and I'll put it before you, with +the check on top!"</p> + +<p>She pushed him into his chair, and he obediently read the check first, +and then took up the letter. It was dated at Chicago, and was written +with a certain histrionic consciousness, as if Godolphin enjoyed the +pose of a rising young actor paying over to the author his share of the +profits of their joint enterprise in their play. There was a list of the +dates and places of the performances, which Maxwell noted were chiefly +matinées; and he argued a distrust of the piece from this fact, which +Godolphin did not otherwise betray. He said that the play constantly +grew upon him, and that with such revision as they should be able to +give<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> it together when he reached New York, they would have one of the +greatest plays of the modern stage. He had found that wherever he gave +it the better part of his audience was best pleased with it, and he felt +sure that when he put it on for a run the houses would grow up to it in +every way. He was going to test it for a week in Chicago; there was no +reference to his wish that Maxwell should have been present at the +rehearsals there; but otherwise Godolphin's letter was as candid as it +was cordial.</p> + +<p>Maxwell read it with a silent joy which seemed to please his wife as +well as if he had joined her in rioting over it. She had kept the lunch +warm for him, and now she brought it in from the kitchen herself and set +it before him, talking all the time.</p> + +<p>"Well, now we can regard it as an accomplished fact, and I shall not +allow you to feel any anxiety about it from this time forward. I +consider that Godolphin has done his whole duty by it. He has kept the +spirit of his promises if he hasn't the letter, and from this time +forward I am going to trust him implicitly, and I'm going to make you. +No more question of Godolphin in <i>this</i> family! Don't you long to know +how it goes in Chicago? But I don't really care, for, as you say, that +won't have the slightest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> influence in New York; and I know it will go +here, anyway. Yes, I consider it, from this time on, an assured success. +And isn't it delightful that, as Godolphin says, it's such a favorite +with refined people?" She went on a good while to this effect, but when +she had talked herself out, Maxwell had still said so little that she +asked, "What is it, Brice?"</p> + +<p>"Do you think we deserve it?" he returned, seriously.</p> + +<p>"For squabbling so? Why, I suppose I was tired and overwrought, or I +shouldn't have done it."</p> + +<p>"And I hadn't even that excuse," said Maxwell.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes you had," she retorted. "I provoked you. And if any one was to +blame, I was. Do you mind it so much?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, it tears my heart. And it makes me feel so low and mean."</p> + +<p>"Oh, how good you are!" she began, but he stopped her.</p> + +<p>"Don't! I'm not good; and I don't deserve success. I don't feel as if +this belonged to me. I ought to send Godolphin's check back, in common +honesty, common decency." He told of the quarrel he had witnessed on the +canal-boat, and she loved him for his simple-hearted humility; but she +said there was noth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>ing parallel in the cases, and she would not let him +think so; that it was morbid, and showed he had been overworking.</p> + +<p>"And now," she went on, "you must write to Mr. Ricker at once and thank +him, and tell him you can't do the letters for him. Will you?"</p> + +<p>"I'll see."</p> + +<p>"You must. I want you to reserve your whole strength for the drama. +That's your true vocation, and it would be a sin for you to turn to the +right or left." He continued silent, and she went on: "Are you still +thinking about our scrap this morning? Well, then, I'll promise never to +begin it again. Will that do?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know that you began it. And I wasn't thinking—I was +thinking of an idea for a play—the eventuation of good in evil—love +evolving in hate."</p> + +<p>"That will be grand, if you can work it out. And now you see, don't you, +that there is some use in squabbling, even?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose nothing is lost," said Maxwell. He took out his pocket-book, +and folded Godolphin's check into it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XII" id="XII"></a>XII.</h2> + + +<p>A week later there came another letter from Godolphin. It was very +civil, and in its general text it did not bear out the promise of +severity in its change of address to <i>Dear Sir</i>, from the <i>Dear Mr. +Maxwell</i> of the earlier date.</p> + +<p>It conveyed, in as kindly terms as could have been asked, a fact which +no terms could have flattered into acceptability.</p> + +<p>Godolphin wrote, after trying the play two nights and a matinée in +Chicago, to tell the author that he had withdrawn it because its failure +had not been a failure in the usual sense but had been a grievous +collapse, which left him no hopes that it would revive in the public +favor if it were kept on. Maxwell would be able to judge, he said, from +the newspapers he sent, of the view the critics had taken of the piece; +but this would not have mattered at all if it had not been the view of +the public, too. He said he would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> not pain Maxwell by repeating the +opinions which he had borne the brunt of alone; but they were such as to +satisfy him fully and finally that he had been mistaken in supposing +there was a part for him in the piece. He begged to return it to +<i>Maxwell</i>, and he ventured to send his prompt-book with the original +manuscript, which might facilitate his getting the play into other +hands.</p> + +<p>The parcel was brought in by express while they were sitting in the +dismay caused by the letter, and took from them the hope that Godolphin +might have written from a mood and changed his mind before sending back +the piece. Neither of them had the nerve to open the parcel, which lay +upon Maxwell's desk, very much sealed and tied and labelled, diffusing a +faint smell of horses, as express packages mostly do, through the room.</p> + +<p>Maxwell found strength, if not heart, to speak first. "I suppose I am to +blame for not going to Chicago for the rehearsals." Louise said she did +not see what that could have done to keep the play from failing, and he +answered that it might have kept Godolphin from losing courage. "You +see, he says he had to take the brunt of public opinion <i>alone</i>. He was +sore about that."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, well, if he is so weak as that, and would have had to be bolstered +up all along, you are well rid of him."</p> + +<p>"I am certainly rid of him," Maxwell partially assented, and they both +lapsed into silence again. Even Louise could not talk. They were as if +stunned by the blow that had fallen on them, as all such blows fall, +when it was least expected, and it seemed to the victims as if they were +least able to bear it. In fact, it was a cruel reverse from the +happiness they had enjoyed since Godolphin's check came, and although +Maxwell had said that they must not count upon anything from him, except +from hour to hour, his words conveyed a doubt that he felt no more than +Louise. Now his gloomy wisdom was justified by a perfidy which she could +paint in no colors that seemed black enough. Perhaps the want of these +was what kept her mute at first; even when she began to talk she could +only express her disdain by urging her husband to send back Godolphin's +check to him. "We want nothing more to do with such a man. If he felt no +obligation to keep faith with you, it's the same as if he had sent that +money out of charity."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I have thought of that," said Maxwell. "But I guess I shall keep +the money. He may regard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> the whole transaction as child's play; but I +don't, and I never did. I worked very hard on the piece, and at the +rates for space-work, merely, I earned his money and a great deal more. +If I can ever do anything with it, I shall be only too glad to give him +his three hundred dollars again."</p> + +<p>She could see that he had already gathered spirit for new endeavor with +the play, and her heart yearned upon him in pride and fondness. "Oh, you +dear! What do you intend to do next?"</p> + +<p>"I shall try the managers."</p> + +<p>"Brice!" she cried in utter admiration.</p> + +<p>He rose and said, as he took up the express package, and gave +Godolphin's letter a contemptuous push with his hand, "You can gather up +this spilt milk. Put it away somewhere; I don't want to see it or think +of it again." He cut open the package, and found the prompt-book, which +he laid aside, while he looked to see if his own copy of the play were +all there.</p> + +<p>"You are going to begin at once?" gasped Louise.</p> + +<p>"This instant," he said. "It will be slow enough work at the best, and +we mustn't lose time. I shall probably have to go the rounds of all the +managers, but I am not going to stop till I have gone the rounds.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> I +shall begin with the highest, and I sha'n't stop till I reach the +lowest."</p> + +<p>"But when? How? You haven't thought it out."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I have. I have been thinking it out ever since I got the play into +Godolphin's hands. I haven't been at peace about him since that day when +he renounced me in Magnolia, and certainly till we got his check there +has been nothing in his performance to restore my confidence. Come, now, +Louise, you mustn't stop me, dear," he said, for she was beginning to +cling about him. "I shall be back for lunch, and then we can talk over +what I have begun to do. If I began to talk of it before, I should lose +all heart for it. Kiss me good luck!"</p> + +<p>She kissed him enough for all the luck in the world, and then he got +himself out of her arms while she still hardly knew what to make of it +all. He was half-way down the house-stairs, when her eye fell on the +prompt-book. She caught it up and ran out upon the landing, and screamed +down after him, "Brice, Brice! You've forgotten something."</p> + +<p>He came flying back, breathless, and she held the book out to him. "Oh, +I don't want that," he panted, "It would damage the play with a manager +to know that Godolphin had rejected it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But do you think it would be quite right—quite frank—to let him take +it without telling him?"</p> + +<p>"It will be right to show it him without telling him. It will be time +enough to tell him if he likes it."</p> + +<p>"That is true," she assented, and then she kissed him again and let him +go; he stood a step below her, and she had to stoop a good deal; but she +went in doors, looking up to him as if he were a whole flight of steps +above her, and saying to herself that he had always been so good and +wise that she must now simply trust him in everything.</p> + +<p>Louise still had it on her conscience to offer Maxwell reparation for +the wrong she thought she had done him when she had once decided that he +was too self-seeking and self-centred, and had potentially rejected him +on that ground. The first thing she did after they became engaged was to +confess the wrong, and give him a chance to cast her off if he wished; +but this never seemed quite reparation enough, perhaps because he +laughed and said that she was perfectly right about him, and must take +him with those faults or not at all. She now entered upon a long, +delightful review of his behavior ever since that moment, and she found +that, although he was certainly as self-centred as she had ever thought +or he had owned himself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> to be, self-seeking he was not, in any mean or +greedy sense. She perceived that his self-seeking, now, at least, was as +much for her sake as his own, and that it was really after all not +self-seeking, but the helpless pursuit of aims which he was born into +the world to achieve. She had seen that he did not stoop to achieve +them, but had as haughty a disdain of any but the highest means as she +could have wished him to have, and much haughtier than she could have +had in his place. If he forgot her in them, he forgot himself quite as +much, and they were equal before his ambition. In fact, this seemed to +her even more her charge than his, and if he did not succeed as with his +genius he had a right to succeed, it would be constructively her fault, +and at any rate she should hold herself to blame for it; there would be +some satisfaction in that. She thought with tender pathos how hard he +worked, and was at his writing all day long, except when she made him go +out with her, and was then often so fagged that he could scarcely speak. +She was proud of his almost killing himself at it, but she must study +more and more not to let him kill himself, and must do everything that +was humanly possible to keep up his spirits when he met with a reverse.</p> + +<p>She accused herself with shame of having done<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> nothing for him in the +present emergency, but rather flung upon him the burden of her own +disappointment. She thought how valiantly he had risen up under it, and +had not lost one moment in vain repining; how instantly he had collected +himself for a new effort, and taken his measures with a wise prevision +that omitted no detail. In view of all this, she peremptorily forbade +herself to be uneasy at the little reticence he was practising with +regard to Godolphin's having rejected his play; and imagined the +splendor he could put on with the manager after he had accepted it, in +telling him its history, and releasing him, if he would, from his +agreement. She imagined the manager generously saying this made no +difference whatever, though he appreciated Mr. Maxwell's candor in the +matter, and should be all the happier to make a success of it because +Godolphin had failed with it.</p> + +<p>But she returned from this flight into the future, and her husband's +part in it, to the present and her own first duty in regard to him; and +it appeared to her, that this was to look carefully after his health in +the strain put upon it, and to nourish him for the struggle before him. +It was to be not with one manager only, but many managers, probably, and +possibly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> with all the managers in New York. That was what he had said +it would be before he gave up, and she remembered how flushed and +excited he looked when he said it, and though she did not believe he +would get back for lunch—the manager might ask him to read his play to +him, so that he could get just the author's notion—she tried to think +out the very most nourishing lunch she could for him. Oysters were in +season, and they were very nourishing, but they had already had them for +breakfast, and beefsteak was very good, but he hated it. Perhaps chops +would do, or, better still, mushrooms on toast, only they were not in +the market at that time of year. She dismissed a stewed squab, and +questioned a sweetbread, and wondered if there were not some kind of +game. In the end she decided to leave it to the provision man, and she +lost no time after she reached her decision in going out to consult him. +He was a bland, soothing German, and it was a pleasure to talk with him, +because he brought her married name into every sentence, and said, "No, +Mrs. Maxwell;" "Yes, Mrs. Maxwell;" "I send it right in, Mrs. Maxwell." +She went over his whole list of provisions with him, and let him +persuade her that a small fillet was the best she could offer a person +whose frame needed nourish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>ing, while at the same time his appetite +needed coaxing. She allowed him to add a can of mushrooms, as the right +thing to go with it, and some salad; and then while he put the order up +she stood reproaching herself for it, since it formed no fit lunch, and +was both expensive and commonplace.</p> + +<p>She was roused from her daze, when she was going to countermand the +whole stupid order by the man's saying: "What can I do for you this +morning, Mrs. Harley?" and she turned round to find at her elbow the +smouldering-eyed woman of the bathing-beach. She lifted her heavy lids +and gave Louise a dull glance, which she let a sudden recognition burn +through for a moment and then quenched. But in that moment the two women +sealed a dislike that had been merely potential before. Their look said +for each that the other was by nature, tradition, and aspiration +whatever was most detestable in their sex.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Harley, whoever she was, under a name that Louise electrically +decided to be fictitious, seemed unable to find her voice at first in +their mutual defiance, and she made a pretence of letting her strange +eyes rove about the shop before she answered. Her presence was so +repugnant to Louise that she turned abruptly and hurried out of the +place without return<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>ing the good-morning which the German sent after +her with the usual addition of her name. She resented it now, for if it +was not tantamount to an introduction to that creature, it was making +her known to her, and Louise wished to have no closer acquaintance with +her than their common humanity involved. It seemed too odious to have +been again made aware that they were inhabitants of the same planet, and +the anger that heaved within her went out in a wild flash of resentment +towards her husband for having forever fixed that woman in her +consciousness with a phrase. If it had not been for that, she would not +have thought twice of her when they first saw her, and she would not +have known her when they met again, and at the worst would merely have +been harassed with a vague resemblance which would never have been +verified.</p> + +<p>She had climbed the stairs to their apartment on the fourth floor, when +she felt the need to see more, know more, of this hateful being so +strong upon her, that she stopped with her latch-key in her door and +went down again. She did not formulate her intention, but she meant to +hurry back to the provision store, with the pretext of changing her +order, and follow the woman wherever she went, until she found out where +she lived; and she did not feel, as a man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> would, the disgrace of +dogging her steps in that way so much as she felt a fatal dread of her. +If she should be gone by the time Louise got back to the shop, she would +ask the provision man about her, and find out in that way. She stayed a +little while to rehearse the terms of her inquiry, and while she +lingered the woman herself came round the corner of the avenue and +mounted the steps where Louise stood and, with an air of custom, went on +upstairs to the second floor, where Louise heard her putting a latch-key +into the door, which then closed after her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XIII" id="XIII"></a>XIII.</h2> + + +<p>Maxwell went to a manager whom he had once met in Boston, where they had +been apparently acceptable to each other in a long talk they had about +the drama. The manager showed himself a shrewd and rather remorseless +man of business in all that he said of the theatre, but he spoke as +generously and reverently of the drama as Maxwell felt, and they parted +with a laughing promise to do something for it yet. In fact, if it had +not been for the chances that threw him into Godolphin's hand +afterwards, he would have gone to this manager with his play in the +first place, and he went to him now, as soon as he was out of +Godolphin's hands, not merely because he was the only manager he knew in +the city, but because he believed in him as much as his rather sceptical +temper permitted him to believe in any one, and because he believed he +would give him at least an intelligent audience.</p> + +<p>The man in the box-office, where he stood in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> glow of an electric +light at midday, recovered himself from the disappointment he suffered +when Maxwell asked for the manager instead of a seat for the night's +performance. He owned that the manager was in his room, but said he was +very much engaged, and he was hardly moved from this conviction by +Maxwell's urgence that he should send in his card; perhaps something in +Maxwell's tone and face as of authority prevailed with him; perhaps it +was the title of the Boston <i>Abstract</i>, which Maxwell wrote under his +name, to recall himself better to the manager's memory. The answer was a +good while getting back; people came in and bought tickets and went +away, while Maxwell hung about the vestibule of the theatre and studied +the bill of the play which formed its present attraction, but at last +the man in the box-office put his face sidewise to the semi-circular +opening above the glass-framed plan of seats and, after he had +identified Maxwell, said, "Mr. Grayson would like to see you." At the +same time the swinging doors of the theatre opened, and a young man came +out, to whom the other added, indicating Maxwell, "This is the +gentleman;" and the young man held the door open for him to pass in, and +then went swiftly before him into the theatre, and led the way around +the orchestra<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> circle to a little door that opened in the wall beside +one of the boxes. There was a rehearsal going on in the glare of some +grouped incandescent bulbs on the stage, and people moving about in top +hats and bonnets and other every-day outside gear, which Maxwell lost +sight of in his progress through the wings and past a rough brick wall +before he arrived at another door down some winding stairs in the depths +of the building. His guide knocked at it, and when an answering voice +said, "Come in!" he left Maxwell to go in alone. The manager had risen +from his chair at his table, and stood, holding out his hand, with a +smile of kindly enough welcome. He said, "I've just made you out, Mr. +Maxwell. Do you come as a friendly interviewer, or as a deadly +dramatist!"</p> + +<p>"As both or as neither, whichever you like," said Maxwell, and he gladly +took the manager's hand, and then took the chair which he cleared of +some prompt-books for him to sit down in.</p> + +<p>"I hadn't forgotten the pleasant talk I had with you in Boston, you +see," the manager began again, "but I had forgotten whom I had it with."</p> + +<p>"I can't say I had even done that," Maxwell answered, and this seemed to +please the manager.</p> + +<p>"Well, that counts you one," he said. "You no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>ticed that we have put on +'Engaged?' We've made a failure of the piece we began with; it's several +pieces now. <i>Couldn't</i> you do something like 'Engaged?'"</p> + +<p>"I wish I could! But I'm afraid Gilbert is the only man living who can +do anything like 'Engaged.' My hand is too heavy for that kind."</p> + +<p>"Well, the heavy hand is not so bad if it hits hard enough," said the +manager, who had a face of lively intelligence and an air of wary +kindliness. He looked fifty, but this was partly the effect of overwork. +There was something of the Jew, something of the Irishman, in his +visage; but he was neither; he was a Yankee, from Maine, with a Boston +training in his business. "What have you got?" he asked, for Maxwell's +play was evident.</p> + +<p>"Something I've been at work on for a year, more or less." Maxwell +sketched the plot of his play, and the manager seemed interested.</p> + +<p>"Rather Ibsenish, isn't it?" he suggested at the end.</p> + +<p>The time had passed with Maxwell when he wished to have this said of his +play, not because he did not admire Ibsen, but because he preferred the +recognition of the original quality of his work. "I don't know that it +is, very. Perhaps—if one didn't like it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know that I should dislike it for its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> Ibsenism. The time +of that sort of thing may be coming. You never can be sure, in this +business, when the time of anything is coming. I've always thought that +a naturalized Ibsenism wouldn't be so bad for our stage. You don't want +to be quite so bleak, you know, as the real Norwegian Ibsen."</p> + +<p>"I've tried not to be very bleak, because I thought it wasn't in the +scheme," said Maxwell.</p> + +<p>"I don't understand that it ends well?"</p> + +<p>"Unless you consider the implicated marriage of the young people a good +ending. Haxard himself, of course, is past all surgery. But the thing +isn't pessimistic, as I understand, for its doctrine is that harm comes +only from doing wrong."</p> + +<p>The manager laughed. "Oh, the average public would consider that <i>very</i> +pessimistic. They want no harm to come even from doing wrong. They want +the drama to get round it, somehow. If you could show that Divine +Providence forgets wrong-doing altogether in certain cases, you would +make the fortune of your piece. Come, why couldn't you try something of +that kind? It would be the greatest comfort to all the sinners in front, +for every last man of them—or woman—would think she was the one who +was going to get away."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I might come up to that, later," said Maxwell, willing to take the +humorous view of the matter, if it would please the manager and smooth +the way for the consideration of his work; but, more obscurely, he was +impatient, and sorry to have found him in so philosophical a mood.</p> + +<p>The manager was like the man of any other trade; he liked to talk of his +business, and this morning he talked of it a long time, and to an effect +that Maxwell must have found useful if he had not been so bent upon +getting to his manuscript that he had no mind for generalities. At last +the manager said, abruptly, "You want me to read your play?"</p> + +<p>"Very much," Maxwell answered, and he promptly put the packet he had +brought into the manager's extended hand.</p> + +<p>He not only took it, but he untied it, and even glanced at the first few +pages. "All right," he said, "I'll read it, and let you hear from me as +soon as I can. Your address—oh, it's on the wrapper, here. By-the-way, +why shouldn't you lunch with me? We'll go over to the Players' Club."</p> + +<p>Maxwell flushed with eager joy; then he faltered.</p> + +<p>"I should like to do it immensely. But I'm afraid—I'm afraid Mrs. +Maxwell will be waiting for me."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, all right; some other time," answered the manager; and then Maxwell +was vexed that he had offered any excuse, for he thought it would have +been very pleasant and perhaps useful for him to lunch at the Players'. +But the manager did not urge him. He only said, as he led the way to the +stage-door, "I didn't know there was a Mrs. Maxwell."</p> + +<p>"She's happened since we met," said Maxwell, blushing with fond pride. +"We're such a small family that we like to get together at lunch," he +added.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, I can understand that stage of it," said the manager. +"By-the-way, are you still connected with the <i>Abstract</i>? I noticed the +name on your card."</p> + +<p>"Not quite in the old way. But," and with the words a purpose formed +itself in Maxwell's mind, "they've asked me to write their New York +letter."</p> + +<p>"Well, drop in now and then. I may have something for you." The manager +shook hands with him cordially, and Maxwell opened the door and found +himself in the street.</p> + +<p>He was so little conscious of the transit homeward that he seemed to +find himself the next moment with Louise in their little parlor. He +remembered afterwards that there was something strange in her manner +towards him at first, but, before he could feel pres<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>ently cognizant of +it, this wore off in the interest of what he had to tell.</p> + +<p>"The sum of it all," he ended his account of the interview with the +manager, "is that he's taken the thing to read, and that he's to let me +hear from him when he's read it. When that will be nobody knows, and I +should be the last to ask. But he seemed interested in my sketch of it, +and he had an intelligence about it that was consoling. And it was a +great comfort, after Godolphin, and Godolphin's pyrotechnics, to have +him take it in a hard, business way. He made no sort of promises, and he +held out no sort of hopes; he didn't commit himself in any sort of way, +and he can't break his word, for he hasn't given it. I wish, now, that I +had never let Godolphin have the play back after he first renounced it; +I should have saved a great deal of time and wear and tear of feelings. +Yes, if I had taken your advice then—"</p> + +<p>At this generous tribute to her wisdom, all that was reluctant ceased +from Louise's manner and behavior. She put her arm around his neck and +protested. "No, no! I can't let you say that, Brice! You were right +about that, as you are about everything. If you hadn't had this +experience with Godolphin, you wouldn't have known how to appreciate Mr. +Grayson's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> reception of you, and you might have been unreasonable. I can +see now that it's all been for the best, and that we needed just this +discipline to prepare us for prosperity. But I guess Godolphin will +wish, when he hears that Mr. Grayson has taken your piece, and is going +to bring it out at the Argosy, here—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, good heavens! Do give those poor chickens a chance to get out of +the shell this time, my dear!"</p> + +<p>"Well, I know it vexes you, and I know it's silly; but still I feel sure +that Mr. Grayson will take it. You don't mind that, do you?"</p> + +<p>"Not if you don't say it. I want you to realize that the chances are +altogether against it. He was civil, because I think he rather liked me +personally—"</p> + +<p>"Of <i>course</i> he did!"</p> + +<p>"Oh!"</p> + +<p>"Well, never mind. Personally—"</p> + +<p>"And I don't suppose it did me any harm with him to suppose that I still +had a newspaper connection. I put Boston <i>Abstract</i> on my card—for +purposes of identification, as the editors say—because I was writing +for it when I met him in Boston."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, as long as you're not writing for it now, I don't care. I +want you to devote yourself entirely to the drama, Brice."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes, that's all very well. But I think I shall do Ricker's letters for +him this winter at least. I was thinking of it on the way down. It'll be +work, but it'll be money, too, and if I have something coming in I +sha'n't feel as if I were ruined every time my play gets back from a +manager."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Grayson will take it!"</p> + +<p>"Now, Louise, if you say that, you will simply drive me to despair, for +I shall know how you will feel when he doesn't—"</p> + +<p>"No, I shall not feel so; and you will see. But if you don't let me hope +for you—"</p> + +<p>"You know I can't stand hoping. The only safe way is to look for the +worst, and if anything better happens it is so much pure gain. If we +hadn't been so eager to pin our faith to Godolphin—"</p> + +<p>"How much better off should we have been? What have we lost by it?" she +challenged him.</p> + +<p>He broke off with a laugh. "We have lost the pins. Well, hope away! But, +remember, you take the whole responsibility." Maxwell pulled out his +watch. "Isn't lunch nearly ready? This prosperity is making me hungry, +and it seems about a year since breakfast."</p> + +<p>"I'll see what's keeping it," said Louise, and she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> ran out to the +kitchen with a sudden fear in her heart. She knew that she had meant to +countermand her order for the fillet and mushrooms, and she thought that +she had forgotten to order anything else for lunch. She found the cook +just serving it up, because such a dish as that took more time than an +ordinary lunch, and the things had come late. Louise said, Yes, she +understood that; and went back to Maxwell, whom she found walking up and +down the room in a famine very uncommon for him. She felt the motherly +joy a woman has in being able to appease the hunger of the man she +loves, and now she was glad that she had not postponed the fillet till +dinner as she had thought of doing. Everything was turning out so +entirely for the best that she was beginning to experience some revival +of an ancestral faith in Providence in a heart individually agnostic, +and she was piously happy when Maxwell said at sight of the lunch, +"Isn't this rather prophetic? If it isn't that, it's telepathic. I +sha'n't regret now that I didn't go with Grayson to lunch at the +Players' Club."</p> + +<p>"Did he ask you to do that?"</p> + +<p>Maxwell nodded with his mouth full.</p> + +<p>A sudden misgiving smote her. "Oh, Brice, you ought to have gone! Why +didn't you go?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It must have been a deep subconsciousness of the fillet and mushrooms. +Or perhaps I didn't quite like to think of your lunching alone."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you dear, faithful little soul!" she cried. The tears came into her +eyes, and she ran round the table to kiss him several times on the top +of his head.</p> + +<p>He kept on eating as well as he could, and when she got back to her +place, "Of course, it would have been a good thing for me to go to the +Players'," he teased, "for it would have pleased Grayson, and I should +probably have met some other actors and managers there, and made +interest with them provisionally for my play, if he shouldn't happen to +want it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know it," she moaned. "You have ruined yourself for me. I'm not +worth it. No, I'm not! Now, I want you to promise, dearest, that you'll +never mind me again, but lunch or dine, or breakfast, or sup whenever +anybody asks you?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I can't promise all that, quite."</p> + +<p>"I mean, when the play is at stake."</p> + +<p>"Oh, in that case, yes."</p> + +<p>"What in the world did you say to Mr. Grayson?"</p> + +<p>"Very much what I have said to you: that I hated to leave you to lunch +alone here."</p> + +<p>"Oh, didn't he think it very silly?" she entreated,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> fondly. "Don't you +think he'll laugh at you for it!"</p> + +<p>"Very likely. But he won't like me the less for it. Men are glad of +marital devotion in other men; they feel that it acts as a sort of +dispensation for them."</p> + +<p>"You oughtn't to waste those things on me," she said, humbly. "You ought +to keep them for your plays."</p> + +<p>"Oh, they're not wasted, exactly. I can use them over again. I can say +much better things than that with a pen in my hand."</p> + +<p>She hardly heard him. She felt a keen remorse for something she had +meant to do and to say when he came home. Now she put it far from her; +she thought she ought not to keep even an extinct suspicion in her heart +against him, and she asked, "Brice, did you know that woman was living +in this house?"</p> + +<p>"What woman?"</p> + +<p>Louise was ashamed to say anything about the smouldering eyes. "That +woman on the bathing-beach at Magnolia—the one I met the other day."</p> + +<p>He said, dryly: "She seems to be pursuing us. How did you find it out?"</p> + +<p>She told him, and she added, "I think she <i>must</i> be an actress of some +sort."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Very likely, but I hope she won't feel obliged to call because we're +connected with the profession."</p> + +<p>Some time afterwards Louise was stitching at a centre-piece she was +embroidering for the dining-table, and Maxwell was writing a letter for +the <i>Abstract</i>, which he was going to send to the editor with a note +telling him that if it were the sort of thing he wanted he would do the +letters for them.</p> + +<p>"After all," she breathed, "that look of the eyes may be purely +physical."</p> + +<p>"What look?" Maxwell asked, from the depths of his work.</p> + +<p>She laughed in perfect content, and said: "Oh, nothing." But when he +finished his letter, and was putting it into the envelope, she asked: +"Did you tell Mr. Grayson that Godolphin had returned the play?"</p> + +<p>"No, I didn't. That wasn't necessary at this stage of the proceedings."</p> + +<p>"No."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XIV" id="XIV"></a>XIV.</h2> + + +<p>During the week that passed before Maxwell heard from the manager +concerning his play, he did another letter for the <i>Abstract</i>, and, with +a journalistic acquaintance enlarged through certain Boston men who had +found places on New York papers, familiarized himself with New York ways +and means of getting news. He visited what is called the Coast, a series +of points where the latest intelligence grows in hotel bars and lobbies +of a favorable exposure, and is nurtured by clerks and barkeepers +skilled in its culture, and by inveterate gossips of their acquaintance; +but he found this sort of stuff generally telegraphed on by the +Associated Press before he reached it, and he preferred to make his +letter a lively comment on events, rather than a report of them. The +editor of the <i>Abstract</i> seemed to prefer this, too. He wrote Maxwell +some excellent criticism, and invited him to appeal to the better rather +than the worse curiosity of his readers, to remember that this was the +principle of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> <i>Abstract</i> in its home conduct. Maxwell showed the +letter to his wife, and she approved of it all so heartily that she +would have liked to answer it herself. "Of course, Brice," she said, +"it's <i>you</i> he wants, more than your news. Any wretched reporter could +give him that, but you are the one man in the world who can give him +your mind about it."</p> + +<p>"Why not say universe?" returned Maxwell, but though he mocked her he +was glad to believe she was right, and he was proud of her faith in him.</p> + +<p>In another way this was put to proof more than once during the week, for +Louise seemed fated to meet Mrs. Harley on the common stairs now when +she went out or came in. It was very strange that after living with her +a whole month in the house and not seeing her, she should now be seeing +her so much. Mostly she was alone, but sometimes she was with an elderly +woman, whom Louise decided at one time to be her mother, and at another +time to be a professional companion. The first time she met them +together she was sure that Mrs. Harley indicated her to the chaperon, +and that she remembered her from Magnolia, but she never looked at +Louise, any more than Louise looked at her, after that.</p> + +<p>She wondered if Maxwell ever met her, but she was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> ashamed to ask him, +and he did not mention her. Only once when they were together did they +happen to encounter her, and then he said, quite simply, "I think she's +certainly an actress. That public look of the eyes is unmistakable. +Emotional parts, I should say."</p> + +<p>Louise forced herself to suggest, "You might get her to let you do a +play for her."</p> + +<p>"I doubt if I could do anything unwholesome enough for her."</p> + +<p>At last the summons they were expecting from Grayson came, just after +they had made up their minds to wait another week for it.</p> + +<p>Louise had taken the letter from the maid, and she handed it to Maxwell +with a gasp at sight of the Argosy theatre address printed in the corner +of the envelope. "I know it's a refusal."</p> + +<p>"If you think that will make it an acceptance," he had the hardihood to +answer, "it won't. I've tried that sort of thing too often;" and he tore +open the letter.</p> + +<p>It was neither a refusal nor an acceptance, and their hopes soared +again, hers visibly, his secretly, to find it a friendly confession that +the manager had not found time to read the play until the night before,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> +and a request that Maxwell would drop in any day between twelve and one, +which was rather a leisure time with him, and talk it over.</p> + +<p>"Don't lose an instant, dear!" she adjured him.</p> + +<p>"It's only nine o'clock," he answered, "and I shall have to lose several +instants."</p> + +<p>"That is so," she lamented; and then they began to canvas the probable +intention of the manager's note. She held out passionately to the end +for the most encouraging interpretation of it, but she did not feel that +it would have any malign effect upon the fact for him to say, "Oh, it's +just a way of letting me down easy," and it clearly gave him great heart +to say so.</p> + +<p>When he went off to meet his fate, she watched him, trembling, from the +window; as she saw him mounting the elevated steps, she wondered at his +courage; she had given him all her own.</p> + +<p>The manager met him with "Ah, I'm glad you came soon. These things fade +out of one's mind so, and I really want to talk about your play. I've +been very much interested in it."</p> + +<p>Maxwell could only bow his head and murmur something about being very +glad, very, very glad, with a stupid iteration.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I suppose you know, as well as I do, that it's two plays, and that it's +only half as good as if it were one."</p> + +<p>The manager wheeled around from his table, and looked keenly at the +author, who contrived to say, "I think I know what you mean."</p> + +<p>"You've got the making of the prettiest kind of little comedy in it, and +you've got the making of a very strong tragedy. But I don't think your +oil and water mix, exactly," said Grayson.</p> + +<p>"You think the interest of the love-business will detract from the +interest of the homicide's fate?"</p> + +<p>"And vice versa. Excuse me for asking something that I can very well +understand your not wanting to tell till I had read your play. Isn't +this the piece Godolphin has been trying out West?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is," said Maxwell. "I thought it might prejudice you against +it, if—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's all right. Why have you taken it from him?"</p> + +<p>Maxwell felt that he could make up for his want of earlier frankness +now. "I didn't take it from him; he gave it back to me."</p> + +<p>He sketched the history of his relation to the actor, and the manager +said, with smiling relish, "Just like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> him, just like Godolphin." Then +he added, "I'll tell you, and you mustn't take it amiss. Godolphin may +not know just why he gave the piece up, and he probably thinks it's +something altogether different, but you may depend upon it the trouble +was your trying to ride two horses in it. Didn't you feel that it was a +mistake yourself?"</p> + +<p>"I felt it so strongly at one time that I decided to develop the +love-business into a play by itself and let the other go for some other +time. My wife and I talked it over. We even discussed it with Godolphin. +He wanted to do Atland. But we all backed out simultaneously, and went +back to the play as it stood."</p> + +<p>"Godolphin saw he couldn't make enough of Atland," said the manager, as +if he were saying it to himself. "Well, you may be sure he feels now +that the character which most appeals to the public in the play is +Salome."</p> + +<p>"He felt that before."</p> + +<p>"And he was right. Now, I will tell you what you have got to do. You +have either got to separate the love-business from the rest of the play +and develop it into a comedy by itself—"</p> + +<p>"That would mean a great deal of work, and I am rather sick of the whole +thing."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Or," the manager went on without minding Maxwell, "you have got to cut +the part of Salome, and subordinate it entirely to Haxard"—Maxwell made +a movement of impatience and refusal, and the manager finished—"or else +you have got to treat it frankly as the leading part in the piece, and +get it into the hands of some leading actress."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean," the author asked, "that you—or any manager—would take +it if that were done?"</p> + +<p>Grayson looked a little unhappy. "No, that isn't what I mean, exactly. I +mean that as it stands, no manager would risk it, and that as soon as an +actor had read it, he would see, as Godolphin must have seen from the +start, that Haxard was a subordinate part. What you want to do is to get +it in the hands of some woman who wants to star, and would take the road +with it." The manager expatiated at some length on the point, and then +he stopped, and sat silent, as if he had done with the subject.</p> + +<p>Maxwell perceived that the time had come for him to get up and go away.</p> + +<p>"I'm greatly obliged to you for all your kindness, Mr. Grayson, and I +won't abuse your patience any further. You've been awfully good to me, +and—" He faltered, in a dejection which he could not control.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> Against +all reason, he had hoped that the manager would have taken his piece +just as it stood, and apparently he would not have taken it in any +event.</p> + +<p>"You mustn't speak of that," said the manager. "I wish you would let me +see anything else you do. There's a great deal that's good in this +piece, and I believe that a woman who would make it her battle-horse +could make it go."</p> + +<p>Maxwell asked, with melancholy scorn, "But you don't happen to know any +leading lady who is looking round for a battle-horse?"</p> + +<p>The manager seemed trying to think. "Yes, I do. You wouldn't like her +altogether, and I don't say she would be the ideal Salome, but she would +be, in her way, effective; and I know that she wants very much to get a +play. She hasn't been doing anything for a year or two but getting +married and divorced, but she made a very good start. She used to call +herself Yolande Havisham; I don't suppose it was her name; and she had a +good deal of success in the West; I don't think she's ever appeared in +New York. I believe she was of quite a good Southern family; the +Southerners all are; and I hear she has money."</p> + +<p>"Godolphin mentioned a Southern girl for the part," said Maxwell. "I +wonder if—"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Very likely it's the same one. She does emotional leads. She and +Godolphin played together in California, I believe. I was trying to +think of her married name—or her unmarried name—"</p> + +<p>Some one knocked at the door, and the young man put his head in, with +what Maxwell fancied a preconcerted effect, and gave the manager a card. +He said, "All right; bring him round," and he added to Maxwell, "Shall I +send your play—"</p> + +<p>"No, no, I will take it," and Maxwell carried it away with a heavier +heart than he had even when he got it back from Godolphin. He did not +know how to begin again, and he had to go home and take counsel with his +wife as to the next step.</p> + +<p>He could not bear to tell her of his disappointment, and it was harder +still to tell her of the kind of hope the manager had held out to him. +He revolved a compromise in his mind, and when they sat down together he +did not mean to conceal anything, but only to postpone something; he did +not clearly know why. He told her the alternatives the manager had +suggested, and she agreed with him they were all impossible.</p> + +<p>"Besides," she said, "he doesn't promise to take the play, even if you +do everything to a 't.' Did he ask you to lunch again?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No, that seemed altogether a thing of the past."</p> + +<p>"Well, let us have ours, and then we can go into the Park, and forget +all about it for a while, and perhaps something new will suggest +itself."</p> + +<p>That was what they did, but nothing new suggested itself. They came home +fretted with their futile talk. There seemed nothing for Maxwell to do +but to begin the next day with some other manager.</p> + +<p>They found a note from Grayson waiting Maxwell. "Well, you open it," he +said, listlessly, to his wife, and in fact he felt himself at that +moment physically unable to cope with the task, and he dreaded any +fluctuation of emotion that would follow, even if it were a joyous one.</p> + +<p>"What does this mean, Brice?" demanded his wife, with a terrible +provisionality in her tone, as she stretched out the letter to him, and +stood before him where he lounged in the cushioned window-seat.</p> + +<p>Grayson had written: "If you care to submit your play to Yolande +Havisham, you can easily do so. I find that her address is the same as +yours. Her name is Harley. But I was mistaken about the divorce. It was +a death."</p> + +<p>Maxwell lay stupidly holding the note before him.</p> + +<p>"Will you tell me what it means?" his wife re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>peated. "Or why you didn't +tell me before, if you meant to give your play to that creature?"</p> + +<p>"I don't mean to give it to her," said Maxwell, doggedly. "I never did, +for an instant. As for not telling you that Grayson had suggested +it—well, perhaps I wished to spare myself a scene like the present."</p> + +<p>"Do you think I will believe you?"</p> + +<p>"I don't think you will insult me. Why shouldn't you believe I am +telling you the truth?"</p> + +<p>"Because—because you didn't tell me at once."</p> + +<p>"That is nonsense, and you know it. If I wanted to keep this from you, +it was to spare you the annoyance I can't help now, and because the +thing was settled in my mind as soon as Grayson proposed it."</p> + +<p>"Then, why has he written to you about it?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose I didn't say it was settled."</p> + +<p>"Suppose? Don't you <i>know</i> whether you did?"</p> + +<p>"Come, now, Louise! I am not on the witness-stand, and I won't be +cross-questioned. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. What is the +matter with you? Am I to blame because a man who doesn't imagine your +dislike of a woman that you never spoke to suggests her taking part in a +play that she probably wouldn't look at? You're preposterous! Try to +have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> a little common-sense!" These appeals seemed to have a certain +effect with his wife; she looked daunted; but Maxwell had the misfortune +to add, "One would think you were jealous of the woman."</p> + +<p>"<i>Now</i> you are insulting <i>me</i>!" she cried. "But it's a part of the +vulgarity of the whole business. Actors, authors, managers, you're all +alike."</p> + +<p>Maxwell got very pale. "Look out, Louise!" he warned her.</p> + +<p>"I <i>won't</i> look out. If you had any delicacy, the least delicacy in the +world, you could imagine how a woman who had given the most sacred +feelings of her nature to you for your selfish art would loathe to be +represented by such a creature as that, and still not be jealous of her, +as you call it! But I am justly punished! I might have expected it."</p> + +<p>The maid appeared at the door and said something, which neither of them +could make out at once, but which proved to be the question whether Mrs. +Maxwell had ordered the dinner.</p> + +<p>"No, I will go—I was just going out for it," said Louise. She had in +fact not taken off her hat or gloves since she came in from her walk, +and she now turned and swept out of the room without looking at her +husband. He longed to detain her, to speak some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> kindly or clarifying +word, to set himself right with her, to set her right with herself; but +the rage was so hot in his heart that he could not. She came back to the +door a moment, and looked in. "<i>I</i> will do <i>my</i> duty."</p> + +<p>"It's rather late," he sneered, "but if you're very conscientious, I +dare say we shall have dinner at the usual time."</p> + +<p>He did not leave the window-seat, and it was as if the door had only +just clashed to after her when there came a repeated and violent ringing +at the bell, so that he jumped up himself, to answer it, without waiting +for the maid.</p> + +<p>"Your wife—your wife!" panted the bell-boy, who stood there. "She's +hurt herself, and she's fainted."</p> + +<p>"My wife? Where—how?" He ran down stairs after the boy, and in the +hallway on the ground floor he found Louise stretched upon the marble +pavement, with her head in the lap of a woman, who was chafing her +hands. He needed no look at this woman's face to be sure that it was the +woman of his wife's abhorrence, and he felt quite as sure that it was +the actress Yolande Havisham, from the effective drama of her +self-possession.</p> + +<p>"Don't be frightened. Your wife turned her foot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> on the steps here. I +was coming into the house, and caught her from falling. It's only a +swoon." She spoke with the pseudo-English accent of the stage, but with +a Southern slip upon the vowels here and there. "Get some water, +please."</p> + +<p>The hall-boy came running up the back stairs with some that he had gone +to get, and the woman bade Maxwell sprinkle his wife's face. But he +said: "No—you," and he stooped and took his wife's head into his own +hands, so that she might not come to in the lap of Mrs. Harley; in the +midst of his dismay he reflected how much she would hate that. He could +hardly keep himself from being repellant and resentful towards the +woman. In his remorse for quarrelling with Louise, it was the least +reparation he could offer her. Mrs. Harley, if it were she, seemed not +to notice his rudeness. She sprinkled Louise's face, and wiped her +forehead with the handkerchief she dipped in the water; but this did not +bring her out of her faint, and Maxwell began to think she was dead, and +to feel that he was a murderer. With a strange æsthetic vigilance he +took note of his sensations for use in revising Haxard.</p> + +<p>The janitor of the building had somehow arrived, and Mrs. Harley said: +"I will go for a doctor, if you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> can get her up to your apartment;" and +she left Louise with the two men.</p> + +<p>The janitor, a burly Irishman, lifted her in his arms, and carried her +up the three flights of steps; Maxwell followed, haggardly, helplessly.</p> + +<p>On her own bed, Louise revived, and said: "My shoe—Oh, get it off!"</p> + +<p>The doctor came a few minutes later, but Mrs. Harley did not appear with +him as Maxwell had dreaded she would. He decided that Mrs. Maxwell had +strained, not sprained, her ankle, and he explained how the difference +was all the difference in the world, as he bound the ankle up with a +long ribbon of india-rubber, and issued directions for care and quiet.</p> + +<p>He left them there, and Maxwell heard him below in parley, apparently +with the actress at her door. Louise lay with her head on her husband's +arm, and held his other hand tight in hers, while he knelt by the bed. +The bliss of repentance and mutual forgiveness filled both their hearts, +while she told him how she had hurt herself.</p> + +<p>"I had got down to the last step, and I was putting my foot to the +pavement, and I thought, Now I am going to turn my ankle. Wasn't it +strange? And I turned it. How did you get me upstairs?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span></p> + +<p>"The janitor carried you."</p> + +<p>"How lucky he happened to be there! I suppose the hall-boy kept me from +falling—poor little fellow! You must give him some money. How did you +find out about me?"</p> + +<p>"He ran up to tell," Maxwell said this, and then he hesitated. "I guess +you had better know all about it. Can you bear something disagreeable, +or would you rather wait—"</p> + +<p>"No, no, tell me now! I can't bear to wait. What is it?"</p> + +<p>"It wasn't the hall-boy that caught you. It was that—woman."</p> + +<p>He felt her neck and hand grow rigid, but he went on, and told her all +about it. At the end some quiet tears came into her eyes. "Well, then, +we must be civil to her. I am glad you told me at once, Brice!" She +pulled his head down and kissed him, and he was glad, too.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XV" id="XV"></a>XV.</h2> + + +<p>Louise sent Maxwell down to Mrs. Harley's apartment to thank her, and +tell her how slight the accident was; and while he was gone she +abandoned herself to an impassioned dramatization of her own death from +blood-poisoning, and her husband's early marriage with the actress, who +then appeared in all his plays, though they were not happy together. Her +own spectre was always rising between them, and she got some fearful joy +out of that. She counted his absence by her heart-beats, but he came +back so soon that she was ashamed, and was afraid that he had behaved so +as to give the woman a notion that he was not suffered to stay longer. +He explained that he had found her gloved and bonneted to go out, and +that he had not stayed for fear of keeping her. She had introduced him +to her mother, who was civil about Louise's accident, and they had both +begged him to let them do anything they could for her. He made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> his +observations, and when Louise, after a moment, asked him about them, he +said they affected him as severally typifying the Old South and the New +South. They had a photograph over the mantel, thrown up large, of an +officer in Confederate uniform. Otherwise the room had nothing personal +in it; he suspected the apartment of having been taken furnished, like +their own. Louise asked if he should say they were ladies, and he +answered that he thought they were.</p> + +<p>"Of course," she said, and she added, with a wide sweep of censure: +"They get engaged to four or five men at a time, down there. Well," she +sighed, "you mustn't stay in here with me, dear. Go to your writing."</p> + +<p>"I was thinking whether you couldn't come out and lie on the lounge. I +hate to leave you alone in here."</p> + +<p>"No, the doctor said to be perfectly quiet. Perhaps I can, to-morrow, if +it doesn't swell up any worse."</p> + +<p>She kept her hold of his hand, which he had laid in hers, and he sat +down beside the bed, in the chair he had left there. He did not speak, +and after a while she asked, "What are you thinking of?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing. The confounded play, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"You're disappointed at Grayson's not taking it."</p> + +<p>"One is always a fool."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes," said Louise, with a catching of the breath. She gripped his hand +hard, and said, as well as she could in keeping back the tears, "Well, I +will never stand in your way, Brice. You may do +anything—<i>anything</i>—with it that you think best."</p> + +<p>"I shall never do anything you don't like," he answered, and he leaned +over and kissed her, and at this her passion burst in a violent sobbing, +and when she could speak she made him solemnly promise that he would not +regard her in the least, but would do whatever was wisest and best with +the play, for otherwise she should never be happy again.</p> + +<p>As she could not come out to join him at dinner, he brought a little +table to the bedside, and put his plate on it, and ate his dinner there +with her. She gave him some attractive morsels off her own plate, which +he had first insisted on bestowing upon her. They had such a gay evening +that the future brightened again, and they arranged for Maxwell to take +his play down-town the next day, and not lose a moment in trying to +place it with some manager.</p> + +<p>It all left him very wakeful, for his head began to work upon this +scheme and that. When he went to lock the outer door for the night, the +sight of his overcoat hanging in the hall made him think of a +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>atrical newspaper he had bought coming home, at a certain corner of +Broadway, where numbers of smooth-shaven, handsome men, and women with +dark eyes and champagned hair were lounging and passing. He had got it +on the desperate chance that it might suggest something useful to him. +He now took it out of his coat-pocket, and began to look its +advertisements over in the light of his study lamp, partly because he +was curious about it, and partly because he knew that he should begin to +revise his play otherwise, and then he should not sleep all night.</p> + +<p>In several pages of the paper ladies with flowery and alliterative names +and pseudonyms proclaimed themselves in large letters, and in smaller +type the parts they were presently playing in different combinations; +others gave addresses and announced that they were At Liberty, or +specified the kinds of rôles they were accustomed to fill, as Leads or +Heavies, Dancing Soubrettes and Boys; Leads, Emotional and Juvenile; +Heavy or Juvenile or Emotional Leads. There were gentlemen seeking +engagements who were Artistic Whistling Soloists, Magicians, Leading +Men, Leading Heavies, Singing and Dancing Comedians, and there were both +ladies and gentlemen who were now Starring in this play or that, but +were open to offers later.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> A teacher of stage dancing promised +instruction in skirt and serpentine dancing, as well as high kicking, +front and back, the backward bend, side practice, toe-practice, and all +novelties. Dramatic authors had their cards among the rest, and one poor +fellow, as if he had not the heart to name himself, advertised a play to +be heard of at the office of the newspaper. Whatever related to the +theatre was there, in bizarre solidarity, which was droll enough to +Maxwell in one way. But he hated to be mixed up with all that, and he +perceived that he must be mixed up with it more and more, if he wrote +for the theatre. Whether he liked it or not, he was part of the thing +which in its entirety meant high-kicking and toe-practice, as well as +the expression of the most mystical passions of the heart. There was an +austerity in him which the fact offended, and he did what he could to +appease this austerity by reflecting that it was the drama and never the +theatre that he loved; but for the time this was useless. He saw that if +he wrote dramas he could not hold aloof from the theatre, nor from +actors and actresses—heavies and juveniles, and emotionals and +soubrettes. He must know them, and more intimately; and at first he must +be subject to them, however he mastered them at last; he must flatter +their oddities<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> and indulge their caprices. His experience with +Godolphin had taught him that, and his experience with Godolphin in the +construction of his play could be nothing to what he must undergo at +rehearsals and in the effort to adapt his work to a company. He reminded +himself that Shakespeare even must have undergone all that. But this did +not console him. He was himself, and what another, the greatest, had +suffered would not save him. Besides, it was not the drama merely that +Maxwell loved; it was not making plays alone; it was causing the life +that he had known to speak from the stage, and to teach there its +serious and important lesson. In the last analysis he was a moralist, +and more a moralist than he imagined. To enforce, in the vividest and +most palpable form, what he had thought true, it might be worth while to +endure all the trials that he must; but at that moment he did not think +so; and he did not dare submit his misgiving to his wife.</p> + +<p>They had now been six months married, and if he had allowed himself to +face the fact he must have owned that, though they loved each other so +truly, and he had known moments of exquisite, of incredible rapture, he +had been as little happy as in any half-year he had lived. He never +formulated his wife's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> character, or defined the precise relation she +bore to his life; if he could have been challenged to do so, he would +have said that she was the whole of life to him, and that she was the +most delightful woman in the world.</p> + +<p>He tasted to its last sweetness the love of loving her and of being +loved by her. At the same time there was an obscure stress upon him +which he did not trace to her at once; a trouble in his thoughts which, +if he could have seen it clearly, he would have recognized for a lurking +anxiety concerning how she would take the events of their life as they +came. Without realizing it, for his mind was mostly on his work, and it +was only in some dim recess of his spirit that the struggle took place, +he was perpetually striving to adjust himself to the unexpected, or +rather the unpredictable.</p> + +<p>But when he was most afraid of her harassing uncertainty of emotion or +action he was aware of her fixed loyalty to him; and perhaps it was the +final effect with himself that he dreaded. Should he always be able to +bear and forbear, as he felt she would, with all her variableness and +turning? The question did not put itself in words, and neither did his +conviction that his relation to the theatre was doubled in difficulty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> +through her. But he perceived that she had no love for the drama, and +only a love for his love of it; and sometimes he vaguely suspected that +if he had been in business she would have been as fond of business as +she was of the drama. He never perhaps comprehended her ideal, and how +it could include an explicit and somewhat noisy devotion to the aims of +his ambition, because it was his, and a patronizing reservation in +regard to the ambition itself. But this was quite possible with Louise, +just as it was possible for her to have had a humble personal joy in +giving herself to him, while she had a distinct social sense of the +sacrifice she had made in marrying him. In herself she looked up to him; +as her father's and mother's daughter, as the child of her circumstance, +there is no doubt she looked down upon him. But neither of these +attitudes held in their common life. Love may or may not level ranks, +but marriage unquestionably does, and is the one form of absolute +equality. The Maxwells did not take themselves or each other +objectively; they loved and hated, they made war and made peace, without +any sense of the difference or desert that might have been apparent to +the spectators.</p> + +<p>Maxwell had never been so near the standpoint of the impartial observer +as now when he confronted the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> question of what he should do, with a +heart twice burdened by the question whether his wife would not make it +hard for him to do it, whatever it was. He thought, with dark +foreboding, of the difficulties he should have to smooth out for her if +it ever came to a production of the piece. The best thing that could +happen, perhaps, would be its rejection, final and total, by all +possible managers and actors; for she would detest any one who took the +part of Salome, and would hold him responsible for all she should suffer +from it.</p> + +<p>He recurred to what he had felt so strongly himself, and what Grayson +had suggested, and thought how he could free himself from fealty to her +by cutting out the whole love-business from his play. But that would be +very hard. The thing had now knitted itself in one texture in his mind, +and though he could sever the ties that bound the parts together, it +would take from the piece the great element of charm. It was not +symmetrical as it stood, but it was not two distinct motives; the +motives had blended, and they really belonged to each other. He would +have to invent some other love-business if he cut this out, but still it +could be done. Then it suddenly flashed upon him that there was +something easier yet, and that was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> to abandon the notion of getting his +piece played at all, and to turn it into a novel. He could give it +narrative form without much trouble, if any, beyond that of copying it, +and it would be thought a very dramatic story. He saw instantly how he +could keep and even enhance all the charm of the love-business as it +stood, in a novel; and in his revulsion of feeling he wished to tell his +wife. He made a movement towards the door of her room, but he heard the +even breathing of her sleep, and he stopped and flung himself on the +lounge to think. It was such a happy solution of the whole affair! He +need not even cease trying it with the managers, for he could use the +copy of the play that Godolphin had returned for that, and he could use +the copy he had always kept for recasting it in narrative. By the time +that he had got his play back from the last manager he would have his +novel ready for the first publisher. In the meantime he should be +writing his letters for the <i>Abstract</i>, and not consuming all his little +savings.</p> + +<p>The relief from the stress upon him was delicious. He lay at rest and +heard the soft breathing of his wife from the other room, and an +indescribable tenderness for her filled his heart. Then he heard her +voice saying, "Well, don't wake him, poor boy!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XVI" id="XVI"></a>XVI.</h2> + + +<p>Maxwell opened his eyes and found the maid lightly escaping from the +room. He perceived that he had slept all night on the lounge, and he +sent a cheery hail into his wife's room, and then followed it to tell +her how he had thought it all out. She was as glad as he was; she +applauded his plan to the ceiling; and he might not have thought of her +accident if he had not seen presently that she was eating her breakfast +in bed.</p> + +<p>Then he asked after her ankle, and she said, "Oh, that is perfectly +well, or the same as perfectly. There's no pain at all there to speak +of, and I shall get up to luncheon. You needn't mind me any more. If you +haven't taken your death of cold sleeping there on the lounge—"</p> + +<p>"I haven't."</p> + +<p>"I want you to go down town to some manager with your play, and get some +paper, the kind I like;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> and then, after lunch, we'll begin turning it +into a novel, from your copy. It will be so easy for you that you can +dictate, and I'll do the writing, and we'll work it up together. Shall +you like collaborating with me?"</p> + +<p>"Ah!—"</p> + +<p>"It will be our story, and I shall like it twice as well as if it were a +play. We shall be independent of the theatre, that's one satisfaction; +they can take the play, if they like, but it will be perfectly +indifferent to us. I shall help you get in all those nice touches that +you said you could never get into a play, like that green light in the +woods. I know just how we shall manage that love business, and we +sha'n't have any horror of an actress interpreting our inspirations to +the public. We'll play Atland and Salome ourselves. We'll—ow!"</p> + +<p>She had given her foot a twist in the excitement and she fell back on +the pillow rather faint. But she instantly recovered herself with a +laugh, and she hurried him away to his breakfast, and then away with his +play. He would rather have stayed and begun turning it into a story at +once. But she would not let him; she said it would be a loss of time, +and she should fret a good deal more to have him there with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> her, than +to have him away, for she should know he was just staying to cheer her +up.</p> + +<p>When he was gone she sent for whatever papers the maid could find in the +parlor, so that she need not think of him in the amusement she would get +out of them. Among the rest was that dramatic newspaper which caught her +eye first, with the effigy of a very dramatized young woman whose +portrait filled the whole first page. Louise abhorred her, but with a +novel sense of security in the fact that Maxwell's play was going so +soon to be turned into a story; and she felt personally aloof from all +the people who had dragged him down with a sense of complicity in their +professional cards. She found them neither so droll nor so painful as he +had, but she was very willing to turn from them, and she was giving the +paper a parting glance before dropping it when she was arrested by an +advertisement which made her start:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><b>WANTED.—A drama for prominent star; light comic and emotional: +star part must embody situations for the display of intense +effects. Address L. <span class="smcap">Sterne</span>, this office.</b></p></div> + +<p>A series of effects as intense as the advertiser could have desired in a +drama followed one another in the mind of Louise. She now wildly +reproached herself that she had, however unwittingly, sent her husband +out of reach for four or five hours, when his whole<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> future might depend +upon his instantly answering this notice. Whether he had already seen +the notice and rashly decided to ignore it, or had not seen it, he might +involve himself with some manager irretrievably before he could be got +at with a demand which seemed specifically framed to describe his play. +She was in despair that there was no means of sending a messenger-boy +after him with any chance of finding him. The light comic reliefs which +the advertiser would have wished to give the dark phases of her mood +were suggested by her reckless energy in whirling herself into her +dressing-gown, and hopping out to Maxwell's desk in the other room, +where she dashed off a note in reply to the advertisement in her +husband's name, and then checked herself with the reflection that she +had no right to sign his name: even in such a cause she must not do +anything wrong. Something must be done, however, right or wrong, and she +decided that a very formal note in the third person would involve the +least moral trespass. She fixed upon these terms, after several +experiments, almost weeping at the time they cost her, when every moment +was precious:</p> + +<p><i>Mr. Brice Maxwell writes to Mr. L. Sterne and begs to inform him that +he has a play which he believes will meet the requirements of Mr. +Sterne, as stated in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> his advertisement in the Theatrical Register of +November the tenth. Mr. Maxwell asks the favor of an interview with Mr. +Sterne at any time and place that Mr. Sterne may appoint.</i></p> + +<p>It seemed to her that this violated no law of man or God, or if it did +the exigency was such that the action could be forgiven, if not +justified. She ransacked Maxwell's desk for a special delivery stamp, +and sent the letter out beyond recall; and then it occurred to her that +its opening terms were too much those of a lady addressing a seamstress; +but after a good deal of anguish on this point she comforted herself +with the hope that a man would not know the form, or at least would not +suspect another man of using it offensively.</p> + +<p>She passed the time till Maxwell came back, in doubt whether to tell him +what she had done. There was no reason why she should not, except that +he might have seen the advertisement and decided not to answer it for +some reason; but in that case it might be said that he ought to have +spoken to her about it. She told him everything at once, but there were +many things that he did not tell her till long afterwards; it would be a +good thing to let him realize how that felt; besides, it would be a +pleasure to keep it and let<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> it burst upon him, if that L. Sterne, +whoever he was, asked to see the play. In any case, it would not be a +great while that she need keep from him what she had done, but at sight +of him when he came in she could hardly be silent. He was gloomy and +dispirited, and he confessed that his pleasant experience with Grayson +had not been repeated with the other managers. They had all been civil +enough, and he had seen three or four of them, but only one had +consented to let him even leave his play with him; the others said that +it would be useless for them to look at it.</p> + +<p>She could not forbear showing him the advertisement she had answered as +they sat at lunch; but he glanced at it with disdain, and said there +must be some sort of fake in it; if it was some irresponsible fellow +getting up a combination he would not scruple to use the ideas of any +manuscript submitted to him and work them over to suit himself. Louise +could not speak. All heart went out of her; she wanted to cry, and she +did not tell what she had done.</p> + +<p>Neither of them ate much. He asked her if she was ready to begin on the +story with him; she said, "Oh yes;" and she hobbled off into the other +room. Then he seemed to remember her hurt for the first time; he had +been so full of his failure with the play<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> before. He asked her how she +was, and she said much better; and then he stretched himself on the +lounge and tried to dictate, and she took her place at his desk and +tried to write. But she either ran ahead of him and prompted him, which +vexed him, or she lagged so far behind that he lost the thread of what +he was saying and became angry. At last she put her head down on the +paper and blotted it with her tears.</p> + +<p>At that he said, "Oh, you'd better go back to bed," and then, though he +spoke harshly, he lifted her tenderly and half carried her to her room.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XVII" id="XVII"></a>XVII.</h2> + + +<p>They did not try working the play into a story again together. Maxwell +kept doggedly at it, though he said it was of no use; the thing had +taken the dramatic form with inexorable fixity as it first came from his +mind; it could be changed, of course, but it could only be changed for +the worse, artistically. If he could sell it as a story, the work would +not be lost; he would gain the skill that came from doing, in any event, +and it would keep him alive under the ill-luck that now seemed to have +set in.</p> + +<p>None of the managers wanted his play. Some of them seemed to want it +less than others; some wanted it less immediately than others; some did +not want it after reading; some refused it without reading it; some had +their arrangements made for an indefinite time, others in the present +uncertain state of affairs could not make any arrangements; some said it +was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> an American play; others that it was un-American in its pessimistic +spirit; some found it too literary; others, lacking in imagination. They +were nearly all so kind that at first Maxwell was guilty of the folly of +trying to persuade them against the reasons they gave; when he realized +that these reasons were also excuses, he set his teeth and accepted them +in silence.</p> + +<p>For a number of days Louise suffered in momentary expectation of a reply +from L. Sterne. She thought it would come by district messenger the day +she wrote; and for several days afterwards she had the letters brought +to her first, so that she could read them, and not disturb Maxwell with +them at his work, if it were not necessary. He willingly agreed to that; +he saw that it helped to pass the irksome time for her. She did not mean +to conceal any answer she should have from L. Sterne, but she meant when +the answer came to prepare her husband for it in such sort that he would +understand her motive, and though he condemned it, would easily forgive +her. But the days went and no letter from L. Sterne came, and after a +season of lively indignation at his rudeness, Louise began to forget him +a little, though she still kept her surveillance of the mail.</p> + +<p>It was always on her conscience, in the meantime,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> to give some of the +first moments of her recovery to going with Maxwell and thanking Mrs. +Harley for the kindness she had shown her in her accident. She was the +more strenuous in this intention because the duty was so distasteful, +and she insisted upon Maxwell's company, though he argued that he had +already done enough himself in thanking her preserver, because she +wished to punish a certain reluctance of her own in having him go. She +promised herself that she would do everything that was right by the +creature; and perhaps she repaired to her presence in rather +overwhelming virtue. If this was so, Mrs. Harley showed herself equal to +the demand upon her, and was overwhelming in her kind. She not only made +nothing of what she had done for Louise, but she made nothing of Louise, +and contrived with a few well-directed strokes to give her distinctly +the sense of being a chit, a thing Louise was not at all used to. She +was apparently one of those women who have no use for persons of their +own sex; but few women, even of that sort, could have so promptly +relegated Louise to the outside of their interest, or so frankly devoted +themselves to Maxwell. The impartial spectator might easily have +imagined that it was his ankle which had been strained, and that Louise +was at best an intrusive<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> sympathizer. Sometimes Mrs. Harley did not +hear what she said; at other times, if she began a response to her, she +ended it in a question to him; even when she talked to Louise, her eyes +were smouldering upon Maxwell. If this had all or any of it been +helpless or ignorant rudeness, it could have been borne and forgiven; +but Louise was aware of intention, of perfect intelligence in it; she +was sensible of being even more disliked than disliking, and of finally +being put to flight with a patronizing benevolence for her complete +recovery that was intolerable. What was worse was that, while the woman +had been so offensive, she could not wholly rid herself of the feeling +that her punishment was in a measure merited, though it was not justice +that had dealt with her.</p> + +<p>"Well, that is over," said Maxwell, when they were again by themselves.</p> + +<p>"Yes, forever," sighed Louise, and for once she was not let have the +last word.</p> + +<p>"I hope you'll remember that I didn't want to go."</p> + +<p>At least, they had not misunderstood each other about Mrs. Harley.</p> + +<p>Towards the end of the month, Louise's father and mother came on from +Boston. They professed that they had been taken with that wish to see +the autumn<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> exhibition at the National Academy which sometimes affects +Bostonians, and that their visit had nothing to do with the little hurt +that Louise wrote them of when she was quite well of it. They drove over +from their hotel the morning they arrived, and she did not know anything +of their coming till she heard their voices at the door; her father's +voice was rather husky from the climb to her apartment.</p> + +<p>The apartment was looking somewhat frouzy, for the Maxwells breakfasted +late, and the house-maid had not had time to put it in order. Louise saw +it through her father's and mother's eyes with the glance they gave it, +and found the rooms ridiculously little, and furnished with cheap +Fourteenth Street things; but she bragged all the more noisily of it on +that account, and made her mother look out of the window for the pretty +view they had from their corner room. Mrs. Hilary pulled her head back +from the prospect of the railroad-ridden avenue with silent horror, and +Louise burst into a wild laugh. "Well, it <i>isn't</i> Commonwealth Avenue, +mamma; I don't pretend that, you know."</p> + +<p>"Where's Maxwell?" asked Hilary, still puffing from the lounge he had +sunk upon as soon as he got into the room.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, he's down town interviewing a manager about his play."</p> + +<p>"I thought that fellow out West had his play. Or is this a new one?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Louise, very slowly and thoughtfully, "Brice has taken back +his play from Mr. Godolphin." This was true; he <i>had</i> taken it back in a +sense. She added, as much to herself as to her father, "But he <i>has</i> got +a new play—that he's working at."</p> + +<p>"I hope he hasn't been rash with Godolphin; though I always had an idea +that it would have been better for him to deal with a manager. It seems +more business-like."</p> + +<p>"Oh, much," said Louise.</p> + +<p>After a little while they were more at home with each other; she began +to feel herself more their child, and less Maxwell's wife; the barriers +of reluctance against him, which she always knew were up with them, fell +away from between them and herself. But her father said they had come to +get her and Maxwell to lunch with them at their hotel, and then Louise +felt herself on her husband's side of the fence again. She said no, they +must stay with her; that she was sure Brice would be back for lunch; and +she wanted to show them her house-keeping. Mrs. Hilary cast her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> eye +about the room at the word, as if she had seen quite enough of it +already, and this made Louise laugh again. She was no better in person +than the room was, and she felt her mother's tacit censure apply to her +slatternly dressing-gown.</p> + +<p>"I know what you're thinking, mamma. But I got the habit of it when I +had my strained ankle."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm sure it must be very comfortable," Mrs. Hilary said, of the +dressing-gown. "Is it entirely well now?" she added, of the ankle; and +she and Hilary both looked at Louise in a way that would have convinced +her that their final anxiety concerning it had brought them to New York, +if she had not guessed it already. "The doctor," and by this she meant +their old family doctor, as if he were the only one, "said you couldn't +be too careful."</p> + +<p>"Well, I haven't been careful," said Louise, gayly; "but I'm quite well, +and you can go back at once, if that's all, mamma."</p> + +<p>Hilary laughed with her. "You haven't changed much, Louise."</p> + +<p>Her mother said, in another sense, "I think you look a little pulled +down," and that made her and her father laugh again. She got to playing +with him, and poking him, and kissing him, in the way she had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> with him +when she was a girl; it was not so very long ago.</p> + +<p>Her mother bore with this for awhile, and then she rose to go.</p> + +<p>"You're not going to stay!" Louise protested.</p> + +<p>"Not to-day, my dear. I've got some shopping to do before lunch."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Louise, "I didn't suppose you would stay the first time, +such swells as you and papa. But I shall insist upon your coming +to-morrow when you've recovered a little from the blow this home of +virtuous poverty has given you, and I've had a chance to dust and +prepare for you. And I'll tell you what, mamma; Brice and I will come to +dinner with you to-night, and we won't take any refusal. We'll be with +you at seven. How will that do, papa?"</p> + +<p>"That will do," said Hilary, with his arm round her waist, and they +kissed each other to clinch the bargain.</p> + +<p>"And don't you two old things go away and put your frosty paws together +and say Brice and I are not happy. We do quarrel like cats and dogs +every now and then, but the rest of the time we're the happiest couple +in the universe, and an example to parents."</p> + +<p>Hilary would have manifestly liked to stay and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> have her go on with her +nonsense, but his wife took him away.</p> + +<p>When Maxwell came in she was so full of their visit that she did not ask +him what luck he had with his play, but told him at once they were going +to dine with her father and mother. "And I want you to brace up, my +dear, and not let them imagine anything."</p> + +<p>"How, anything?" he asked, listlessly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing. About your play not going perfectly. I didn't think it +necessary to go into particulars with them, and you needn't. Just pass +it over lightly if they ask you anything about it. But they won't."</p> + +<p>Maxwell did not look so happy as he might at the prospect of dining with +his wife's father and mother, but he did not say anything disagreeable, +and after an instant of silent resentment Louise did not say anything +disagreeable either. In fact, she devoted herself to avoiding any +displeasures with him, and she arrived with him at the Hilarys' hotel on +perfectly good terms, and, as far as he was concerned, in rather good +spirits.</p> + +<p>Upon the whole, they had a very good time. Hilary made occasion to speak +to Maxwell of his letters<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> to the <i>Abstract</i>, and told him they were +considered by far the best letters of the kind published anywhere, which +meant anywhere in Boston.</p> + +<p>"You do that sort of thing so well, newspaper writing," he continued, +with a slyness that was not lost upon Louise, though Maxwell was +ignorant of his drift, "that I wonder you don't sometimes want to take +it up again."</p> + +<p>"It's well enough," said Maxwell, who was gratified by his praise.</p> + +<p>"By the way," said Hilary, "I met your friend, Mr. Ricker, the other +day, and he spoke most cordially about you. I fancy he would be very +glad to have you back."</p> + +<p>"In the old way? I would rather be excused."</p> + +<p>"No, from what he said, I thought he would like your writing in the +editorial page."</p> + +<p>Maxwell looked pleased. "Ricker's always been very good, but he has very +little influence on the <i>Abstract</i>. He has no money interest in the +paper."</p> + +<p>Hilary said, with the greatest artfulness, "I wonder he doesn't buy in. +I hear it can be done."</p> + +<p>"Not by Ricker, for the best of all possible reasons," said Maxwell, +with a laugh.</p> + +<p>Louise could hardly wait till she had parted from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> her father and mother +before she began on her husband: "You goose! Didn't you see that papa +was hinting at buying <i>you</i> a share in the <i>Abstract</i>?"</p> + +<p>"He was very modest about it, then; I didn't see anything of the kind."</p> + +<p>"Oh, do you think <i>you</i> are the only modest man? Papa is <i>very</i> modest, +and he wouldn't make you an offer outright, unless he saw that you would +like it. But I know that was what he was coming to, and if you'll let +me—"</p> + +<p>A sentiment of a reluctance rather than a refusal was what made itself +perceptible from his arm to hers, as they hurried along the street +together, and Louise would not press the question till he spoke again.</p> + +<p>He did not speak till they were in the train on their way home. Then he +said, "I shouldn't care to have a money interest in a newspaper. It +would tie me up to it, and load me down with cares I should hate. It +wouldn't be my real life."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said his wife, but when they got into their little apartment she +cast an eye, opened to its meanness and narrowness, over the common +belongings, and wondered if he would ask himself whether this was her +real life. But she did not speak, though she was apt to speak out most +things that she thought.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XVIII" id="XVIII"></a>XVIII.</h2> + + +<p>Some people began to call, old friends of her mother, whose visit to New +York seemed to have betrayed to them the fact of Louise's presence for +the first time, and some friends of her own, who had married, and come +to New York to live, and who said they had just got back to town long +enough to learn that she was there. These all reproached her for not +having let them know sooner where she was, and they all more or less +followed up their reproaches with the invitations which she dreaded +because of Maxwell's aversion for them. But she submitted them to him, +and submitted to his refusal to go with her, and declined them. In her +heart she thought he was rather ungracious, but she did not say so, +though in two or three cases of people whom she liked she coaxed him a +little to go with her. Meeting her mother and talking over the life she +used to lead in Boston, and the life so many people were leading there +still, made her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> a little hungry for society; she would have liked well +enough to find herself at a dinner again, and she would have felt a +little dancing after the dinner no hardship; but she remembered the +promise she had made herself not to tease Maxwell about such things. So +she merely coaxed him, and he so far relented as to ask her why she +could not go without him, and that hurt her, and she said she never +would go without him. All the same, when there came an invitation for +lunch, from a particularly nice friend of her girlhood, she hesitated +and was lost. She had expected, somehow, that it was going to be a very +little lunch, but she found it a very large one, in the number of +people, and after the stress of accounting for her husband's failure to +come with her, she was not sorry to have it so. She inhaled with joy the +atmosphere of the flower-scented rooms; her eye dwelt with delight on +their luxurious and tasteful appointments, the belongings of her former +life, which seemed to emerge in them from the past and claim her again; +the women in their <i>chic</i> New York costumes and their miracles of early +winter hats hailed her a long-lost sister by every graceful movement and +cultivated tone; the correctly tailored and agreeably mannered men had +polite intelligence of a world that Maxwell never would and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> never could +be part of; the talk of the little amusing, unvital things that began at +once was more precious to her than the problems which the austere +imagination of her husband dealt with; it suddenly fatigued her to think +how hard she had tried to sympathize with his interest in them. Her +heart leaped at sight of the long, rose-heaped table, with its glitter +of glass and silver, and the solemn perfection of the serving-men; a +spectacle not important in itself was dear to her from association with +gayeties, which now, for a wicked moment, seemed to her better than +love.</p> + +<p>There were all sorts of people: artists and actors, as well as people of +fashion. Her friend had given her some society notable to go out with, +but she had appointed for the chair next her, on the other hand, a young +man in a pretty pointed beard, whom she introduced across from the head +of the table as soon as she could civilly take the notable to herself. +Louise did not catch his name, and it seemed presently that he had not +heard hers, but their acquaintance prospered without this knowledge. He +made some little jokes, which she promptly responded to, and they talked +awhile as if they were both New-Yorkers, till she said, at some remark +of his, "But I am not a New-Yorker," and then he said, "Well, neither am +I,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> and offered to tell her what he was if she would tell him what she +was.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm from Boston, of course," she answered, but then, instead of +saying where he was from, he broke out:</p> + +<p>"Now I will fulfil my vow!"</p> + +<p>"Your vow? What is your vow?"</p> + +<p>"To ask the first Boston person I met if that Boston person knew +anything about another Boston person, who wrote a most remarkable play I +saw in the fall out at home."</p> + +<p>"A play?" said Louise, with a total loss of interest in the gentleman's +city or country.</p> + +<p>"Yes, by a Boston man named Maxwell—"</p> + +<p>Louise stared at him, and if their acquaintance had been a little older, +she might have asked him to come off. As it was she could not speak, and +she let him go on.</p> + +<p>"I don't know when I've ever had a stronger impression in the theatre +than I had from that play. Perfectly modern, and perfectly American." He +briefly sketched it. "It was like a terrible experience on the tragic +side, and on the other side it was a rapture. I never saw love-making on +the stage before that made me wish to be a lover—"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span></p> + +<p>A fire-red flew over Louise's face, and she said, almost snubbingly, as +if he had made some unwarrantable advance: "I think I had better not let +you go on. It was my husband who wrote that play. I am Mrs. Maxwell."</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Maxwell! You are Mrs. Maxwell?" he gasped, and she could not doubt +the honesty of his amaze.</p> + +<p>His confusion was so charming that she instantly relented. "Of course I +should like to have you go on all day as you've begun, but there's no +telling what exceptions you might be going to make later. Where did you +see my husband's play?"</p> + +<p>"In Midland—"</p> + +<p>"What! You are not—you can't be—Mr. Ray?"</p> + +<p>"I am—I can," he returned, gleefully, and now Louise impulsively gave +him her hand under the table-cloth.</p> + +<p>The man[oe]uvre caught the eye of the hostess. "A bet?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Better," cried Louise, not knowing her pun, "a thousand times," and she +turned without further explanation to the gentleman: "When I tell Mr. +Maxwell of this he will suffer as he ought, and that's saying a great +deal, for not coming with me to-day. To think of it's being <i>you</i>!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Ah, but to think of it's being <i>he</i>! You acquit me of the poor taste of +putting up a job?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, of anything you want to be acquitted of! What crime would you +prefer? There are whole deluges of mercy for you. But now go on, and +tell me everything you thought about the play."</p> + +<p>"I'd rather you'd tell me what you know about the playwright."</p> + +<p>"Everything, of course, and nothing." She added the last words from a +sudden, poignant conviction. "Isn't that the way with the wives of you +men of genius?"</p> + +<p>"Am I a man of genius?"</p> + +<p>"You're literary."</p> + +<p>"Oh, literary, yes. But I'm not married."</p> + +<p>"You're determined to get out of it, somehow. Tell me about Midland. It +has filled such a space in our imagination! You can't think what a +comfort and stay you have been to us! But why in Midland? Is it a large +place?"</p> + +<p>"Would it take such a very big one to hold me? It's the place I brought +myself up in, and it's very good to me, and so I live there. I don't +think it has any vast intellectual or æsthetic interests, but there are +very nice people there, very cultivated, some of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> them, and very well +read. After all, you don't need a great many people; three or four will +do."</p> + +<p>"And have you always lived there?"</p> + +<p>"I lived a year or so in New York, and I manage to get on here some time +every winter. The rest of the year Midland is quite enough for me. It's +gay at times; there's a good deal going on; and I can write there as +well as anywhere, and better than in New York. Then, you know, in a +small way I'm a prophet in my own country, perhaps because I was away +from it for awhile. It's very pretty. But it's very base of you to make +me talk about myself when I'm so anxious to hear about Mr. Maxwell."</p> + +<p>"And do you spend all your time writing Ibsen criticisms of Ibsen +plays?" Louise pursued against his protest.</p> + +<p>"I do some other kind of writing."</p> + +<p>"As—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no! I'm not here to interview myself."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but you ought. I know you've written something—some novel. Your +name was so familiar from the first." Mr. Ray laughed and shook his head +in mockery of her cheap device. "You mustn't be vexed because I'm so +vague about it. I'm very ignorant."</p> + +<p>"You said you were from Boston."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But there are Bostons and Bostons. The Boston that I belonged to never +hears of American books till they are forgotten!"</p> + +<p>"Ah, how famous I must be there!"</p> + +<p>"I see you are determined to be bad. But I remember now; it was a play. +Haven't you written a play?" He held up three fingers. "I knew it! What +was it?"</p> + +<p>"My plays," said the young fellow, with a mock of superiority, "have +never been played. I've been told that they are above the heads of an +audience. It's a great consolation. But now, really, about Mr. +Maxwell's. When is it to be given here? I hoped very much that I might +happen on the very time."</p> + +<p>Louise hesitated a moment, and then she said: "You know he has taken it +back from Godolphin." It was not so hard to say this as it was at first, +but it still required resolution.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm so glad!" said Mr. Ray. "I never thought he appreciated it. He +was so anxious to make his part all in all that he would have been +willing to damage the rest of it irretrievably. I could see, from the +way he talked of it, that he was mortally jealous of Salome; and the +girl who did that did it very sweetly and prettily. Who has got the play +now?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well," said Louise, with rather a painful smile, "nobody has it at +present. We're trying to stir up strife for it among managers."</p> + +<p>"What play is that?" asked her friend, the hostess, and all that end of +the table became attentive, as any fashionable company will at the +mention of a play; books may be more or less out of the range of +society, but plays never at all.</p> + +<p>"My husband's," said Louise, meekly.</p> + +<p>"Why, does <i>your</i> husband write <i>plays</i>?" cried the lady.</p> + +<p>"What did you think he did?" returned Louise, resentfully; she did not +in the least know what her friend's husband did, and he was no more +there to speak for himself than her own.</p> + +<p>"He's written a very <i>great</i> play," Mr. Ray spoke up with generous +courage; "the very greatest American play I have seen. I don't say ever +written, for I've written some myself that I haven't seen yet," he +added, and every one laughed at his bit of self-sacrifice. "But Mr. +Maxwell's play is just such a play as I would have written if I +could—large, and serious, and charming."</p> + +<p>He went on about it finely, and Louise's heart swelled with pride. She +wished Maxwell could have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> been there, but if he had been, of course Mr. +Ray would not have spoken so freely.</p> + +<p>The hostess asked him where he had seen it, and he said in Midland.</p> + +<p>Then she said, "We must all go," and she had the effect of rising to do +so, but it was only to leave the men to their tobacco.</p> + +<p>Louise laid hold of her in the drawing-room: "Who is he? What is he?"</p> + +<p>"A little dear, isn't he?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, of course. But what has he done?"</p> + +<p>"Why, he wrote a novel—I forget the name, but I have it somewhere. It +made a great sensation. But surely <i>you</i> must know what it was?"</p> + +<p>"No, no," Louise lamented. "I am ashamed to say I don't."</p> + +<p>When the men joined the ladies, she lingered long enough to thank Mr. +Ray, and try to make him tell her the name of his novel. She at least +made him promise to let them know the next time he was in New York, and +she believed all he said of his regret that he was going home that +night. He sent many sweet messages to Maxwell, whom he wanted to talk +with about his play, and tell him all he had thought about it. He felt +sure that some manager would take<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> it and bring it out in New York, and +again he exulted that it was out of the actor's hands. A manager might +not have an artistic interest in it; an actor could only have a personal +interest in it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XIX" id="XIX"></a>XIX.</h2> + + +<p>Louise came home in high spirits. The world seemed to have begun to move +again. It was full of all sorts of gay hopes, or at least she was, and +she was impatient to impart them to Maxwell. Now she decided that her +great office in his life must be to cheer him up, to supply that spring +of joyousness which was so lacking in him, and which he never could do +any sort of work without. She meant to make him go into society with +her. It would do him good, and he would shine. He could talk as well as +Mr. Ray, and if he would let himself go, he could be as charming.</p> + +<p>She rushed in to speak with him, and was vexed to find a strange man +sitting in the parlor alone. The stranger rose at her onset, and then, +when she confusedly retreated, he sank into his chair again. She had +seen him black against the window, and had not made out any feature or +expression of his face.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span></p> + +<p>The maid explained that it was a gentleman who had called to see Mr. +Maxwell earlier in the day, and the last time had asked if he might sit +down and wait for him. He had been waiting only a few minutes.</p> + +<p>"But who is he?" demanded Louise, with a provisional indignation in case +it should be a liberty on some unauthorized person's part. "Didn't he +give you a card?"</p> + +<p>He had given the girl a card, and she now gave it to Mrs. Maxwell. It +bore the name Mr. Lawrence Sterne, which Louise read with much the same +emotion as if it had been Mr. William Shakespeare. She suspected what +her husband would have called a fake of some sort, and she felt a little +afraid. She did not like the notion of the man's sitting there in her +parlor while she had nobody with her but the girl. He might be all +right, and he might even be a gentleman, but the dark bulk which had +risen up against the window and stood holding a hat in its hand was not +somehow a gentlemanly bulk, the hat was not definitively a gentleman's +hat, and the baldness which had shone against the light was not exactly +what you would have called a gentleman's baldness. Clearly, however, the +only thing to do was to treat the event as one of entire fitness till it +proved itself otherwise,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> and Louise returned to the parlor with an air +of lady-*like inquiry, expressed in her look and movement; if this +effect was not wholly unmixed with patronage, it still was kind.</p> + +<p>"I am sorry," she said, "that my husband is out, and I am sorry to say +that I don't know just when he will be at home." She stood and the man +had risen again, with his portly frame and his invisible face between +her and the light again. "If I could be of any use in giving him a +message—" She stopped; it was really sending the man out of the house, +and she could not do that; it was not decent. She added, "Or if you +don't mind waiting a few minutes longer—"</p> + +<p>She sat down, but the man did not. He said: "I can't wait any longer +just now; but if Mr. Maxwell would like to see me, I am at the Coleman +House." She looked at him as if she did not understand, and he went on: +"If he doesn't recall my name he'll remember answering my advertisement, +some weeks ago in the <i>Theatrical Register</i>, for a play."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes!" said Louise. This was the actor whom she had written to on +behalf of Maxwell. With electrical suddenness and distinctness she now +recalled the name, L. Sterne, along with all the rest, though the card +of Mr. Lawrence Sterne had not stirred her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> sleeping consciousness. She +had always meant to tell Maxwell what she had done, but she was always +waiting for something to come of it, and when nothing came of it, she +did not tell; she had been so disgusted at the mere notion of answering +the man's advertisement. Now, here was the man himself, and he had to be +answered, and that would probably be worse than answering his +advertisement. "I remember," she said, provisionally, but with the +resolution to speak exactly the truth; "I wrote to you <i>for</i> Mr. +Maxwell," which did not satisfy her as the truth ought to have done.</p> + +<p>"Well, then, I wish you would please tell him that I didn't reply to his +letter because it kept following me from place to place, and I only got +it at the <i>Register</i> office this morning."</p> + +<p>"I will tell Mr. Maxwell," said Louise.</p> + +<p>"I should be glad to see his play, if he still has it to dispose of. +From what Mr. Grayson has told me of it, I think it might—I think I +should like to see it. It might suit the—the party I am acting for," he +added, letting himself go.</p> + +<p>"Then you are not the—the—star?"</p> + +<p>"I am the manager for the star."</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Louise, with relief. The fact seemed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> to put another +complexion on the affair. A distaste which she had formed for Mr. Sterne +personally began to cede to other feelings. If he was manager for the +star, he must be like other managers, such as Maxwell was willing to +deal with, and if he knew Mr. Grayson he must be all right. "I will +tell Mr. Maxwell," she said, with no provisionality this time.</p> + +<p>Mr. Sterne prepared to go, so far as buttoning his overcoat and making +some paces towards the door gave token of his intention. Louise followed +him with a politeness which was almost gratitude to him for reinstating +her in her own esteem. He seemed to have atmospheric intelligence of her +better will towards him, for he said, as if it were something she might +feel an interest in: "If I can get a play that will suit, I shall take +the road with a combination immediately after New Year's. I don't know +whether you have ever seen the lady I want the play for."</p> + +<p>"The lady?" gasped Louise.</p> + +<p>"She isn't very well-known in the East yet, but she will be. She wants a +play of her own. As I understand Mr. Grayson, there is a part in Mr. +Maxwell's play that would fit her to a T, or could be fitted to her; +these things always need some little adaptation." Mr. Sterne's manner +became easier and easier. "Cu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>rious thing about it is that you are next +door—or next floor—neighbors, here. Mrs. Harley."</p> + +<p>"We—we have met her," said Louise in a hollow murmur.</p> + +<p>"Well, you can't have any idea what Yolande Havisham is from Mrs. +Harley. I shall be at the Coleman the whole evening, if Mr. Maxwell +would like to call. Well, good-morning," said Mr. Sterne, and he got +himself away before Louise could tell him that Maxwell would never give +his play to a woman; before she could say that it was already as good as +accepted by another manager; before she could declare that if no manager +ever wanted it, still, as far as Mrs. Harley was concerned, with her +smouldering eyes, it would always be in negotiation; before she could +form or express any utter and final refusal and denial of his abominable +hopes.</p> + +<p>It remained for her either to walk quietly down to the North River and +drown herself or to wait her husband's return and tell him everything +and throw herself on his mercy, implore him, adjure him, not to give +that woman his play; and then to go into a decline that would soon rid +him of the clog and hinderance she had always been to him. It flashed +through her turmoil of emotion that it was already dark, in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> spite of +Mr. Sterne's good-morning at parting, and that some one might speak to +her on the way to the river; and then she thought how Maxwell would +laugh when she told him the fear of being spoken to had kept her from +suicide; and she sat waiting for him to come with such an inward +haggardness that she was astonished, at sight of herself in the glass, +to find that she wan looking very much as usual. Maxwell certainly +noticed no difference when he came in and flung himself wearily on the +lounge, and made no attempt to break the silence of their meeting; they +had kissed, of course, but had not spoken.</p> + +<p>She was by no means sure what she was going to do; she had hoped there +would be some leading on his part that would make it easy for her to do +right, whatever the right was, but her heart sank at sight of him. He +looked defeated and harassed. But there was no help for it. She must +speak, and speak unaided; the only question was whether she had better +speak before dinner or after. She decided to speak after dinner, and +then all at once she was saying: "Brice, I have brought something +dreadful on myself."</p> + +<p>"At the lunch?" he asked, wearily, and she saw that he thought she had +been making some silly speech she was ashamed of.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, if it had only been at the lunch!" she cried. "No, it was +here—here in this very room."</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> don't know what's the matter with you, Louise," he said, lying back +and shutting his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Then I must tell you!" And she came out with the whole story, which she +had to repeat in parts before he could understand it. When he did +understand that she had answered an advertisement in the <i>Register</i>, in +his name, he opened his eyes and sat up.</p> + +<p>"Well?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Well, don't you see how wrong and wicked that was?"</p> + +<p>"I've heard of worse things."</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't say so, dearest! It was living a lie, don't you see. And I've +been living a lie ever since, and now I'm justly punished for not +telling you long ago."</p> + +<p>She told him of the visit she had just had, and who the man was, and +whom he wanted the play for; and now a strange thing happened with her. +She did not beseech him not to give his play to that woman; on the +contrary she said: "And now, Brice, I want you to let her have it. I +know she will play Salome magnificently, and that will make the fortune +of the piece, and it will give you such a name that anything you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> write +after this will get accepted; and you can satisfy your utmost ambition, +and you needn't mind me—no—or think of me at all any more than if I +were the dust of the earth; and I am! Will you?"</p> + +<p>He got up from the lounge and began to walk the floor, as he always did +when he was perplexed; and she let him walk up and down in silence as +long as she could bear it. At last she said: "I am in earnest, Brice, I +am indeed, and if you don't do it, if you let me or my feelings stand in +your way, in the slightest degree, I will never forgive you. Will you go +straight down to the Coleman House, as soon as you've had your dinner, +and tell that man he can have your play for that woman?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Maxwell, stopping in his walk, and looking at her in a dazed +way.</p> + +<p>Her heart seemed to leap into her throat. "Why?" she choked.</p> + +<p>"Because Godolphin is here."</p> + +<p>"Godo—" she began; and she cast herself on the lounge that Maxwell had +vacated, and plunged her face in the pillow and sobbed, "Oh, cruel, +cruel, <i>cruel</i>! Oh, <i>cruel</i>, cruel, cruel, cruel!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XX" id="XX"></a>XX.</h2> + + +<p>Maxwell stood looking at his wife with the cold disgust which hysterics +are apt to inspire in men after they have seen them more than once. "I +suppose that when you are ready you will tell me what is the matter with +you."</p> + +<p>"To let me suffer so, when you knew all the time that Godolphin was +here, and you needn't give your play to that creature at all," wailed +Louise.</p> + +<p>"How did <i>I</i> know you were suffering?" he retorted. "And how do I know +that I can do anything with Godolphin?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I <i>know</i> you can!" She sprang up with the greatest energy, and ran +into the bedroom to put in order her tumbled hair; she kept talking to +him from there. "I want you to go down and see him the instant you have +had dinner; and don't let him escape you. Tell him he can have the play +on any terms. I believe he is the only one who can make it go. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> was +the first to appreciate the idea, and—Frida!" she called into the hall +towards the kitchen, "we will have dinner at once, now, please—he +always talked so intelligently about it; and now if he's where you can +superintend the rehearsals, it will be the greatest success. How in the +world did you find out he was here?"</p> + +<p>She came out of her room, in surprising repair, with this question, and +the rest of their talk went on through dinner.</p> + +<p>It appeared that Maxwell had heard of Godolphin's presence from Grayson, +whom he met in the street, and who told him that Godolphin had made a +complete failure of his venture. His combination had gone to pieces at +Cleveland, and his company were straggling back to New York as they +could. Godolphin was deeply in debt to them all, and to everybody else; +and yet the manager spoke cordially of him, and with no sort of +disrespect, as if his insolvency were only an affair of the moment, +which he would put right. Louise took the same view of it, and she urged +Maxwell to consider how Godolphin had promptly paid him, and would +always do so.</p> + +<p>"Probably I got the pay of some poor devil who needed it worse," said +Maxwell.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span></p> + +<p>She said, "Nonsense! The other actors will take care of all that. They +are so good to each other," and she blamed Maxwell for not going to see +Godolphin at once.</p> + +<p>"That was what I did," he answered, "but he wasn't at home. He was to be +at home after dinner."</p> + +<p>"Well, that makes it all the more providential," said Louise; her piety +always awoke in view of favorable chances. "You mustn't lose any time. +Better not wait for the coffee."</p> + +<p>"I think I'll wait for the coffee," said Maxwell. "It's no use going +there before eight."</p> + +<p>"No," she consented. "Where is he stopping?"</p> + +<p>"At the Coleman House."</p> + +<p>"The Coleman House? Then if that wretch should see you?" She meant the +manager of Mrs. Harley.</p> + +<p>"He wouldn't know me, probably," Maxwell returned, scornfully. "But if +you think there's any danger of his laying hold of me, and getting the +play away before Godolphin has a chance of refusing it, I'll go masked. +I'm tired of thinking about it. What sort of lunch did you have?"</p> + +<p>"I had the best time in the world. You ought to have come with me, +Brice. I shall make you, the next one. Oh, and guess who was there! Mr. +Ray!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span></p> + +<p>"<i>Our</i> Mr. Ray?" Maxwell breathlessly demanded.</p> + +<p>"There is no other, and he's the sweetest little dear in the world. He +isn't so big as you are, even, and he's such a merry spirit; he hasn't +the bulk your gloom gives you. I want you to be like him, Brice. I don't +see why you shouldn't go into society, too."</p> + +<p>"If I'd gone into society to-day, I should have missed seeing Grayson, +and shouldn't have known Godolphin was in town."</p> + +<p>"Well, that is true, of course. But if you get your play into +Godolphin's hands, you'll have to show yourself a little, so that nice +people will be interested in it. You ought to have heard Mr. Ray +celebrate it. He piped up before the whole table."</p> + +<p>Louise remembered what Ray said very well, and she repeated it to a +profound joy in Maxwell. It gave him an exquisite pleasure, and it +flattered him to believe that, as the hostess had said in response, +they, the nice people, must see it, though he had his opinion of nice +people, apart from their usefulness in seeing his play. To reward his +wife for it all, he rose as soon as he had drunk his coffee, and went +out to put on his hat and coat. She went with him, and saw that he put +them on properly, and did not go off with half his coat-collar turned +up. After he got his hat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> on, she took it off to see whether his +cow-lick was worse than usual.</p> + +<p>"Why, good heavens! Godolphin's seen me before, and besides, I'm not +going to propose marriage to him," he protested.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's much more serious than that!" she sighed. "Anybody would take +<i>you</i>, dear, but it's your play we want him to take—or take back."</p> + +<p>When Maxwell reached the hotel, he did not find Godolphin there. He came +back twice; then, as something in his manner seemed to give Maxwell +authority, the clerk volunteered to say that he thought he might find +the actor at the Players' Club. In this hope he walked across to +Gramercy Park. Godolphin had been dining there, and when he got +Maxwell's name, he came half way down the stairs to meet him. He put his +arm round him to return to the library.</p> + +<p>There happened to be no one else there, and he made Maxwell sit down in +an arm-chair fronting his own, and give an account of himself since they +parted. He asked after Mrs. Maxwell's health, and as far as Maxwell +could make out he was sincere in the quest. He did not stop till he had +asked, with the most winning and radiant smile, "And the play, what have +you done with the play?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p> + +<p>He was so buoyant that Maxwell could not be heavy about it, and he +answered as gayly: "Oh, I fancy I have been waiting for you to come on +and take it."</p> + +<p>Godolphin did not become serious, but he became if possible more +sincere. "Do you really think I could do anything with it?"</p> + +<p>"If you can't nobody can."</p> + +<p>"Why, that is very good of you, very good indeed, Maxwell. Do you know, +I have been thinking about that play. You see, the trouble was with the +Salome. The girl I had for the part was a thoroughly nice girl, but she +hadn't the weight for it. She did the comic touches charmingly, but when +it came to the tragedy she wasn't there. I never had any doubt that I +could create the part of Haxard. It's a noble part. It's the greatest +rôle on the modern stage. It went magnificently in Chicago—with the +best people. You saw what the critics said of it?"</p> + +<p>"No; you didn't send me the Chicago papers." Maxwell did not say that +all this was wholly different from what Godolphin had written him when +he renounced the play. Yet he felt that Godolphin was honest then and +was honest now. It was another point of view; that was all.</p> + +<p>"Ah, I thought I sent them. There was some ad<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span>verse criticism of the +play as a whole, but there was only one opinion of Haxard. And you +haven't done anything with the piece yet?"</p> + +<p>"No, nothing."</p> + +<p>"And you think I could do Haxard? You still have faith in me?"</p> + +<p>"As much faith as I ever had," said Maxwell; and Godolphin found nothing +ambiguous in a thing certainly susceptible of two interpretations.</p> + +<p>"That is very good of you, Maxwell; very good." He lifted his fine head +and gazed absently a moment at the wall before him. "Well, then I will +tell you what I will do, Mr. Maxwell; I will take the play."</p> + +<p>"You will!"</p> + +<p>"Yes; that is if you think I can do the part."</p> + +<p>"Why, of course!"</p> + +<p>"And if—if there could be some changes—very slight changes—made in +the part of Salome. It needs subduing." Godolphin said this as if he had +never suggested anything of the kind before; as if the notion were newly +evolved from his experience.</p> + +<p>"I will do what I can, Mr. Godolphin," Maxwell promised, while he +knitted his brows in perplexity "But I do think that the very strength +of Salome gives relief to Haxard—gives him greater importance."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It <i>may</i> be so, dramatically. But theatrically, it detracts from him. +Haxard must be the central figure in the eye of the audience from first +to last."</p> + +<p>Maxwell mused for a moment of discouragement. They were always coming +back to that; very likely Godolphin was right; but Maxwell did not know +just how to subdue the character of Salome so as to make her less +interesting. "Do you think that was what gave you bad houses in +Chicago—the double interest, or the weakened interest in Haxard?"</p> + +<p>"I think so," said Godolphin.</p> + +<p>"Were the houses bad—comparatively?"</p> + +<p>Godolphin took a little note-book out of his breast-pocket. "Here are my +dates. I opened the first night, the tenth of November, with Haxard, but +we papered the house thoroughly, and we made a good show to the public +and the press. There were four hundred and fifty dollars in it. The next +night there were three hundred; the next night, two eighty; Wednesday +matinée, less than two hundred. That night we put on 'Virginius,' and +played to eight hundred dollars; Thursday night, with the 'Lady of +Lyons,' we had eleven hundred; Friday night, we gave the 'Lady' to +twelve hundred; Saturday afternoon with the same piece, we took in +eleven hundred<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> and fifty; Saturday night, with 'Ingomar,' we had +fifteen hundred dollars in the house, and a hundred people standing." +Maxwell listened with a drooping head; he was bitterly mortified. "But +it was too late then," said Godolphin, with a sigh, as he shut his hook.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean," demanded Maxwell, "that my piece had crippled you so +that—that—"</p> + +<p>"I didn't say that, Mr. Maxwell. I never meant to let you see the +figures. But you asked me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you're quite right," said Maxwell. He thought how he had blamed the +actor, in his impatience with him, for not playing his piece +oftener—and called him fool and thought him knave for not doing it all +the time, as Godolphin had so lavishly promised to do. He caught at a +straw to save himself from sinking with shame. "But the houses, were +they so bad everywhere?"</p> + +<p>Godolphin checked himself in a movement to take out his note-book again; +Maxwell had given him such an imploring glance. "They were pretty poor +everywhere. But it's been a bad season with a good many people."</p> + +<p>"No, no," cried Maxwell. "You did very well with the other plays, +Godolphin. Why do you want<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> to touch the thing again? It's been ruinous +to you so far. Give it up! Come! I can't let you have it!"</p> + +<p>Godolphin laughed, and all his beautiful white teeth shone. There was a +rich, wholesome red in his smoothly shaven cheeks; he was a real +pleasure to the eye. "I believe it would go better in New York. I'm not +afraid to try it. You mustn't take away my last chance of retrieving the +season. Hair of the dog, you know. Have you seen Grayson lately?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I saw him this afternoon. It was he that told me you were in +town."</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes."</p> + +<p>"And Godolphin, I've got it on my conscience, if you do take the play, +to tell you that I offered it to Grayson, and he refused it. I think you +ought to know that; it's only fair; and for the matter of that, it's +been kicking round all the theatres in New York."</p> + +<p>"Dear boy!" said Godolphin, caressingly, and with a smile that was like +a benediction, "that doesn't make the least difference."</p> + +<p>"Well, I wished you to know," said Maxwell, with a great load off his +mind.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I understand that. Will you drink anything, or smoke anything? +Or—I forgot! I hate all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> that, too. But you'll join me in a cup of tea +downstairs?" They descended to the smoking-room below, and Godolphin +ordered the tea, and went on talking with a gay irrelevance till it +came. Then he said, as he poured out the two cups of it: "The fact is, +Grayson is going in with me, if I do your piece." This was news to +Maxwell, and yet he was somehow not surprised at it. "I dare say he told +you?"</p> + +<p>"No, he didn't give me any hint of it. He simply told me that you were +in town, and where you were."</p> + +<p>"Ah, that was like Grayson. Queer fish."</p> + +<p>"But I'm mighty glad to know it. You can make it go, together, if any +power on earth can do it; and if it fails," Maxwell added, "I shall have +the satisfaction of ruining some one else this time."</p> + +<p>"Well, Grayson has made nearly as bad a mess of it as I have, this +season," said Godolphin. "He's got to take off that thing he has going +now, and it's a question of what he shall put on. It will be an +experiment with Haxard, but I believe it will be a successful +experiment. I have every confidence in that play." Godolphin looked up, +his lips set convincingly, and with the air of a man who had stood +unfalteringly by his opinion from the first. "Now, if you will ex<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span>cuse +me, I will tell you what I think ought to be done to it."</p> + +<p>"By all means," said Maxwell; "I shall be glad to do anything you wish, +or that I can."</p> + +<p>Godolphin poured out a cloudy volume of suggestion, with nothing clear +in it but the belief that the part of Haxard ought to be fattened. He +recurred to all the structural impossibilities that he had ever desired, +and there was hardly a point in the piece that he did not want changed. +At the end he said: "But all these things are of no consequence, +comparatively speaking. What we need is a woman who can take the part of +Salome, and play it with all the feminine charm that you've given it, +and yet keep it strictly in the background, or thoroughly subordinated +to the interest of Haxard."</p> + +<p>For all that Godolphin seemed to have learned from his experience with +the play, Maxwell might well have thought they were still talking of it +at Magnolia. It was a great relief to his prepossessions in the form of +conclusions to have Grayson appear, with the air of looking for some +one, and of finding the object of his search in Godolphin. He said he +was glad to see Maxwell, too, and they went on talking of the play. From +the talk of the other two Maxwell perceived that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> the purpose of doing +his play had already gone far with them; but they still spoke of it as +something that would be very good if the interest could be unified in +it. Suddenly the manager broke out: "Look here, Godolphin! I have an +idea! Why not frankly accept the inevitable! I don't believe Mr. Maxwell +can make the play different from what it is, structurally, and I don't +believe the character of Salome can be subdued or subordinated. Then why +not play Salome as strongly as possible, and trust to her strength to +enhance Haxard's effect, instead of weakening it?"</p> + +<p>Godolphin smiled towards Maxwell: "That was your idea."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Maxwell, and he kept himself from falling on Grayson's neck +for joy.</p> + +<p>"It might do," the actor assented with smiling eagerness and tolerant +superiority. "But whom could you get for such a Salome as that?"</p> + +<p>"Well, there's only one woman for it," said Grayson.</p> + +<p>"Yolande Havisham?"</p> + +<p>The name made Maxwell's heart stop. He started forward to say that Mrs. +Harley could not have the part, when the manager said: "And we couldn't +get her. Sterne has engaged her to star in his combina<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span>tion. By the way, +he was looking for you to-day, Mr. Maxwell."</p> + +<p>"I missed him," answered Maxwell, with immense relief. "But I should not +have let him have the piece while I had the slightest hope of your +taking it."</p> + +<p>Neither the manager nor the actor was perhaps greatly moved by his +generous preference, though they both politely professed to be so. They +went on to canvass the qualities and reputations of all the other +actresses attainable, and always came back to Yolande Havisham, who was +unattainable; Sterne would never give her up in the world, even if she +were willing to give up the chance he was offering her. But she was the +one woman who could do Salome.</p> + +<p>They decided that they must try to get Miss Pettrell, who had played the +part with Godolphin, and who had done it with refinement, if not with +any great force. When they had talked to this conclusion, Grayson +proposed getting something to eat, and the others refused, but they went +into the dining-room with him, where he showed Maxwell the tankards of +the members hanging on the walls over their tables—Booth's tankard, +Salvini's, Irving's, Jefferson's. He was surprised that Maxwell was not +a member of the Players, and said that he must be; it was the only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> club +for him, if he was going to write for the stage. He came out with them +and pointed out several artists whose fame Maxwell knew, and half a +dozen literary men, among them certain playwrights; they were all +smoking, and the place was blue with the fumes of their cigars. The +actors were coming in from the theatres for supper, and Maxwell found +himself with his friends in a group with a charming old comedian who was +telling brief, vivid little stories, and sketching character, with +illustrations from his delightful art. He was not swagger, like some of +the younger men who stood about with their bell-crowned hats on, before +they went into supper; and two or three other elderly actors who sat +round him and took their turn in the anecdote and mimicry looked, with +their smooth-shaven faces, like old-fashioned ministers. Godolphin, who +was like a youthful priest, began to tell stories, too; and he told very +good ones admirably, but without appearing to feel their quality, though +he laughed loudly at them with the rest.</p> + +<p>When Maxwell refused every one's wish to have him eat or drink +something, and said good-night, Grayson had already gone in to his +supper, and Godolphin rose and smiled so fondly upon him that Maxwell +felt as if the actor had blessed him. But he was less sure than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> in the +beginning of the evening that the play was again in Godolphin's hands; +and he had to confirm himself from his wife's acceptance of the facts in +the belief that it was really so.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXI" id="XXI"></a>XXI.</h2> + + +<p>Louise asked Maxwell, as soon as they had established their joint faith, +whom Godolphin was going to get to play Salome, and he said that Grayson +would like to re-engage Miss Pettrell, though he had a theory that the +piece would be strengthened, and the effect of Haxard enhanced, if they +could have a more powerful Salome.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Ray told me at lunch," said Louise, impartially but with an air of +relief, "that in all the love-making she was delightful; but when it +came to the tragedy, she wasn't there."</p> + +<p>"Grayson seemed to think that if she could be properly rehearsed, she +could be brought up to it," Maxwell interposed.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Ray said she was certainly very refined, and her Salome was always +a lady. And that is the essential thing," Louise added, decisively. "I +don't at all agree with Mr. Grayson about having Salome played so +powerfully. I think Mr. Godolphin is right."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span></p> + +<p>"For Heaven's sake don't tell him so!" said Maxwell. "We have had +trouble enough to get him under."</p> + +<p>"Indeed, I shall tell him so! I think he ought to know how we feel."</p> + +<p>"<i>We?</i>" repeated Maxwell.</p> + +<p>"Yes. What we want for Salome is sweetness and delicacy and refinement; +for she has to do rather a bold thing, and yet keep herself a lady."</p> + +<p>"Well, it may be too late to talk of Miss Pettrell now," said Maxwell. +"Your favorite Godolphin parted enemies with her."</p> + +<p>"Oh, stage enemies! Mr. Grayson can get her, and he must."</p> + +<p>"I'll tell him what your orders are," said Maxwell.</p> + +<p>The next day he saw the manager, but nothing had been done, and the +affair seemed to be hanging fire again. In the evening, while he was +talking it over with his wife in a discouragement which they could not +shake off, a messenger came to him with a letter from the Argosy +Theatre, which he tore nervously open.</p> + +<p>"What is it, dear?" asked his wife, tenderly. "Another disappointment?"</p> + +<p>"Not exactly," he returned, with a husky voice, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> after a moment of +faltering he gave her the letter. It was from Grayson, and it was to the +effect that he had seen Sterne, and that Sterne had agreed to a +proposition he had made him, to take Maxwell's play on the road, if it +succeeded, and in view of this had agreed to let Yolande Havisham take +the part of Salome.</p> + +<p>Godolphin was going to get all his old company together as far as +possible, with the exception of Miss Pettrell, and there was to be +little or no delay, because the actors had mostly got back to New York, +and were ready to renew their engagements. That no time might be lost, +Grayson asked Maxwell to come the next morning and read the piece to +such of them as he could get together in the Argosy greenroom, and give +them his sense of it.</p> + +<p>Louise handed him back the letter, and said, with dangerous calm: "You +might save still more time by going down to Mrs. Harley's apartment and +reading it to her at once." Maxwell was miserably silent, and she +pursued: "May I ask whether you knew they were going to try to get her?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Maxwell.</p> + +<p>"Was there anything said about her?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, there was, last night. But both Grayson and Godolphin regarded it +as impossible to get her."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Why didn't you tell me that they would like to get her?"</p> + +<p>"You knew it, already. And I thought, as they both had given up the hope +of getting her, I wouldn't mention the subject. It's always been a very +disagreeable one."</p> + +<p>"Yes." Louise sat quiet, and then she said: "What a long misery your +play has been to me!"</p> + +<p>"You haven't helped make it any great joy to me," said Maxwell, +bitterly.</p> + +<p>She began to weep, silently, and he stood looking down at her in utter +wretchedness. "Well," he said at last, "what shall I do about it?"</p> + +<p>Louise wiped her tears, and cleared up cold, as we say of the weather. +She rose, as if to leave the room, and said, haughtily: "You shall do as +you think best for yourself. You must let them have the play, and let +them choose whom they think best for the part. But you can't expect me +to come to see it."</p> + +<p>"Then that unsays all the rest. If you don't come to see it, I sha'n't, +and I shall not let them have the piece. That is all. Louise," he +entreated, after these first desperate words, "<i>can't</i> we grapple with +this infernal nightmare, so as to get it into the light, somehow, and +see what it really is? How can it matter to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> you who plays the part? Why +do you care whether Miss Pettrell or Mrs. Harley does it?"</p> + +<p>"Why do you ask such a thing as that?" she returned, in the same hard +frost. "You know where the idea of the character came from, and why it +was sacred to me. Or perhaps you forget!"</p> + +<p>"No, I don't forget. But try—can't you try?—to specify just why you +object to Mrs. Harley?"</p> + +<p>"You have your theory. You said I was jealous of her."</p> + +<p>"I didn't mean it. I never believed that."</p> + +<p>"Then I can't explain. If you don't understand, after all that's been +said, what is the use of talking? I'm tired of it!"</p> + +<p>She went into her room, and he sank into the chair before his desk and +sat there, thinking. When she came back, after a while, he did not look +round at her, and she spoke to the back of his head. "Should you have +any objection to my going home for a few days?"</p> + +<p>"No," he returned.</p> + +<p>"I know papa would like to have me, and I think you would be less +hampered in what you will have to do now if I'm not here."</p> + +<p>"You're very considerate. But if that's what you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> are going for, you +might as well stay. I'm not going to do anything whatever."</p> + +<p>"Now, you mustn't talk foolishly, Brice," she said, with an air of +superior virtue mixed with a hint of martyrdom. "I won't have you doing +anything rash or boyish. You will go on and let them have your play just +the same as if I didn't exist." She somewhat marred the effect of her +self-devotion by adding: "And I shall go on just as if <i>it</i> didn't +exist." He said nothing, and she continued: "You couldn't expect me to +take any interest in it after this, could you? Because, though I am +ready to make any sort of sacrifice for you, I think any one, I don't +care who it was, would say that was a little <i>too</i> much. Don't you think +so yourself?"</p> + +<p>"You are always right. I think that."</p> + +<p>"Don't be silly. I am trying to do the best I can, and you have no right +to make it hard for me."</p> + +<p>Maxwell wheeled round in his chair: "Then I wish you wouldn't make your +best so confoundedly disagreeable."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" she twitted. "I see that you have made up your mind to let them +have the play, after all."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I have," he answered, savagely.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you meant to do it all along?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Perhaps I did."</p> + +<p>"Very well, then," said Louise. "Would you mind coming to the train with +me on your way down town to-morrow?"</p> + +<p>"Not at all."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXII" id="XXII"></a>XXII.</h2> + + +<p>In the morning neither of them recurred to what Louise had said of her +going home for a few days. She had apparently made no preparation for +the journey; but if she was better than her words in this, he was quite +as bad as his in going down town after breakfast to let Grayson have the +play, no matter whom he should get to do Salome. He did not reiterate +his purpose, but she knew from the sullen leave, or no-leave, which he +took of her, that it was fixed.</p> + +<p>When he was gone she had what seemed to her the very worst quarter of an +hour she had ever known; but when he came back in the afternoon, looking +haggard but savage, her ordeal had long been over. She asked him quietly +if they had come to any definite conclusion about the play, and he +answered, with harsh aggression, yes, that Mrs. Harley had agreed to +take the part of Salome; Godolphin's old company<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> had been mostly got +together, and they were to have the first rehearsal the next morning.</p> + +<p>"Should you like me to come some time?" asked Louise.</p> + +<p>"I should like you very much to come," said Maxwell, soberly, but with a +latent doubt of her meaning, which she perceived.</p> + +<p>"I have been thinking," she said, "whether you would like me to call on +Mrs. Harley this evening with you?"</p> + +<p>"What for?" he demanded, suspiciously.</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know. I thought it might be appropriate."</p> + +<p>Maxwell thought a moment. "I don't think it would be expected. After +all, it isn't a personal thing," he said, with a relenting in his +defiance.</p> + +<p>"No," said Louise.</p> + +<p>They got through the evening without further question.</p> + +<p>They had always had some sort of explicit making-up before, even when +they had only had a tacit falling out, but this time Louise thought +there had better be none of that. They were to rehearse the play every +day that week, and Maxwell said he must be at the theatre the next +morning at eleven. He could not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> make out to his wife's satisfaction +that he was of much use, but he did not try to convince her. He only +said that they referred things to him now and then, and that generally +he did not seem to know much about them. She saw that his æsthetic +honesty kept him from pretending to more than this, and she believed he +ought to have greater credit than he claimed.</p> + +<p>Four or five days later she went with him to a rehearsal. By this time +they had got so well forward with their work at the theatre that Maxwell +said it would now be in appreciable shape; but still he warned her not +to expect too much. He never could tell her just what she wanted to know +about Mrs. Harley; all he could say was that her Salome was not ideal, +though it had strong qualities; and he did not try to keep her from +thinking it offensive; that would only have made bad worse.</p> + +<p>It had been snowing overnight, and there was a bright glare of sunshine +on the drifts, which rendered the theatre doubly dark when they stepped +into it from the street. It was a dramatic event for Louise to enter by +the stage-door, and to find Maxwell recognized by the old man in charge +as having authority to do so; and she made as much of the strange +interior<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> as the obscurity and her preoccupation would allow. There was +that immediate bareness and roughness which seems the first +characteristic of the theatre behind the scenes, where the theatre is +one of the simplest and frankest of workshops, in which certain effects +are prepared to be felt before the footlights. Nothing of the glamour of +the front is possible; there is a hard air of business in everything; +and the work that goes to the making of a play shows itself the severest +toil. Figures now came and went in the twilight beyond the reach of the +gas in the door-keeper's booth, but rapidly as if bent upon definite +errands, and with nothing of that loitering gayety which is the imagined +temperament of the stage.</p> + +<p>Louise and Maxwell were to see Grayson first in his private office, and +while their names were taken in, the old door-keeper gave them seats on +the Mourners' Bench, a hard wooden settee in the corridor, which he said +was the place where actors wanting an engagement waited till the manager +sent word that he could see them. The manager did not make the author +and his wife wait, but came for them himself, and led the way back to +his room. When he gave them seats there, Maxwell had the pleasure of +seeing that Louise made an excellent impression with the magnate, of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> +whom he had never quite lost the awe we feel for the master of our +fortunes, whoever he is. He perceived that her inalienable worldly +splendor added to his own consequence, and that his wife's air of +<i>grande dame</i> was not lost upon a man who could at least enjoy it +artistically. Grayson was very polite to her, and said hopefuller things +about the play than he had yet said to Maxwell, though he had always +been civil about its merits. He had a number of papers before him, and +he asked Louise if she had noticed their friendliness. She said, yes, +she had seen some of those things, but she had supposed they were +authorized, and she did not know how much to value them.</p> + +<p>Grayson laughed and confessed that he did not practice any concealments +with the press when it was a question of getting something to the public +notice. "Of course," he said, "we don't want the piece to come in on +rubbers."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" she demanded, with an ignorant joy in the phrase.</p> + +<p>"That's what we call it when a thing hasn't been sufficiently heralded, +or heralded at all. We have got to look after that part of it, you +know."</p> + +<p>"Of course, I am not complaining, though I think all that's dreadful."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span></p> + +<p>The manager assented partly. Then he said: "There's something curious +about it. You may put up the whole affair yourself, and yet in what's +said you can tell whether there's a real good will that comes from the +writers themselves or not."</p> + +<p>"And you mean that there is this mystical kindness for Mr. Maxwell's +play in the prophecies that all read so much alike to me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I do," said the manager, laughing. "They like him because he's new +and young, and is making his way single-handed."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Louise, "those seem good grounds for preference to me, +too;" and she thought how nearly they had been her own grounds for +liking Maxwell.</p> + +<p>Grayson went with them to the stage and found her the best place to sit +and see the rehearsal. He made some one get chairs, and he sat with her +chatting while men in high hats and overcoats and women in bonnets and +fur-edged butterfly-capes came in one after another. Godolphin arrived +among the first, with an ulster which came down to where his pantaloons +were turned up above his overshoes. He caught sight of Louise, and +approached her with outstretched hand, and Grayson gave up his chair to +the actor.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> Godolphin was very cordial, deferentially cordial, with a +delicate vein of reminiscent comradery running through his manner. She +spoke to him of having at last got his ideal for Salome, and he said, +with a slight sigh and a sort of melancholy absence: "Yes, Miss Havisham +will do it magnificently." Then he asked, with a look of latent +significance:</p> + +<p>"Have you ever seen her?"</p> + +<p>Louise laughed for as darkling a reason. "Only in real life. You know we +live just over and under each other."</p> + +<p>"Ah, true. But I meant, on the stage. She's a great artist. You know +she's the one I wanted for Salome from the start."</p> + +<p>"Then you ought to be very happy in getting her at last."</p> + +<p>"She will do everything for the play," sighed Godolphin. "She'll make up +for all my shortcomings."</p> + +<p>"You won't persuade us that you have any shortcomings, Mr. Godolphin," +said Louise. "You are Haxard, and Haxard is the play. You can't think, +Mr. Godolphin, how deeply grateful we both are to you for your +confidence in my husband's work, your sacrifices—"</p> + +<p>"You overpay me a thousand times for everything,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> Mrs. Maxwell," said +the actor. "Any one might have been proud and happy to do all I've done, +and more, for such a play. I've never changed my opinion for a moment +that it was <i>the</i> American drama. And now if Miss Havisham only turns +out to be the Salome we want!"</p> + +<p>"If?" returned Louise, and she felt a wild joy in the word. "Why, I +thought there could be no earthly doubt about it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, there isn't. We are all united on that point, I believe, Maxwell?"</p> + +<p>Maxwell shrugged. "I confide in you and Mr. Grayson."</p> + +<p>Godolphin looked at his watch. "It's eleven now, and she isn't here yet. +I would rather not have begun without her, but I think we had better not +delay any longer." He excused himself to Louise, and went and sat down +with his hat on at a small table, lit with a single electric bulb, +dropping like a luminous spider by a thread from the dark above. Other +electric bulbs were grouped before reflectors on either side of the +stage, and these shone on the actors before Godolphin. Back in the +depths of the stage, some scene-painters and carpenters were at work on +large strips of canvas lying unrolled upon the floor or stretched<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> upon +light wooden frames. Across Godolphin's head the dim hollow of the +auditorium showed, pierced by long bars of sunlight full of dancing +motes, which slanted across its gloom from the gallery windows. Women in +long aprons were sweeping the floors and pounding the seats, and a smell +of dust from their labors mixed with the smell of paint and glue and +escaping gas which pervaded the atmosphere of the stage.</p> + +<p>Godolphin made Maxwell come and sit with him at the table; he opened his +prompt-book and directed the rehearsal to begin. The people were mostly +well up in their parts, and the work went smoothly, except for now and +then an impatience in Godolphin which did not seem to come from what was +going forward.</p> + +<p>He showed himself a thorough master of his trade in its more mechanical +details, and there were signal instances of his intelligence in the +higher things of it which might well have put Mrs. Maxwell to shame for +her many hasty judgments of the actor. He was altogether more of a man, +more of a mind, than she had supposed, even when she supposed the best +of him. She perceived that Godolphin grasped the whole meaning of her +husband's work, and interpreted its intentions with perfect accuracy, +not only in his own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> part of Haxard, but in all the other persons, and +he corrected the playing of each of the rôles as the rehearsal went on. +She saw how he had really formed the other actors upon himself. They +repeated his tones, his attitudes, his mannerisms, in their several +ways. His touch could be felt all through the performance, and his +limitations characterized it. He was very gentle and forbearing with +their mistakes, but he was absolute master all the same. If some one +erred, Godolphin left his place and went and showed how the thing should +be said and done. He carefully addressed the men by their surnames, with +the Mr. always; the women were all Dear to him, according to a +convention of the theatre. He said, "No, dear," and "Yes, dear," and he +was as caressingly deferential to each of them as he was formally +deferential to the men; he required the same final obedience of them, +and it was not always so easy to make them obey. In non-essentials he +yielded at times, as when one of the ladies had overdone a point, and he +demurred. "But I always got a laugh on that, Mr. Godolphin," she +protested. "Oh, well, my dear, hang on to your laugh, then." However he +meant to do Haxard himself, his voice was for simplicity and reality in +others. "Is that the way you would do it, is that the way you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> would say +it, if it were <i>you</i>?" he stopped one of the men in a bit of rant.</p> + +<p>Even of Maxwell he exacted as clear a vision of his own work as he +exacted of its interpreters. He asked the author his notion of points in +dress and person among the different characters, which he had hitherto +only generalized in his mind, and which he was gladly willing, when they +were brought home to him, to leave altogether to Godolphin's judgment.</p> + +<p>The rehearsal had gone well on towards the end of the first act, and +Godolphin was beginning to fidget. From where she sat Louise saw him +take out his watch and lean towards her husband to say something. An +actor who was going through a piece of business perceived that he had +not Godolphin's attention, and stopped. Just then Mrs. Harley came in.</p> + +<p>Godolphin rose and advanced towards her with the prompt-book shut on his +thumb. "You are late, Miss Havisham."</p> + +<p>"Yes," she answered, haughtily, as if in resentment of his tone. She +added in concession, "Unavoidably. But Salome doesn't come on till the +end of the act."</p> + +<p>"I think it best for the whole company to be present from the +beginning," said Godolphin.</p> + +<p>"I quite agree with you," said Mrs. Harley.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> "Where are we?" she asked, +and then she caught sight of Louise, and came up to her. "How do you do, +Mrs. Maxwell? I don't know whether I'm glad to see you or not. I believe +I'm rather afraid to have you see my Salome; I've an idea you are going +to be very severe with her."</p> + +<p>"I am sure no severity will be needed. You'll see me nodding approval +all the way through," Louise returned.</p> + +<p>"I have always thought, somehow, that you had the part especially under +your protection. I feel that I'm a very bold woman to attempt it."</p> + +<p>In spite of her will to say "Yes, a very bold woman indeed!" Louise +answered: "Then I shall admire your courage, as well as your art."</p> + +<p>She was aware of Godolphin fretting at the colloquy he could not +interrupt, and of Mrs. Harley prolonging it wilfully. "I know you are +sincere, and I am going to make you tell me everything you object to in +me when it's over. Will you?"</p> + +<p>"Of course," Louise answered, gayly; and now Mrs. Harley turned to +Godolphin again: "<i>Where</i> were you?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXIII" id="XXIII"></a>XXIII.</h2> + + +<p>Twice during the rehearsal Maxwell came to Louise and asked her if she +were not tired and would not like to go home; he offered to go out and +put her on a car. But both times she made him the same answer: she was +not tired, and would not go away on any account; the second time she +said, with a certain meaning in her look and voice, that she thought she +could stand it if he could. At the end she went up and made her +compliments to Mrs. Harley. "You must enjoy realizing your ideal of a +character so perfectly," she began.</p> + +<p>"Yes? Did you feel that about it?" the actress returned. "It <i>is</i> a +satisfaction. But if one has a strong conception of a part, I don't see +how one can help rendering it strongly. And this Salome, she takes hold +of me so powerfully. Her passion and her will, that won't stop at +anything, seem to pierce through and through me. You can feel that she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> +wouldn't mind killing a man or two to carry her point."</p> + +<p>"That is certainly what <i>you</i> make one feel about her. And you make her +very living, very actual."</p> + +<p>"You are very good," said Mrs. Harley. "I am so glad you liked it. I was +dreadfully afraid you wouldn't like it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I couldn't imagine your being afraid of anything," said Louise, +lightly. Her smile was one which the other woman might have known how to +interpret rightly, but her husband alone among men could feel its +peculiar quality. Godolphin beamed with apparent satisfaction in it.</p> + +<p>"Wasn't Salome magnificent?" he said; and he magnanimously turned to the +actress. "You will make everybody forget Haxard. You made <i>me</i> forget +him."</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> didn't forget him though," said Mrs. Harley. "I was trying all the +time to play up to him—and to Mrs. Maxwell."</p> + +<p>The actor laughed his deep, mellow, hollow laugh, which was a fine work +of art in itself, and said: "Mrs. Maxwell, you must let me present the +other <i>dramatis personæ</i> to you," and he introduced the whole cast of +the play, one after another. Each said something of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> the Salome, how +grand it was, how impassioned, how powerful. Maxwell stood by, +listening, with his eyes on his wife's face, trying to read her thought.</p> + +<p>They were silent most of the way home, and she only talked of +indifferent things. When the door of their apartment shut them in with +themselves alone, she broke out: "Horrible, horrible, horrible! Well, +the play is ruined, ruined! We might as well die; or <i>I</i> might! I +suppose <i>you</i> really liked it!"</p> + +<p>Maxwell turned white with anger. "I didn't try to make her <i>think</i> I +did, anyway. But I knew how you really felt, and I don't believe you +deceived her very much, either. All the same I was ashamed to see you +try."</p> + +<p>"Don't talk to me—don't speak! She knew from every syllable I uttered +that I perfectly loathed it, and I know that she tried to make it as +hateful to me all the way through as she could. She played it <i>at</i> me, +and she knew it <i>was</i> me. It was as if she kept saying all the time, +'How do you like my translation of your Boston girl into Alabama, or +Mississippi, or Arkansas, or wherever I came from? This is the way you +would have acted, if you were <i>me</i>!' Yes, that is the hideous part of +it. Her nature has <i>come off</i> on the character, and I shall never see, +or hear, or think,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> or dream Salome, after this, without having Yolande +Havisham before me. She's spoiled the sweetest thing in my life. She's +made me hate myself; she's made me hate <i>you</i>! Will you go out somewhere +and get your lunch? I don't want anything myself, and just now I can't +bear to look at you. Oh, you're not to blame, that I know of, if that's +what you mean. Only go!"</p> + +<p>"I can go out for lunch, certainly," said Maxwell "Perhaps you would +rather I stayed out for dinner, too?"</p> + +<p>"Don't be cruel, dearest. I am trying to control myself—"</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't have thought it. You're not succeeding."</p> + +<p>"No, not so well as you, if you hated this woman's Salome as much as I +did. If it's always been as bad as it was to-day you've controlled +yourself wonderfully well never to give me any hint of it, or prepare me +for it in the least."</p> + +<p>"How could I prepare you? You would have come to it with your own +prepossessions, no matter what I said."</p> + +<p>"Was that why you said nothing?"</p> + +<p>"You would have hated it if she had played it with angelic perfection, +because you hated her."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Perhaps you think she really did play it with angelic perfection! Well, +you needn't come back to dinner."</p> + +<p>Louise passed into their room, to lay off her hat and sack.</p> + +<p>"I will not come back at all, if you prefer," Maxwell called after her.</p> + +<p>"I have no preferences in the matter," she mocked back.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXIV" id="XXIV"></a>XXIV.</h2> + + +<p>Maxwell and Louise had torn at each other's hearts till they were +bleeding, and he wished to come back at once and she wished him to come, +that they might hurt themselves still more savagely; but when this +desire passed, they longed to meet and bind up one another's wounds. +This better feeling brought them together before night-fall, when +Maxwell returned, and Louise, at the sound of his latch-key in the door, +ran to let him in.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Godolphin is here," she said, in a loud, cheery voice, and he +divined that he owed something of his eager welcome to her wish to keep +him from resuming the quarrel unwittingly. "He has just come to talk +over the rehearsal with you, and I wouldn't let him go. I was sure you +would be back soon."</p> + +<p>She put her finger to her lip, with whatever warning intention, and +followed her husband into the pres<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span>ence of the actor, and almost into +his arms, so rapturous was the meeting between them.</p> + +<p>"Well," cried Godolphin, "I couldn't help looking in a moment to talk +with you and Mrs. Maxwell about our Salome. I feel that she will make +the fortune of the piece—of any piece. Doesn't Miss Havisham's +rendition grow upon you? It's magnificent. It's on the grand scale. It's +immense. The more I think about it, the more I'm impressed with it. +She'll carry the house by storm. I've never seen anything like it; and +I'm glad to find that Mrs. Maxwell feels just as I do about it." Maxwell +looked at his wife, who returned his glance with a guiltless eye. "I was +afraid she might feel the loss of things that certainly <i>are</i> lost in +it. I don't say that Miss Havisham's Salome, superb as it is, is <i>your</i> +Salome—or Mrs. Maxwell's. I've always fancied that Mrs. Maxwell had a +great deal to do with that character, and—I don't know why—I've always +thought of her when I've thought of <i>it</i>; but at the same time it's a +splendid Salome. She makes it Southern, almost tropical. It isn't the +Boston Salome. You may say that it is wanting in delicacy and the nice +shades; but it's full of passion; there's nothing caviare to the general +in it. The average audience will understand just what the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> girl that +Miss Havisham gives is after, and she gives her so abundantly that +there's no more doubt of the why than there is of the how. Sometimes I +used to think the house couldn't follow Miss Pettrell in her subtle +touches, but the house, to the topmost tier of the gallery, will get +Miss Havisham's intention."</p> + +<p>Godolphin was standing while he said all this, and Maxwell now asked: +"Won't you sit down?"</p> + +<p>The actor had his overcoat on his arm, and his hat in one hand. He +tapped at his boot with the umbrella he held in the other. "No, I don't +believe I will, thank you. The fact is, I just dropped in a moment to +reassure you if you had misgivings about the Salome, and to give you my +point of view."</p> + +<p>Maxwell did not say anything; he looked at Louise again, and it seemed +to her that he meant her to speak. She said, "Oh, we understood that we +couldn't have all kinds of a Salome in one creation of the part; and I'm +sure no one can see Mrs. Harley in it without feeling her intensity."</p> + +<p>"She's a force," said Godolphin. "And if, as we all decided," he +continued, to Maxwell, "when we talked it over with Grayson, that a +powerful Salome would heighten the effect of Haxard, she is going to +make the success of the piece."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span></p> + +<p>"<i>You</i> are going to make the success of the piece!" cried Louise.</p> + +<p>"Ah, I sha'n't care if they forget me altogether," said the actor; "I +shall forget myself." He laughed his mellow, hollow laugh, and gave his +hand to Louise and then to Maxwell. "I'm so glad you feel as you do +about it, and I don't wish you to lose your faith in our Salome for a +moment. You've quite confirmed mine." He wrung the hands of each with a +fervor of gratitude that left them with a disquiet which their eyes +expressed to each other when he was gone.</p> + +<p>"What does it mean?" asked Louise.</p> + +<p>Maxwell shook his head. "It's beyond me."</p> + +<p>"Brice," she appealed, after a moment, "do you think I had been saying +anything to set him against her?"</p> + +<p>"No," he returned, instantly. "Why should I suspect you of anything so +base?"</p> + +<p>Her throat was full, but she made out to say, "No, you are too generous, +too good for such a thing;" and now she went on to eat humble-pie with a +self-devotion which few women could practise. "I know that if I don't +like having her I have no one but myself to thank for it. If I had never +written to that miserable Mr. Sterne, or answered his advertisement, he +would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> never have heard of your play, and nothing that has happened +would have happened."</p> + +<p>"No, you don't know that at all," said Maxwell; and it seemed to her +that she must sink to her knees under his magnanimity. "The thing might +have happened in a dozen different ways."</p> + +<p>"No matter. I am to blame for it when it did happen; and now you will +never hear another word from me. Would you like me to swear it?"</p> + +<p>"That would be rather unpleasant," said Maxwell.</p> + +<p>They both felt a great physical fatigue, and they neither had the wish +to prolong the evening after dinner. Maxwell was going to lock the door +of the apartment at nine o'clock, and then go to bed, when there came a +ring at it. He opened it, and stood confronted with Grayson, looking +very hot and excited.</p> + +<p>"Can I come in a moment?" the manager asked. "Are you alone? Can I speak +with you?"</p> + +<p>"There's no one here but Mrs. Maxwell," said her husband, and he led the +way into the parlor.</p> + +<p>"And if you don't like," Louise confessed to have overheard him, "you +needn't speak before her even."</p> + +<p>"No, no," said the manager, "don't go! We may want your wisdom. We +certainly want all the wisdom we can get on the question. It's about +Godolphin."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Godolphin?" they both echoed.</p> + +<p>"Yes. He's given up the piece."</p> + +<p>The manager drew out a letter, which he handed to Maxwell, and which +Louise read with her husband, over his shoulder. It was addressed to +Grayson, and began very formally.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap" style="margin-left: 2em;">"Dear Sir:</span></p> + +<p>"I wish to resign to you all claim I may have to a joint interest +in Mr. Maxwell's piece, and to withdraw from the company formed for +its representation. I feel that my part in it has been made +secondary to another, and I have finally decided to relinquish it +altogether. I trust that you will be able to supply my place, and I +offer you my best wishes for the success of your enterprise.</p> + +<p class='center'>"Yours very truly,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><span class="smcap">"L. Godolphin</span>.</span>"</p></div> + +<p>The Maxwells did not look at each other; they both looked at the +manager, and neither spoke.</p> + +<p>"You see," said the manager, putting the letter back in its envelope, +"it's Miss Havisham. I saw some signs of what was coming at the +rehearsals, but I didn't think it would take such peremptory shape."</p> + +<p>"Why, but he was here only a few hours ago, praising her to the skies," +said Louise; and she hoped that she was keeping secret the guilty joy +she felt; but probably it was not unknown to her husband.</p> + +<p>"Oh, of course," said Grayson, with a laugh, "that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> was Godolphin's way. +He may have felt all that he said; or he may have been trying to find +out what Mr. Maxwell thought, and whether he could count upon him in a +move against her."</p> + +<p>"We said nothing," cried Louise, and she blessed heaven that she could +truly say so, "which could possibly be distorted into that."</p> + +<p>"I didn't suppose you had," said the manager. "But now we have got to +act. We have got to do one of two things, and Godolphin knows it; we +have got to let Miss Havisham go, or we have got to let him go. For my +part I would much rather let him go. She is a finer artist every way, +and she is more important to the success of the piece. But it would be +more difficult to replace him than it would be to replace her, and he +knows it. We could get Miss Pettrell at once for Salome, and we should +have to look about for a Haxard. Still, I am disposed to drop Godolphin, +if Mr. Maxwell feels as I do."</p> + +<p>He looked at Maxwell; but Louise lowered her eyes, and would not +influence her husband by so much as a glance. It seemed to her that he +was a long time answering.</p> + +<p>"I am satisfied with Godolphin's Haxard much better than I am with Miss +Havisham's Salome, strong<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> as it is. On the artistic side alone, I +should prefer to keep Godolphin and let her go, if it could be done +justly. Then, I know that Godolphin has made sacrifices and borne losses +on account of the play, and I think that he has a right to a share in +its success, if it has a chance of succeeding. He's jealous of Miss +Havisham, of course; I could see that from the first minute; but he's +earned the first place, and I'm not surprised he wants to keep it. I +shouldn't like to lose it if I were he. I should say that we ought to +make any concession he asks in that way."</p> + +<p>"Very well," said Grayson. "He will ask to have our agreement with Mrs. +Harley broken; and we can say that we were compelled to break it. I feel +as you do, that he has some right on his side. She's a devilish +provoking woman—excuse me, Mrs. Maxwell!—and I've seen her trying to +take the centre from Godolphin ever since the rehearsals began; but I +don't like to be driven by him; still, there are worse things than being +driven. In any case we have to accept the inevitable, and it's only a +question of which inevitable we accept. Good-night. I will see Godolphin +at once. Good-night, Mrs. Maxwell. We shall expect you to do what you +can in consoling your fair neighbor and reconciling <i>her</i> to the +inevitable." Louise<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> did not know whether this was ironical or not, and +she did not at all like the laugh from Maxwell which greeted the +suggestion.</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> shall have to reconcile Sterne, and I don't believe that will be +half so easy."</p> + +<p>The manager's words were gloomy, but there was an imaginable relief in +his tone and a final cheerfulness in his manner. He left the Maxwells to +a certain embarrassment in each other's presence. Louise was the first +to break the silence that weighed upon them both.</p> + +<p>"Brice, did you decide that way to please me?"</p> + +<p>"I am not such a fool," said Maxwell.</p> + +<p>"Because," she said, "if you did, you did very wrong, and I don't +believe any good could come of it."</p> + +<p>Yet she did not seem altogether averse to the risks involved; and in +fact she could not justly accuse herself of what had happened, however +devoutly she had wished for such a consummation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXV" id="XXV"></a>XXV.</h2> + + +<p>It was Miss Havisham and not Godolphin who appeared to the public as +having ended the combination their managers had formed. The interviewing +on both sides continued until the interest of the quarrel was lost in +that of the first presentation of the play, when the impression that +Miss Havisham had been ill-used was effaced by the impression made by +Miss Pettrell in the part of Salome. Her performance was not only +successful in the delicacy and refinement which her friends expected of +her, but she brought to the work a vivid yet purely feminine force which +took them by surprise and made the public her own. No one in the house +could have felt, as the Maxwells felt, a certain quality in it which it +would be extremely difficult to characterize without overstating it. +Perhaps Louise felt this more even than her husband, for when she +appealed to him, he would scarcely confess to a sense of it; but from +time to time in the stronger<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> passages she was aware of an echo, to the +ear and to the eye, of a more passionate personality than Miss +Pettrell's. Had Godolphin profited by his knowledge of Miss Havisham's +creation, and had he imparted to Miss Pettrell, who never saw it, hints +of it which she used in her own creation of the part? If he had, just +what was the measure and the nature of his sin? Louise tormented herself +with this question, while a sense of the fact went as often as it came, +and left her in a final doubt of it. What was certain was that if +Godolphin had really committed this crime, of which he might have been +quite unconsciously guilty, Miss Pettrell was wholly innocent of it; +and, indeed, the effect she made might very well have been imagined by +herself, and only have borne this teasing resemblance by pure accident. +Godolphin was justly punished if he were culpable, and he suffered an +eclipse in any case which could not have been greater from Miss +Havisham. There were recalls for the chief actors at every fall of the +curtain, and at the end of the third act, in which Godolphin had really +been magnificent, there began to be cries of "Author! Author!" and a +messenger appeared in the box where the Maxwells sat and begged the +author, in Godolphin's name, to come behind at once. The next thing that +Louise knew the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> actor was leading her husband on the stage and they +were both bowing to the house, which shouted at them and had them back +once and twice and still shouted, but now with a certain confusion of +voices in its demand, which continued till the author came on a fourth +time, led by the actor as before, and himself leading the heroine of his +piece. Then the storm of applause left no doubt that the will of the +house had been rightly interpreted.</p> + +<p>Louise sat still, with the tears blurring the sight before her. They +were not only proud and happy tears, but they were tears of humble +gratitude that it was Miss Pettrell, and not Mrs. Harley, whom her +husband was leading on to share his triumph. She did not think her own +desert was great; but she could not tax herself with any wrong that she +had not at least tried to repair; she felt that what she had escaped she +could not have suffered, and that Heaven was merciful to her weakness, +if not just to her merit. Perhaps this was why she was so humble and so +grateful.</p> + +<p>There arose in her a vague fear as to what Godolphin might do in the +case of a Salome who was certainly no more subordinated to his Haxard +than Miss Havisham's, or what new demands he might not make<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> upon the +author; but Maxwell came back to her with a message from the actor, +which he wished conveyed with his congratulations upon the success of +the piece. This was to tell her of his engagement to Miss Pettrell, +which had suddenly taken place that day, and which he thought there +could be no moment so fit to impart to her as that of their common +triumph.</p> + +<p>Louise herself went behind at the end of the piece, and made herself +acceptable to both the artists in her cordial good wishes. Neither of +them resented the arch intention with which she said to Godolphin, "I +suppose you won't mind such a beautiful Salome as Miss Pettrell has +given us, now that it's to be all in the family."</p> + +<p>Miss Pettrell answered for him with as complete an intelligence: "Oh, I +shall know how to subdue her to his Haxard, if she ever threatens the +peace of the domestic hearth."</p> + +<p>That Salome has never done so in any serious measure Maxwell argues from +the fact that, though the Godolphins have now been playing his piece +together for a whole year since their marriage, they have not yet been +divorced.</p> + +<h4>THE END.</h4> + +<div class="bbox"><div class="blockquot"> +<h3>W. D. HOWELLS'S WORKS.</h3> + +<h4><i>IN CLOTH BINDING.</i></h4> + + +<p>AN OPEN-EYED CONSPIRACY. $1 00.</p> + +<p>THE LANDLORD AT LION'S HEAD. $1 15.</p> + +<p>STOPS OF VARIOUS QUILLS. Illustrated by <span class="smcap">Howard Pyle</span>. $2 50.</p> + +<p>IMPRESSIONS AND EXPERIENCES. $1 50.</p> + +<p>A PARTING AND A MEETING. llustrated. $1 00.</p> + +<p>THE DAY OF THEIR WEDDING. Illustrated. $1 25.</p> + +<p>MY LITERARY PASSIONS. $1 50.</p> + +<p>A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. $1 50.</p> + +<p>THE COAST OF BOHEMIA. Illustrated. $1 50.</p> + +<p>THE WORLD OF CHANCE. $1 50.</p> + +<p>THE QUALITY OF MERCY. $1 50.</p> + +<p>AN IMPERATIVE DUTY. $1 00.</p> + +<p>THE SHADOW OF A DREAM. $1 00.</p> + +<p>ANNIE KILBURN. $1 50.</p> + +<p>APRIL HOPES. $1 50.</p> + +<p>CRITICISM AND FICTION. With Portrait. $1 00.</p> + +<p>A BOY'S TOWN. Ill'd. $1 25.</p> + +<p>A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 2 Vols., $2 00.</p> + +<p>MODERN ITALIAN POETS. With Portraits. $2 00.</p> + +<p>CHRISTMAS EVERY DAY, and Other Stories. Illustrated. $1 25.</p> + +<p>THE MOUSE-TRAP, and Other Farces. Illustrated. $1 00.</p> + +<p>MY YEAR IN A LOG-CABIN. Illustrated. 50 cents.</p> + +<p>A LITTLE SWISS SOJOURN. Illustrated. 50 cents.</p> + +<p>FARCES: Five o'Clock Tea.—The Mouse-Trap.—A Likely Story.—The +Unexpected Guests.—Evening Dress.—A Letter of Introduction.—The +Albany Depot.—The Garroters. Ill'd. 50 cents each.</p></div></div> + +<p class='center'>NEW YORK AND LONDON: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS.<br /> +Copyright, 1898, by <span class="smcap">W. D. Howells</span>.<br /> +<i>Electrotyped by J. A. Howells & Co., Jefferson, Ohio.</i></p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Story of a Play, by W. D. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + +</pre> + +</body> +</html> diff --git a/20225-h/images/img001.jpg b/20225-h/images/img001.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..db923ff --- /dev/null +++ b/20225-h/images/img001.jpg diff --git a/20225.txt b/20225.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a242274 --- /dev/null +++ b/20225.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7478 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Story of a Play, by W. D. Howells + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Story of a Play + A Novel + +Author: W. D. Howells + +Release Date: December 30, 2006 [EBook #20225] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF A PLAY *** + + + + +Produced by David Edwards, Janet Blenkinship and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + + + + + THE STORY OF A PLAY + + A Novel + + + BY + + W. D. HOWELLS + + AUTHOR OF "THE LANDLORD AT LION'S HEAD" "AN OPEN-EYED CONSPIRACY" ETC. + + + [Illustration] + + NEW YORK AND LONDON + + HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS + + 1898 + + W. D. HOWELLS'S WORKS. + + _IN CLOTH BINDING._ + + Copyright, 1898, BY W. D. HOWELLS. + + _Electrotyped by J. A. Howells & Co., Jefferson, Ohio._ + + + + +THE STORY OF A PLAY. + + + + +I. + + +The young actor who thought he saw his part in Maxwell's play had so far +made his way upward on the Pacific Coast that he felt justified in +taking the road with a combination of his own. He met the author at a +dinner of the Papyrus Club in Boston, where they were introduced with a +facile flourish of praise from the journalist who brought them together, +as the very men who were looking for each other, and who ought to be +able to give the American public a real American drama. The actor, who +believed he had an ideal of this drama, professed an immediate interest +in the kind of thing Maxwell told him he was trying to do, and asked him +to come the next day, if he did not mind its being Sunday, and talk the +play over with him. + +He was at breakfast when Maxwell came, at about the hour people were +getting home from church, and he asked the author to join him. But +Maxwell had already breakfasted, and he hid his impatience of the +actor's politeness as well as he could, and began at the first moment +possible: "The idea of my play is biblical; we're still a very biblical +people." He had thought of the fact in seeing so many worshippers +swarming out of the churches. + +"That is true," said the actor. + +"It's the old idea of the wages of sin. I should like to call it that." + +"The name has been used, hasn't it?" + +"I shouldn't mind; for I want to get a new effect from the old notion, +and it would be all the stronger from familiar association with the +name. I want to show that the wages of sin is more sinning, which is the +very body of death." + +"Well?" + +"Well, I take a successful man at the acme of his success, and study him +in a succession of scenes that bring out the fact of his prosperity in a +way to strike the imagination of the audience, even the groundlings; +and, of course, I have to deal with success of the most appreciable +sort--a material success that is gross and palpable. I have to use a +large canvas, as big as Shakespeare's, in fact, and I put in a great +many figures." + +"That's right," said the actor. "You want to keep the stage full, with +people coming and going." + +"There's a lot of coming and going, and a lot of incidents, to keep the +spectator interested, and on the lookout for what's to happen next. The +whole of the first act is working up to something that I've wanted to +see put on the stage for a good while, or ever since I've thought of +writing for the stage, and that is a large dinner, one of the public +kind." + +"Capital!" said the actor. + +"I've seen a good deal of that sort of thing as a reporter; you know +they put us at a table off to one side, and we see the whole thing, a +great deal better than the diners themselves do. It's a banquet, given +by a certain number of my man's friends, in honor of his fiftieth +birthday, and you see the men gathering in the hotel parlor--well, you +can imagine it in almost any hotel--and Haxard is in the foreground. +Haxard is the hero's name, you know." + +"It's a good name," the actor mused aloud. "It has a strong sound." + +"Do you like it? Well, Haxard," Maxwell continued, "is there in the +foreground, from the first moment the curtain rises, receiving his +friends, and shaking hands right and left, and joking and laughing with +everybody--a very small joke makes a very large laugh on occasions like +that, and I shall try to give some notion of the comparative size of the +joke and the laugh--and receiving congratulations, that give a notion of +what the dinner is for, and the kind of man he is, and how universally +respected and all that, till everybody has come; and then the doors +between the parlor and the dining-room are rolled back, and every man +goes out with his own wife, or his sister, or his cousin, or his aunt, +if he hasn't got a wife; I saw them do that once, at a big commercial +dinner I reported." + +"Ah, I was afraid it was to be exclusively a man's dinner!" the actor +interrupted. + +"Oh, no," Maxwell answered, with a shade of vexation. "That wouldn't do. +You couldn't have a scene, or, at least, not a whole act, without women. +Of course I understand that. Even if you could keep the attention of the +audience without them, through the importance of the intrigue, still you +would have to have them for the sake of the stage-picture. The drama is +literature that makes a double appeal; it appeals to the sense as well +as the intellect, and the stage is half the time merely a picture-frame. +I had to think that out pretty early." + +The actor nodded. "You couldn't too soon." + +"It wouldn't do to have nothing but a crowd of black coats and white +shirt-fronts on the stage through a whole act. You want color, and a lot +of it, and you can only get it, in our day, with the women's costumes. +Besides, they give movement and life. After the dinner begins they're +supposed to sparkle all through. I've imagined the table set down the +depth of the stage, with Haxard and the nominal host at the head, +fronting the audience, and the people talking back and forth on each +side, and I let the ladies do most of the talking, of course. I mean to +have the dinner served through all the courses, and the waiters coming +and going; the events will have to be hurried, and the eating merely +sketched, at times; but I should keep the thing in pretty perfect form, +till it came to the speaking. I shall have to cut that a good deal, but +I think I can give a pretty fair notion of how they butter the object of +their hospitality on such occasions; I've seen it and heard it done +often enough. I think, perhaps, I shall have the dinner an act by +itself. There are only four acts in the play now, and I'll have to make +five. I want to give Haxard's speech as fully as possible, for that's +what I study the man in, and make my confidences to the audience about +him. I shall make him butter himself, but all with the utmost humility, +and brag of everything that he disclaims the merit of." + +The actor rose and reached across the table for the sugar. "That's a +capital notion. That's new. That would make a hit--the speech would." + +"Do you think so?" returned the author. "_I_ thought so. I believe that +in the hands of a good actor the speech could be made tremendously +telling. I wouldn't have a word to give away his character, his nature, +except the words of his own mouth, but I would have them do it so +effectually that when he gets through the audience will be fairly 'onto +him,' don't you know." + +"Magnificent!" said the actor, pouring himself some more cocoa. + +Maxwell continued: "In the third act--for I see that I shall have to +make it the third now--the scene will be in Haxard's library, after he +gets home from the complimentary dinner, at midnight, and he finds a man +waiting for him there--a man that the butler tells him has called +several times, and was so anxious to see him that Mrs. Haxard has given +orders to let him wait. Oh, I ought to go back a little, and explain--" + +"Yes, do!" The actor stirred his cocoa with mounting interest. "Yes, +don't leave anything out." + +"I merely meant to say that in the talk in the scene, or the act, before +the dinner--I shall have two acts, but with no wait between them; just +let down the curtain and raise it again--it will come out that Haxard is +not a Bostonian by birth, but has come here since the war from the +Southwest, where he went, from Maine, to grow up with the country, and +is understood to have been a sort of quiescent Union man there; it's +thought to be rather a fine thing the way he's taken on Boston, and +shown so much local patriotism and public spirit and philanthropy, in +the way he's brought himself forward here. People don't know a great +deal about his past, but it's understood to have been very creditable. I +shall have to recast that part a little, and lengthen the delay before +he comes on, and let the guests, or the hosts--for _they're_ giving +_him_ the dinner--have time to talk about him, and free their minds in +honor of him behind his back, before they begin to his face." + +"Never bring your principal character on at once," the actor +interjected. + +"No," Maxwell consented. "I see that wouldn't have done." He went on: +"Well, as soon as Haxard turns up the light in his library, the man +rises from the lounge where he has been sitting, and Haxard sees who it +is. He sees that it is a man whom he used to be in partnership with in +Texas, where they were engaged in some very shady transactions. They get +caught in one of them--I haven't decided yet just what sort of +transaction it was, and I shall have to look that point up; I'll get +some law-student to help me--and Haxard, who wasn't Haxard then, pulls +out and leaves his partner to suffer the penalty. Haxard comes North, +and after trying it in various places, he settles here, and marries, and +starts in business and prospers on, while the other fellow takes their +joint punishment in the penitentiary. By the way, it just occurs to me! +I think I'll have it that Haxard has killed a man, a man whom he has +injured; he doesn't mean to kill him, but he has to; and this fellow is +knowing to the homicide, but has been prevented from getting onto +Haxard's trail by the consequences of his own misdemeanors; that will +probably be the best way out. Of course it all has to transpire, all +these facts, in the course of the dialogue which the two men have with +each other in Haxard's library, after a good deal of fighting away from +the inevitable identification on Haxard's part. After the first few +preliminary words with the butler at the door before he goes in to find +the other man--his name is Greenshaw--" + +"That's a good name, too," said the actor. + +"Yes, isn't it? It has a sort of probable sound, and yet it's a made-up +name. Well, I was going to say--" + +"And I'm glad you have it a homicide that Haxard is guilty of, instead +of a business crime of some sort. That sort of crime never tells with an +audience," the actor observed. + +"No," said Maxwell. "Homicide is decidedly better. It's more +melodramatic, and I don't like that, but it will be more appreciable, as +a real sin, to most of the audience; we steal and cheat so much, and we +kill comparatively so little in the North. Well, I was going to say that +I shall have this whole act to consist entirely of the passage between +the two men. I shall let it begin with a kind of shiver creeping over +the spectator, when he recognizes the relation between them, and I hope +I shall be able to make it end with a shudder, for Haxard must see from +the first moment, and he must let the audience see at last, that the +only way for him to save himself from his old crime is to commit a new +one. He must kill the man who saw him kill a man." + +"That's good," the actor thoughtfully murmured, as if tasting a pleasant +morsel to try its flavor. "Excellent." + +Maxwell laughed for pleasure, and went on: "He arranges to meet the man +again at a certain time and place, and that is the last of Greenshaw. He +leaves the house alone; and the body of an unknown man is found floating +up and down with the tide under the Long Bridge. There are no marks of +violence; he must have fallen off the bridge in the dark, and been +drowned; it could very easily happen. Well, then comes the most +difficult part of the whole thing; I have got to connect the casualty +with Haxard in the most unmistakable way, unmistakable to the audience, +that is; and I have got to have it brought home to him in a supreme +moment of his life. I don't want to have him feel remorse for it; that +isn't the modern theory of the criminal; but I do want him to be anxious +to hide his connection with it, and to escape the consequences. I don't +know but I shall try another dinner-scene, though I am afraid it would +be a risk." + +The actor said, "I don't know. It might be the very thing. The audience +likes a recurrence to a distinctive feature. It's like going back to an +effective strain in music." + +"Yes," Maxwell resumed, "slightly varied. I might have a private dinner +this time; perhaps a dinner that Haxard himself is giving. Towards the +end the talk might turn on the case of the unknown man, and the guests +might discuss it philosophically together; Haxard would combat the +notion of a murder, and even of a suicide; he would contend for an +accident, pure and simple. All the fellows would take a turn at the +theory, but the summing-up opinion I shall leave to a legal mind, +perhaps the man who had made the great complimentary speech at the +public dinner to Haxard in the first act. I should have him warm to his +work, and lay it down to Haxard in good round fashion, against his +theory of accident. He could prove to the satisfaction of everybody that +the man who was last seen with the drowned man--or was supposed to have +been seen with him--according to some very sketchy evidence at the +inquest, which never amounted to anything--was the man who pushed him +off the bridge. He could gradually work up his case, and end the +argument with a semi-jocular, semi-serious appeal to Haxard himself, +like, 'Why, suppose it was your own case,' and so forth, and so forth, +and so forth, and then suddenly stop at something he notices queer in +Haxard, who is trying to get to his feet. The rest applaud: 'That's +right! Haxard has the floor,' and so on, and then Haxard slips back into +his chair, and his head falls forward---- I don't like death-scenes on +the stage. They're usually failures. But if this was managed simply, I +think it would be effective." + +The actor left the table and began to walk about the room. "I shall want +that play. I can see my part in Haxard. I know just how I could make up +for him. And the play is so native, so American, that it will go like +wildfire." + +The author heard these words with a swelling heart. He did not speak, +for he could not. He sat still, watching the actor as he paced to and +fro, histrionically rapt in his representation of an actor who had just +taken a piece from a young dramatist. "If you can realize that part as +you've sketched it to me," he said, finally, "I will play it +exclusively, as Jefferson does Rip Van Winkle. There are immense +capabilities in the piece. Yes, sir; that thing will run for years!" + +"Of course," Maxwell found voice to say, "there is one great defect in +it, from the conventional point of view." The actor stopped and looked +at him. "There's no love-business." + +"We must have that. But you can easily bring it in." + +"By the head and shoulders, yes. But I hate love-making on the stage, +almost as much as I do dying. I never see a pair of lovers beyond the +footlights without wanting to kill them." The actor remained looking at +him over his folded arms, and Maxwell continued, with something like a +personal rancor against love-making, while he gave a little, bitter +laugh, "I might have it somehow that Haxard had killed a pair of +stage-lovers, and this was what Greenshaw had seen him do. But that +would have been justifiable homicide." + +The actor's gaze darkened into a frowning stare, as if he did not quite +make out this kind of fooling. "All the world loves a lover," he said, +tentatively. + +"I don't believe it does," said Maxwell, "except as it's stupid, and +loves anything that makes it laugh. It loves a comic lover, and in the +same way it loves a droll drunkard or an amusing madman." + +"We shall have to have some sort of love-business," the actor returned, +with an effect of leaving the right interpretation of Maxwell's peculiar +humor for some other time. "The public wants it. No play would go +without it. You can have it subordinate if you like, but you have got +to have it. How old did you say Haxard was?" + +"About fifty. Too old for a lover, unless you could make him in love +with some one else's wife, as he has one of his own already. But that +wouldn't do." + +The actor looked as if he did not know why it would not do, but he said, +"He could have a daughter." + +"Yes, and his daughter could have a lover. I had thought of something of +that kind, and of bringing in their ill-fated passion as an element of +the tragedy. We could have his disgrace break their hearts, and kill two +birds with one stone, and avenge a long-suffering race of playwrights +upon stage-lovers." + +The actor laughed like a man of small humor, mellowly, but hollowly. +"No, no! We must have the love-affair end happily. You can manage that +somehow. Have you got the play roughed out at all?" + +"Not in manuscript. I've only got it roughed out in my mind." + +"Well, I want that play. That's settled. I can't do anything with it +this winter, but I should like to open with it next fall. Do you think +you could have it ready by the end of July?" + + + + +II. + + +They sat down and began to talk times and terms. They parted with a +perfect understanding, and Maxwell was almost as much deceived as the +actor himself. He went home full of gay hopes to begin work on the play +at once, and to realize the character of Haxard with the personality of +the actor in his eye. He heard nothing from him till the following +spring, when the actor wrote with all the ardor of their parting moment, +to say that he was coming East for the summer, and meant to settle down +in the region of Boston somewhere, so that they could meet constantly +and make the play what they both wanted. He said nothing to account for +his long silence, and he seemed so little aware of it that Maxwell might +very well have taken it for a simple fidelity to the understanding +between them, too unconscious to protest itself. He answered discreetly, +and said that he expected to pass the summer on the coast somewhere, but +was not yet quite certain where he should be; that he had not forgotten +their interview, and should still be glad to let him have the play if he +fancied it. Between this time and the time when the actor appeared in +person, he sent Maxwell several short notes, and two or three telegrams, +sufficiently relevant but not very necessary, and when his engagement +ended in the West, a fortnight after Maxwell was married, he telegraphed +again and then came through without a stop from Denver, where the +combination broke up, to Manchester-by-the-Sea. He joined the little +colony of actors which summers there, and began to play tennis and golf, +and to fish and to sail, almost without a moment's delay. He was not +very fond of any of these things, and in fact he was fond only of one +thing in the world, which was the stage; but he had a theory that they +were recreation, and that if he went in for them he was building himself +up for the season, which began early in September; he had appropriate +costumes for all of them, and no one dressed the part more perfectly in +tennis or golf or sailing or fishing. He believed that he ought to read +up in the summer, too, and he had the very best of the recent books, in +fiction and criticism, and the new drama. He had all of the translations +of Ibsen, and several of Maeterlinck's plays in French; he read a good +deal in his books, and he lent them about in the hotel even more. Among +the ladies there he had the repute of a very modern intellect, and of a +person you would never take for an actor, from his tastes. What his +tastes would have been if you had taken him for an actor, they could not +have said, perhaps, but probably something vicious, and he had not a +vice. He did not smoke, and he did not so much as drink tea or coffee; +he had cocoa for breakfast, and at lunch a glass of milk, with water at +dinner. He had a tint like the rose, and when he smiled or laughed, +which was often, from a constitutional amiability and a perfect +digestion, his teeth showed white and regular, and an innocent dimple +punctured either cheek. His name was Godolphin, for he had instinctively +felt that in choosing a name he might as well take a handsome one while +he was about it, and that if he became Godolphin there was no reason why +he should not become Launcelot, too. He did not put on these splendors +from any foible, but from a professional sense of their value in the +bills; and he was not personally characterized by them. As Launcelot +Godolphin he was simpler than he would have been with a simpler name, +and it was his ideal to be modest in everything that personally belonged +to him. He studied an unprofessional walk, and a very colloquial tone +in speaking. He was of course clean-shaven, but during the summer he let +his mustache grow, though he was aware that he looked better without it. +He was tall, and he carried himself with the vigor of his perfect +health; but on the stage he looked less than his real size, like a +perfectly proportioned edifice. + +Godolphin wanted the Maxwells to come to his hotel in Manchester, but +there were several reasons for their not doing this; the one Maxwell +alleged was that they could not afford it. They had settled for the +summer, when they got home after their brief wedding journey, at a much +cheaper house in Magnolia, and the actor and the author were then only +three miles apart, which Mrs. Maxwell thought was quite near enough. "As +it is," she said, "I'm only afraid he'll be with you every moment with +his suggestions, and won't let you have any chance to work out your own +conceptions." + +Godolphin had not failed to notify the public through the press that Mr. +Brice Maxwell had severed his connection with the Boston _Abstract_, for +the purpose of devoting himself to a new play for Mr. Launcelot +Godolphin, and he thought it would have been an effective touch if it +could have been truthfully reported that Mr. Godolphin and Mr. Maxwell +might be seen almost any day swinging over the roads together in the +neighborhood of Manchester, blind and deaf to all the passing, in their +discussion of the play, which they might almost be said to be +collaborating. But failing Maxwell's consent to anything of the sort, +Godolphin did the swinging over the roads himself, so far as the roads +lay between Manchester and Magnolia. He began by coming in the forenoon, +when he broke Maxwell up fearfully, but he was retarded by a waning of +his own ideal in the matter, and finally got to arriving at that hour in +the afternoon when Maxwell could be found revising his morning's work, +or lying at his wife's feet on the rocks, and now and then irrelevantly +bringing up a knotty point in the character or action for her criticism. +For these excursions Godolphin had equipped himself with a gray corduroy +sack and knickerbockers, and a stick which he cut from the alder +thicket; he wore russet shoes of ample tread, and very thick-ribbed +stockings, which became his stalwart calves. + +Nothing could be handsomer than the whole effect he made in this +costume, and his honest face was a pleasure to look at, though its +intelligence was of a kind so wholly different from the intelligence of +Maxwell's face, that Mrs. Maxwell always had a struggle with herself +before she could allow that it was intelligence at all. He was very +polite to her; he always brought her flowers, and he opened doors, and +put down windows, and leaped to his feet for every imaginable occasion +of hers, in a way that Maxwell never did, and somehow a way that the +polite men of her world did not, either. She had to school herself to +believe him a gentleman, and she would not accept a certain vivid +cleanliness he had as at all aristocratic; she said it was too fresh, +and he ought to have carried a warning placard of "Paint." She found +that Godolphin had one great and constant merit: he believed in +Maxwell's genius as devoutly as she did herself. This did not prevent +him from coming every day with proposals for changes in the play, more +or less structural. At one time he wished the action laid in some other +country and epoch, so as to bring in more costume and give the carpenter +something to do; he feared that the severity of the _mise en scene_ +would ruin the piece. At another time he wanted lines taken out of the +speeches of the inferior characters and put into his own, to fatten the +part, as he explained. At other times he wished to have paraphrases of +passages that he had brought down the house with in other plays written +into this; or scenes transposed, so that he would make a more effective +entrance here or there. There was no end to his inventions for spoiling +the simplicity and truthfulness of Maxwell's piece, which he yet +respected for the virtues in it, and hoped the greatest things from. + +One afternoon he arrived with a scheme for a very up-to-date scene in +the last act; have it a supper instead of a dinner, and then have a +skirt-dancer introduced, as society people had been having Carmencita. +"When Haxard dies, you know," he explained, "it would be tremendously +effective to have the woman catch him in her arms, and she would be a +splendid piece of color in the picture, with Haxard's head lying in her +lap, as the curtain comes down with a run." + +At this suggestion Mrs. Maxwell was too indignant to speak; her husband +merely said, with his cold smile, "Yes; but I don't see what it would +have to do with the rest of the play." + +"You could have it," said Godolphin, "that he was married to a Mexican +during his Texas episode, and this girl was their daughter." Maxwell +still smiled, and Godolphin deferred to his wife: "But perhaps Mrs. +Maxwell would object to the skirt-dance?" + +"Oh, no," she answered, ironically, "I shouldn't mind having it, with +Carmencita in society for a precedent. But," she added, "the incident +seems so out of keeping with the action and the temperament of the play, +and everything. If I were to see such a thing on the stage, merely as an +impartial spectator, I should feel insulted." + +Godolphin flushed. "I don't see where the insult would come in. You +mightn't like it, but it would be like anything else in a play that you +were not personally concerned in." + +"No, excuse me, Mr. Godolphin. I think the audience is as much concerned +in the play as the actor or the author, and if either of these fails in +the ideal, or does a bit of clap-trap when they have wrought the +audience up in expectation of something noble, then they insult the +audience--or all the better part of it." + +"The better part of the audience never fills the house," said the actor. + +"Very well. I hope my husband will never write for the worse part." + +"And I hope I shall never play to it," Godolphin returned, and he looked +hurt at the insinuation of her words. + +"It isn't a question of all that," Maxwell interposed, with a worried +glance at his wife. "Mr. Godolphin has merely suggested something that +can be taken into the general account; we needn't decide it now. By the +way," he said to the actor, "have you thought over that point about +changing Haxard's crime, or the quality of it? I think it had better not +be an intentional murder; that would kill the audience's sympathy with +him from the start, don't you think? We had better have it what they +call a rencontre down there, where two gentlemen propose to kill each +other on sight. Greenshaw's hold on him would be that he was the only +witness of the fight, and that he could testify to a wilful murder if he +chose. Haxard's real crime must be the killing of Greenshaw." + +"Yes," said Godolphin, and he entered into the discussion of the effect +this point would have with the play. Mrs. Maxwell was too much vexed to +forgive him for making the suggestion which he had already dropped, and +she left the room for fear she should not be able to govern herself at +the sight of her husband condescending to temporize with him. She +thought that Maxwell's willingness to temporize, even when it involved +no insincerity, was a defect in his character; she had always thought +that, and it was one of the things that she meant to guard him against +with all the strength of her zeal for his better self. When Godolphin +was gone at last, she lost no time in coming back to Maxwell, where he +sat with the manuscript of his play before him, apparently lost in some +tangle of it. She told him abruptly that she did not understand how, if +he respected himself, if he respected his own genius, he could consider +such an idea as Godolphin's skirt-dance for an instant. + +"Did I consider it?" he asked. + +"You made him think so." + +"Well," returned Maxwell, and at her reproachful look he added, +"Godolphin never thought I was considering it. He has too much sense, +and he would be astonished and disgusted if I took him in earnest and +did what he wanted. A lot of actors get round him over there, and they +fill him up with all sorts of stage notions, and what he wants of me is +that I shall empty him of them and yet not put him to shame about them. +But if you keep on in that way you took with him he'll throw me over." + +"Well, let him!" cried Mrs. Maxwell. "There are twenty other actors who +would jump at the chance to get such a play." + +"Don't you believe it, my dear. Actors don't jump at plays, and +Godolphin is the one man for me. He's young, and has the friendly +regard from the public that a young artist has, and yet he isn't +identified with any part in particular, and he will throw all his force +into creating this, as he calls it." + +"I can't bear to have him use that word, Brice. _You_ created it." + +"The word doesn't matter. It's merely a technical phrase. I shouldn't +know where to turn if he gave it up." + +"Pshaw! You could go to a manager." + +"Thank you; I prefer an actor. Now, Louise, you must not be so abrupt +with Godolphin when he comes out with those things." + +"I can't help it, dearest. They are insulting to you, and insulting to +common-sense. It's a kindness to let him know how they would strike the +public. I don't pretend to be more than the average public." + +"He doesn't feel it a kindness the way you put it." + +"Then you don't like me to be sincere with him! Perhaps you don't like +me to be sincere with _you_ about your play?" + +"Be as sincere with me as you like. But this--this is a matter of +business, and I'd rather you wouldn't." + +"Rather I wouldn't say anything at all?" demanded Louise. + +"I didn't say so, and you know I didn't; but if you can't get on without +ruffling Godolphin, why, perhaps--" + +"Very well, then, I'll leave the room the next time he comes. That will +be perfectly simple; and it will be perfectly simple to do as most other +people would--not concern myself with the play in any way from this out. +I dare say you would prefer that, too, though I didn't quite expect it +to come to that before our honeymoon was out." + +"Oh, now, my dear!" + +"You know it's so. But I can do it! I might have expected it from a man +who was so perfectly self-centred and absorbed. But I was such a fool--" +Her tears came and her words stopped. + +Maxwell leaned forward with his thin face between his hands. This made +him miserable, personally, but he was not so miserable but his artistic +consciousness could take note of the situation as a very good one, and +one that might be used effectively on the stage. He analyzed it +perfectly in that unhappy moment. She was jealous of his work, which she +had tolerated only while she could share it, and if she could not share +it, while some other was suffered to do so, it would be cruel for her. +But he knew that he could not offer any open concession now without +making bad worse, and he must wait till the right time for it came. He +had so far divined her, without formulating her, that he knew she would +be humiliated by anything immediate or explicit, but would later accept +a tacit repentance from him; and he instinctively forebore. + + + + +III. + + +For the present in her resentment of his willingness to abase his genius +before Godolphin, or even to hold it in abeyance, Mrs. Maxwell would not +walk to supper with her husband in the usual way, touching his shoulder +with hers from time to time, and making herself seem a little lower in +stature by taking the downward slope of the path leading from their +cottage to the hotel. But the necessity of appearing before the people +at their table on as perfect terms with him as ever had the effect that +conduct often has on feeling, and she took his arm in going back to +their cottage, and leaned tenderly upon him. + +Their cottage was one of the farthest from the hotel, and the smallest +and quietest. In fact there was yet no one in it but themselves, and +they dwelt there in an image of home, with the sole use of the veranda +and the parlor, where Maxwell had his manuscripts spread about on the +table as if he owned the place. A chambermaid came over from the hotel +in the morning to put the cottage in order, and then they could be quite +alone there for the rest of the day. + +"Shall I light the lamp for you, Brice?" his wife asked, as they mounted +the veranda steps. + +"No," he said, "let us sit out here," and they took the arm-chairs that +stood on the porch, and swung to and fro in silence for a little while. +The sea came and went among the rocks below, marking its course in the +deepening twilight with a white rope of foam, and raving huskily to +itself, with now and then the long plunge of some heavier surge against +the bowlders, and a hoarse shout. The Portland boat swam by in the +offing, a glitter of irregular lights, and the lamps on the different +points of the Cape blinked as they revolved in their towers. "This is +the kind of thing you can get only in a novel," said Maxwell, musingly. +"You couldn't possibly give the feeling of it in a play." + +"Couldn't you give the feeling of the people looking at it?" suggested +his wife, and she put out her hand to lay it on his. + +"Yes, you could do that," he assented, with pleasure in her notion; "and +that would be better. I suppose that is what would be aimed at in a +description of the scene, which would be tiresome if it didn't give the +feeling of the spectator." + +"And Godolphin would say that if you let the carpenter have something to +do he would give the scene itself, and you could have the effect of it +at first hand." + +Maxwell laughed. "I wonder how much they believe in those contrivances +of the carpenter themselves. They have really so little to do with the +dramatic intention; but they have been multiplied so since the stage +began to make the plays that the actors are always wanting them in. I +believe the time will come when the dramatist will avoid the occasion or +the pretext for them." + +"That will be after Godolphin's time," said Mrs. Maxwell. + +"Well, I don't know," returned Maxwell. "If Godolphin should happen to +imagine doing without them he would go all lengths." + +"Or if you imagined it and let him suppose he had. He never imagines +anything of himself." + +"No, he doesn't. And yet how perfectly he grasps the notion of the thing +when it is done! It is very different from literature, acting is. And +yet literature is only the representation of life." + +"Well, acting is the representation of life at second-hand, then, and it +ought to be willing to subordinate itself. What I can't bear in +Godolphin is his setting himself up to be your artistic equal. He is no +more an artist than the canvas is that the artist paints a picture on." + +Maxwell laughed. "Don't tell him so; he won't like it." + +"I will tell him so some day, whether he likes it or not." + +"No, you mustn't; for it isn't true. He's just as much an artist in his +way as I am in mine, and, so far as the public is concerned, he has +given more proofs." + +"Oh, _his_ public!" + +"It won't do to despise any public, even the theatre-going public." +Maxwell added the last words with a faint sigh. + +"It's always second-rate," said his wife, passionately. "Third-rate, +fourth-rate! Godolphin was quite right about that. I wish you were +writing a novel, Brice, instead of a play. Then you would be really +addressing refined people." + +"It kills me to have you say that, Louise." + +"Well, I won't. But don't you see, then, that you must stand up for art +all the more unflinchingly if you intend to write plays that will +refine the theatre-going public, or create a new one? That is why I +can't endure to have you even seem to give way to Godolphin." + +"You must stand it so long as I only seem to do it. He's far more +manageable than I expected him to be. It's quite pathetic how docile he +is, how perfectly ductile! But it won't do to browbeat him when he comes +over here a little out of shape. He's a curious creature," Maxwell went +on with a relish in Godolphin, as material, which his wife suffered with +difficulty. "I wonder if he could ever be got into a play. If he could +he would like nothing better than to play himself, and he would do it to +perfection; only it would be a comic part, and Godolphin's mind is for +the serious drama." Maxwell laughed. "All his artistic instincts are in +solution, and it needs something like a chemical agent to precipitate +them, or to give them any positive character. He's like a woman!" + +"Thank you," said Mrs. Maxwell. + +"Oh, I mean all sorts of good things by that. He has the sensitiveness +of a woman." + +"Is that a good thing? Then I suppose he was so piqued by what I said +about his skirt-dance that he will renounce you." + +"Oh, I don't believe he will. I managed to smooth him up after you went +out." + +Mrs. Maxwell sighed. "Yes, you are very patient, and if you are patient, +you are good. You are better than I am." + +"I don't see the sequence exactly," said Maxwell. + +They were both silent, and she seemed to have followed his devious +thought in the same muse, for when he spoke again she did not reproach +him with an equal inconsequence. "I don't know whether I could write a +novel, and, besides, I think the drama is the supreme literary form. It +stands on its own feet. It doesn't have to be pushed along, or pulled +along, as the novel does." + +"Yes, of course, it's grand. That's the reason I can't bear to have you +do anything unworthy of it." + +"I know, Louise," he said, tenderly, and then again they did not speak +for a little while. + +He emerged from their silence, at a point apparently very remote, with a +sigh. "If I could only know just what the feelings of a murderer really +were for five minutes, I could out-Shakespeare Shakespeare in that play. +But I shall have to trust to the fall of man, and the general depravity +of human nature, I suppose. After all, there's the potentiality of every +kind of man in every man. If you've known what it is to hate, you've +known what it is to kill." + +"I felt once as if I had killed _you_," she said, and then he knew that +she was thinking of a phase of their love which had a perpetual +fascination for them both. "But I never hated you." + +"No; I did the hating," he returned, lightly. + +"Ah, don't say so, dear," she entreated, half in earnest. + +"Well, have it all to yourself, then," he said; and he rose and went +indoors, and lighted the lamp, and she saw him get out the manuscript of +his play, while she sat still, recalling the time when she had tried to +dismiss him from her thoughts upon a theory of his unworthiness. He had +not yet spoken of love to her then, but she felt as if she had refused +to listen to him, and her remorse kept his image before her in an +attitude of pathetic entreaty for at least a hearing. She knew that she +had given him reason, if she had not given him courage, to believe that +she cared for him; but he was too proud to renew the tacit approaches +from which she had so abruptly retreated, and she had to invite them +from him. + +When she began to do this with the arts so imperceptible to the +single-mindedness of a man, she was not yet sure whether she could +endure to live with him or not; she was merely sure that she could not +live without him, or, to be more specific, without his genius, which she +believed no one else appreciated as she did. She believed that she +understood his character better than any one else, and would know how to +supplement it with her own. She had no ambition herself, but she could +lend him a more telescopic vision in his, and keep his aims high, if his +self-concentration ever made him short-sighted. He would write plays +because he could not help it, but she would inspire him to write them +with the lofty sense of duty she would have felt in writing them if she +had his gifts. + +She was as happy in their engagement and as unhappy as girls usually are +during their courtship. It is the convention to regard those days as +very joyous, but probably no woman who was honest about the fact would +say that they were so from her own experience. Louise found them full of +excitement and an interest from which she relaxed at times with such a +sense of having strained forward to their end that she had a cold +reluctance from Maxwell, and though she never dreamed of giving him up +again, she sometimes wished she had never seen him. She was eager to +have it all over, and be married and out of the way, for one thing +because she knew that Maxwell could never be assimilated to her +circumstance, and she should have no rest till she was assimilated to +his. When it came to the dinners and lunches, which the Hilary kinship +and friendship made in honor of her engagement, she found that Maxwell +actually thought she could make excuse of his work to go without him, +and she had to be painfully explicit before she could persuade him that +this would not do at all. He was not timid about meeting her friends, as +he might very well have been; but, in comparison with his work, he +apparently held them of little moment, and at last he yielded to her +wishes rather than her reasons. He made no pretence of liking those +people, but he gave them no more offence than might have been expected. +Among the Hilary cousins there were several clever women, who enjoyed +the quality of Maxwell's somewhat cold, sarcastic humor, and there were +several men who recognized his ability, though none of them liked him +any better than he liked them. He had a way of regarding them all at +first as of no interest, and then, if something kindled his imagination +from them, of showing a sudden technical curiosity, which made the +ladies, at least, feel as if he were dealing with them as so much +material. They professed to think that it was only a question of time +when they should all reappear in dramatic form, unless Louise should +detect them in the manuscript before they were put upon the stage and +forbid his using them. If it were to be done before marriage they were +not sure that she would do it, or could do it, for it was plain to be +seen that she was perfectly infatuated with him. The faults they found +in him were those of manner mostly, and they perceived that these were +such as passion might forgive to his other qualities. There were some +who said that they envied her for being so much in love with him, but +these were not many; and some did not find him good-looking, or see what +could have taken her with him. + +Maxwell showed himself ignorant of the observances in every way, and if +Louise had not rather loved him the more for what he made her suffer +because of them, she must certainly have given him up at times. He had +never, to her thinking, known how to put a note properly on paper; his +letters were perfectly fascinating, but they lacked a final charm in +being often written on one side of half-sheets, and numbered in the +upper right-hand corner, like printer's copy. She had to tell him that +he must bring his mother to call upon her; and then he was so long +doing it that Louise imagined a timidity in his mother which he was too +proud to own, and made her own mother go with her to see Mrs. Maxwell in +the house which she partly let out in lodgings on a very modest street. +It really did not matter about any of those things though, and she and +Maxwell's mother got on very well after the first plunge, though the +country doctor's widow was distinctly a country person, with the narrow +social horizons of a villager whose knowledge of the city was confined +to the compass of her courageous ventures in it. + +To her own mother Louise feigned to see nothing repulsive in the +humility of these. She had been rather fastidiously worldly, she had +been even aggressively worldly, in her preference for a luxurious and +tasteful setting, and her mother now found it hard to bear her contented +acceptance of the pervading commonness of things at Mrs. Maxwell's. +Either her senses were holden by her fondness for Maxwell, or else she +was trying to hoodwink her mother by an effect of indifference; but Mrs. +Hilary herself was certainly not obtuse to that commonness. If she did +not rub it into Louise, which would have done no good, she did rub it +into Louise's father, though that could hardly have been said to do any +good either. Her report of the whole affair made him writhe, but when +she had made him writhe enough she began to admit some extenuating +circumstances. If Mrs. Maxwell was a country person, she was not +foolish. She did not chant, in a vain attempt to be genteel in her +speech; she did not expand unduly under Mrs. Hilary's graciousness, and +she did not resent it. In fact, the graciousness had been very skilfully +managed, and Mrs. Maxwell had not been allowed to feel that there was +any condescension to her. She got on with Louise very well; if Mrs. +Maxwell had any overweening pride in her son, she kept it as wholly to +herself as any overweening pride she might have had in her son's choice. + +Mrs. Hilary did not like her daughter's choice, but she had at last +reached such resignation concerning it as the friends of a hopeless +invalid may feel when the worst comes. She had tried to stop the affair +when there was some hope or some use in trying, and now she determined +to make the best of it. The worst was that Maxwell was undoubtedly of +different origin and breeding, and he would always, in society, subject +Louise to a consciousness of his difference if he did nothing more. But +when you had said this, you seemed to have said all there was to say +against him. The more the Hilarys learned about the young fellow the +more reason they had to respect him. His life, on its level, was +blameless. Every one who knew him spoke well of him, and those who knew +him best spoke enthusiastically; he had believers in his talent and in +his character. In a society so barometrical as ours, even in a city +where it was the least barometrical, the obstacles to the acceptance of +Maxwell were mainly subjective. They were formed not so much of what +people would say as of what Mrs. Hilary felt they had a right to say, +and, in view of the necessities of the case, she found herself realizing +that if they did not say anything to her it would be much as if they had +not said anything at all. She dealt with the fact before her frankly, +and in the duties which it laid upon her she began to like Maxwell +before Hilary did. Not that Hilary disliked him, but there was something +in the young fellow taking his daughter away from him, in that cool +matter-of-fact way, as if it were quite in the course of nature that he +should, instead of being abashed and overwhelmed by his good fortune, +which left Hilary with a misgiving lest he might realize it less and +less as time went on. + +Hilary had no definite ambition for her in marriage, but his vague +dreams for her were not of a young man who meant to leave off being a +newspaper writer to become a writer of plays. He instinctively wished +her to be of his own order of things; and it had pleased him when he +heard from his wife's report that Louise had seen the folly of her fancy +for the young journalist whom a series of accidents had involved with +their lives, and had decided to give him up. When the girl decided +again, more tacitly, that she could not give him up, Hilary submitted, +as he would have submitted to anything she wished. To his simple +idolatry of her she was too good for anything on earth, and if he were +to lose her, he found that after all he had no great choice in the +matter. As soon as her marriage appeared inevitable, he agreed with his +wife that their daughter must never have any unhappiness of their +making; and they let her reverse without a word the purpose of going to +spend the winter abroad which they had formed at her wish when she +renounced Maxwell. + +All this was still recent in point of time, and though marriage had +remanded it to an infinite distance apparently with the young people, it +had not yet taken away the importance or the charm of the facts and the +feelings that had seemed the whole of life before marriage. When Louise +turned from her retrospect she went in through the window that opened on +the veranda and stood beside her husband, where he sat with his +manuscript before him, frowning at it in the lamplight that made her +blink a little after the dark outside. She put her hand on his head, and +carried it down his cheek over his mouth, so that he might kiss its +palm. + +"Going to work much longer, little man?" she asked, and she kissed the +top of his head in her turn. It always amused her to find how smooth and +soft his hair was. He flung his pen away and threw himself back in his +chair. "Oh, it's that infernal love business!" he said. + +She sat down and let her hands fall on her lap. "Why, what makes it so +hard?" + +"Oh, I don't know. But it seems as if I were _fighting_ it, as the +actors say, all the way. It doesn't go of itself at all. It's forced, +from the beginning." + +"Why do you have it in, then?" + +"I have to have it in. It has to be in every picture of life, as it has +to be in every life. Godolphin is perfectly right. I talked with him +about leaving it out to-day, but I had to acknowledge that it wouldn't +do. In fact, I was the first to suggest that there must be some sort of +love business when I first talked the play over with him. But I wish +there hadn't. It makes me sick every time I touch it. The confounded +fools don't know what to do with their love." + +"They might get married with it," Louise suggested. + +"I don't believe they have sense enough to think of that," said her +husband. "The curse of their origin is on them, I suppose. I tried to +imagine them when I was only fit to imagine a man hating a woman with +all his might." + +Louise laughed out her secure delight. "If the public could only know +why your lovers were such feeble folk it would make the fortune of the +play." + +Maxwell laughed, too. "Yes, fancy Pinney getting hold of a fact like +that and working it up with all his native delicacy in the Sunday +edition of the _Events_!" + +Pinney was a reporter of Maxwell's acquaintance, who stood to Louise for +all that was most terrible in journalistic enterprise. "Don't!" she +shrieked. + +Maxwell went on. "He would have both our portraits in, and your father's +and mother's, and my mother's; and your house on Commonwealth Avenue, +and our meek mansion on Pinckney Street. He would make it a work of +art, Pinney would, and he would believe that we were all secretly +gratified with it, no matter how we pretended to writhe under it." He +laughed and laughed, and then suddenly he stopped and was very grave. + +"I know what you're thinking of now," said his wife. + +"What?" + +"Whether you couldn't use _our_ affair in the play?" + +"You're a witch! Yes, I was! I was thinking it wouldn't do." + +"Stuff! It _will_ do, and you must use it. Who would ever know it? And I +shall not care how blackly you show me up. I deserve it. If I was the +cause of your hating love so much that you failed with your lovers on +the old lines, I certainly ought to be willing to be the means of your +succeeding on lines that had never been tried before." + +"Generous girl!" He bent over--he had not to bend far--and kissed her. +Then he rose excitedly and began to walk the floor, with his hands in +his pockets, and his head dropped forward. He broke into speech: "I +could disguise it so that nobody would ever dream of it. I'll just take +a hint from ourselves. How would it do to have had the girl actually +reject him? It never came to that with us; and instead of his being a +howling outside swell that was rather condescending to her, suppose I +have him some sort of subordinate in her father's business? It doesn't +matter much what; it's easy to arrange such a detail. She could be in +love with him all the time, without even knowing it herself, or, at +least, not knowing it when he offers himself; and she could always be +vaguely hoping or expecting that he would come to time again." + +"That's what I did," said his wife, "and you hadn't offered yourself +either." + +Maxwell stopped, with an air of discomfiture and disappointment. "You +wouldn't like me to use that point, then?" + +"What a simpleton! Of course I should! I shouldn't care if all the world +knew it." + +"Ah, well, we won't give it to Pinney, anyway; but I really think it +could be done without involving our own facts. I should naturally work +farther and farther away from them when the thing got to spinning. Just +take a little color from them now and then. I might have him hating her +all the way through, or, supposing he hated her, and yet doing all sorts +of nice little things, and noble big things for her, till it came out +about her father's crime, and then--" He stopped again with a certain +air of distaste. + +"That would be rather romantic, wouldn't it?" his wife asked. + +"That was what I was thinking," he answered. "It would be confoundedly +romantic." + +"Well, I'll tell you," said Louise; "you could have them squabbling all +the way through, and doing hateful things to one another." + +"That would give it the cast of comedy." + +"Well?" + +"And that wouldn't do either." + +"Not if it led up to the pathos and prettiness of their reconciliation +in the end? Shakespeare mixes the comic and the tragic all through!" + +"Oh yes, I know that--" + +"And it would be very effective to leave the impression of their +happiness with the audience, so that they might have strength to get on +their rubbers and wraps after the tremendous ordeal of your Haxard +death-scene." + +"Godolphin wouldn't stand that. He wants the gloom of Haxard's death to +remain in unrelieved inkiness at the end. He wants the people to go +away thinking of Godolphin, and how well he did the last gasp. He +wouldn't stand any love business there. He would rather not have any in +the play." + +"Very well, if you're going to be a slave to Godolphin--" + +"I'm not going to be a slave to Godolphin, and if I can see my way to +make the right use of such a passage at the close I'll do it even if it +kills the play or Godolphin." + +"Now you're shouting," said Louise. She liked to use a bit of slang when +it was perfectly safe--as in very good company, or among those she +loved; at other times she scrupulously shunned it. + +"But I can do it somehow," Maxwell mused aloud. "Now I have the right +idea, I can make it take any shape or color I want. It's magnificent!" + +"And who thought of it?" she demanded. + +"Who? Why, _I_ thought of it myself." + +"Oh, you little wretch!" she cried, in utter fondness, and she ran at +him and drove him into a corner. "Now, say that again and I'll tickle +you." + +"No, no, no!" he laughed, and he fought away the pokes and thrusts she +was aiming at him. "We both thought of it together. It was mind +transference!" + +She dropped her hands with an instant interest in the psychological +phenomena. "Wasn't it strange? Or, no, it wasn't, either! If our lives +are so united in everything, the wonder is that we don't think more +things and say more things together. But now I want you to own, Brice, +that I was the first to speak about your using our situation!" + +"Yes, you were, and I was the first to think of it. But that's perfectly +natural. You always speak of things before you think, and I always think +of things before I speak." + +"Well, I don't care," said Louise, by no means displeased with the +formulation. "I shall always say it was perfectly miraculous. And I want +you to give me credit for letting you have the idea after you had +thought of it." + +"Yes, there's nothing mean about you, Louise, as Pinney would say. By +Jove, I'll bring Pinney in! I'll have Pinney interview Haxard concerning +Greenshaw's disappearance." + +"Very well, then, if you bring Pinney in, you will leave me out," said +Louise. "I won't be in the same play with Pinney." + +"Well, I won't bring Pinney in, then," said Maxwell. "I prefer you to +Pinney--in a play. But I have got to have in an interviewer. It will be +splendid on the stage, and I'll be the first to have him." He went and +sat down at his table. + +"You're not going to work any more to-night!" his wife protested. + +"No, just jot down a note or two, to clinch that idea of ours in the +right shape." He dashed off a few lines with pencil in his play at +several points, and then he said: "There! I guess I shall get some bones +into those two flabby idiots to-morrow. I see just how I can do it." He +looked up and met his wife's adoring eyes. + +"You're wonderful, Brice!" she said. + +"Well, don't tell me so," he returned, "or it might spoil me. Now I +wouldn't tell you how good you were, on any account." + +"Oh yes, do, dearest!" she entreated, and a mist came into her eyes. "I +don't think you praise me enough." + +"How much ought I to praise you?" + +"You ought to say that you think I'll never be a hinderance to you." + +"Let me see," he said, and he pretended to reflect. "How would it do to +say that if I ever come to anything worth while, it'll be because you +made me?" + +"Oh, Brice! But would it be true?" She dropped on her knees at his side. + +"Well, I don't know. Let's hope it would," and with these words he +laughed again and put his arms round her. Presently she felt his arm +relax, and she knew that he had ceased to think about her and was +thinking about his play again. + +She pulled away, and "Well?" she asked. + +He laughed at being found out so instantly. "That was a mighty good +thing your father said when you went to tell him of our engagement." + +"It was _very_ good. But if you think I'm going to let you use _that_ +you're very much mistaken. No, Brice! Don't you touch papa. He wouldn't +like it; he wouldn't understand it. Why, what a perfect cormorant you +are!" + +They laughed over his voracity, and he promised it should be held in +check as to the point which he had thought for a moment might be worked +so effectively into the play. + +The next morning Louise said to her husband: "I can see, Brice, that you +are full of the notion of changing that love business, and if I stay +round I shall simply bother. I'm going down to lunch with papa and +mamma, and get back here in the afternoon, just in time to madden +Godolphin with my meddling." + +She caught the first train after breakfast, and in fifteen minutes she +was at Beverly Farms. She walked over to her father's cottage, where she +found him smoking his cigar on the veranda. + +He was alone; he said her mother had gone to Boston for the day; and he +asked: "Did you walk from the station? Why didn't you come back in the +carriage? It had just been there with your mother." + +"I didn't see it. Besides, I might not have taken it if I had. As the +wife of a struggling young playwright, I should have probably thought it +unbecoming to drive. But the struggle is practically over, you'll be +happy to know." + +"What? Has he given it up?" asked her father. + +"Given it up! He's just got a new light on his love business!" + +"I thought his love business had gone pretty well with him," said +Hilary, with a lingering grudge in his humor. + +"This is another love business!" Louise exclaimed. "The love business in +the play. Brice has always been so disgusted with it that he hasn't +known what to do. But last night we thought it out together, and I've +left him this morning getting his hero and heroine to stand on their +legs without being held up. Do you want to know about it?" + +"I think I can get on without," said Hilary. + +Louise laughed joyously. "Well, you wouldn't understand what a triumph +it was if I told you. I suppose, papa, you've no idea how Philistine you +are. But you're nothing to mamma!" + +"I dare say," said Hilary, sulkily. But she looked at him with eyes +beaming with gayety, and he could see that she was happy, and he was +glad at heart. "When does Maxwell expect to have his play done?" he +relented so far as to ask. + +"Why, it's done now, and has been for a month, in one sense, and it +isn't done at all in another. He has to keep working it over, and he has +to keep fighting Godolphin's inspirations. He comes over from Manchester +with a fresh lot every afternoon." + +"I dare say Maxwell will be able to hold his own," said Hilary, but not +so much proudly as dolefully. + +She knew he was braving it out about the theatre, and that secretly he +thought it undignified, and even disreputable, to be connected with it, +or to be in such close relations with an actor as Maxwell seemed to be +with this fellow who talked of taking his play. Hilary could go back +very easily to the time in Boston when the theatres were not allowed +open on Saturday night, lest they should profane the approaching +Sabbath, and when you would no more have seen an actor in society than +an elephant. He had not yet got used to meeting them, and he always felt +his difference, though he considered himself a very liberal man, and was +fond of the theatre--from the front. + +He asked now, "What sort of chap is he, really?" meaning Godolphin, and +Louise did her best to reassure him. She told him Godolphin was young +and enthusiastic; and he had an ideal of the drama; and he believed in +Brice; and he had been two seasons with Booth and Barrett; and now he +had made his way on the Pacific Coast, and wanted a play that he could +take the road with. She parroted those phrases, which made her father's +flesh creep, and she laughed when she saw it creeping, for sympathy; her +own had crept first. + +"Well," he said, at last, "he won't expect you and Maxwell to take the +road too with it?" + +"Oh no, we shall only be with him in New York. He won't put the play on +there first; they usually try a new play in the country." + +"Oh, do they?" said Hilary, with a sense that his daughter's knowledge +of the fact was disgraceful to her. + +"Yes. Shall I tell you what they call that? Trying it on a dog!" she +shrieked, and Hilary had to laugh, too. "It's dreadful," she went on. +"Then, if it doesn't kill the dog, Godolphin will bring it to New York, +and put it on for a run--a week or a month--as long as his money holds +out. If he believes in it, he'll fight it." Her father looked at her for +explanation, and she said, with a gleeful perception of his suffering, +"He'll keep it on if he has to play to paper every night. That is, to +free tickets." + +"Oh!" said Hilary. "And are you to be there the whole time with him?" + +"Why, not necessarily. But Brice will have to be there for the +rehearsals; and if we are going to live in New York--" + +Hilary sighed. "I wish Maxwell was going on with his newspaper work; I +might be of use to him in that line, if he were looking forward to an +interest in a newspaper; but I couldn't buy him a theatre, you know." + +Louise laughed. "He wouldn't let you buy him anything, papa; Brice is +awfully proud. Now, I'll tell you, if you want to know, just how we +expect to manage in New York; Brice and I have been talking it all +over; and it's all going to be done on that thousand dollars he saved up +from his newspaper work, and we're not going to touch a cent of my money +till that is gone. Don't you call that pretty business-like?" + +"Very," said Hilary, and he listened with apparent acquiescence to the +details of a life which he divined that Maxwell had planned from his own +simple experience. He did not like the notion of it for his daughter, +but he could not help himself, and it was a consolation to see that she +was in love with it. + +She went back from it to the play itself, and told her father that now +Maxwell had got the greatest love business for it that there ever was. +She would not explain just what it was, she said, because her father +would get a wrong notion of it if she did. "But I have a great mind to +tell you something else," she said, "if you think you can behave +sensibly about it, papa. Do you suppose you can?" + +Hilary said he would try, and she went on: "It's part of the happiness +of having got hold of the right kind of love business now, and I don't +know but it unconsciously suggested it to both of us, for we both +thought of the right thing at the same time; but in the beginning you +couldn't have told it from a quarrel." Her father started, and Louise +began to laugh. "Yes, we had quite a little tiff, just like _real_ +married people, about my satirizing one of Godolphin's inspirations to +his face, and wounding his feelings. Brice is so cautious and so +gingerly with him; and he was vexed with me, and told me he wished I +wouldn't do it; and that vexed me, and I said I wouldn't have anything +to do with his play after this; and I didn't speak to him again till +after supper. I said he was self-centred, and he _is_. He's always +thinking about his play and its chances; and I suppose I would rather +have had him think more about me now and then. But I've discovered a way +now, and I believe it will serve the same purpose. I'm going to enter so +fully into his work that I shall be part of it; and when he is thinking +of that he will be thinking of me without knowing it. Now, you wouldn't +say there was anything in that to cry about, would you? and yet you see +I'm at it!" and with this she suddenly dropped her face on her father's +shoulder. + +Hilary groaned in his despair of being able to imagine an injury +sufficiently atrocious to inflict on Maxwell for having brought this +grief upon his girl. At the sound of his groan, as if she perfectly +interpreted his meaning in it, she broke from a sob into a laugh. "Will +you never," she said, dashing away the tears, "learn to let me cry, +simply because I am a goose, papa, and a goose must weep without reason, +because she feels like it? I won't have you thinking that I am not the +happiest person in the world; and I was, even when I was suffering so +because I had to punish Brice for telling me I had done wrong. And if +you think I'm not, I will never tell you anything more, for I see you +can't be trusted. Will you?" + +He said no to her rather complicated question, and he was glad to +believe that she was really as happy as she declared, for if he could +not have believed it, he would have had to fume away an intolerable deal +of exasperation. This always made him very hot and uncomfortable, and he +shrank from it, but he would have done it if it had been necessary. As +it was, he got back to his newspaper again with a sufficiently light +heart, when Louise gave him a final kiss, and went indoors and put +herself in authority for the day, and ordered what she liked for +luncheon. The maids were delighted to have her, and she had a welcome +from them all, which was full of worship for her as a bride whose +honeymoon was not yet over. + +She went away before her mother got home, and she made her father own, +before she left him, that he had never had such a lovely day since he +could remember. He wanted to drive over to Magnolia with her; but she +accused him of wanting to go so that he could spy round a little, and +satisfy himself of the misery of her married life; and then he would not +insist. + + + + +IV. + + +Louise kept wondering, the whole way back, how Maxwell had managed the +recasting of the love-business, and she wished she had stayed with him, +so that he could have appealed to her at any moment on the points that +must have come up all the time. She ought to have coached him more fully +about it, and told him the woman's side of such a situation, as he never +could have imagined how many advances a woman can make with a man in +such an affair and the man never find it out. She had not made any +advances herself when she wished to get him back, but she had wanted to +make them; and she knew he would not have noticed it if she had done the +boldest sort of things to encourage him, to let him know that she liked +him; he was so simple, in his straightforward egotism, beside her +sinuous unselfishness. + +She began to think how she was always contriving little sacrifices to +his vanity, his modesty, and he was always accepting them with a serene +ignorance of the fact that they were offered; and at this she strayed +off on a little by-way in her revery, and thought how it was his mind, +always, that charmed her; it was no ignoble fondness she felt; no poor, +grovelling pleasure in his good looks, though she had always seen that +in a refined sort he had a great deal of manly beauty. But she had held +her soul aloof from all that, and could truly say that what she adored +in him was the beauty of his talent, which he seemed no more conscious +of than of his dreamy eyes, the scornful sweetness of his mouth, the +purity of his forehead, his sensitive nostrils, his pretty, ineffective +little chin. She had studied her own looks with reference to his, and +was glad to own them in no wise comparable, though she knew she was more +graceful, and she could not help seeing that she was a little taller; +she kept this fact from herself as much as possible. Her features were +not regular, like his, but she could perceive that they had charm in +their irregularity; she could only wonder whether he thought that line +going under her chin, and suggesting a future double chin in the little +fold it made, was so very ugly. He seemed never to have thought of her +looks, and if he cared for her, it was for some other reason, just as +she cared for him. She did not know what the reason could be, but +perhaps it was her sympathy, her appreciation, her cheerfulness; Louise +believed that she had at least these small merits. + +The thought of them brought her back to the play again, and to the +love-business, and she wondered how she could have failed to tell him, +when they were talking about what should bring the lovers together, +after their prefatory quarrel, that simply willing it would do it. She +knew that after she began to wish Maxwell back, she was in such a frenzy +that she believed her volition brought him back; and now she really +believed that you could hypnotize fate in some such way, and that your +longings would fulfil themselves if they were intense enough. If he +could not use that idea in this play, then he ought to use it in some +other, something psychological, symbolistic, Maeterlinckish. + +She was full of it when she dismounted from the barge at the hotel and +hurried over to their cottage, and she was intolerably disappointed when +she did not find him at work in the parlor. + +"Brice! Brice!" she shouted, in the security of having the whole cottage +to herself. She got no answer, and ran up to their room, overhead. He +was not there, either, and now it seemed but too probable that he had +profited by her absence to go out for a walk alone, after his writing, +and fallen from the rocks, and been killed--he was so absent-minded. She +offered a vow to Heaven that if he were restored to her she would never +leave him again, even for a half-day, as long as either of them lived. +In reward for this she saw him coming from the direction of the beach, +where nothing worse could have befallen him than a chill from the water, +if the wind was off shore and he had been taking a bath. + +She had not put off her hat yet, and she went out to meet him; she could +not kiss him at once, if she went to meet him, but she could wait till +she got back to the cottage, and then kiss him. It would be a trial to +wait, but it would be a trial to wait for him to come in, and he might +stroll off somewhere else, unless she went to him. As they approached +each other she studied his face for some sign of satisfaction with his +morning's work. It lighted up at sight of her, but there remained an +inner dark in it to her eye. + +"What is the matter?" she asked, as she put her hand through his arm, +and hung forward upon it so that she could look up into his face. "How +did you get on with the love-business?" + +"Oh, I think I've got that all right," he answered, with a certain +reservation. "I've merely blocked it out, of course." + +"So that you can show it to Godolphin?" + +"I guess so." + +"I see that you're not sure of it. We must go over it before he comes. +He hasn't been here yet?" + +"Not yet." + +"Why are you so quiet, Brice? Is anything the matter? You look tired." + +"I'm not particularly tired." + +"Then you are worried. What is it?" + +"Oh, you would have to know, sooner or later." He took a letter from his +pocket and gave it to her. "It came just after I had finished my +morning's work." + +She pulled it out of the envelope and read: + + + "MANCHESTER-BY-THE-SEA, Friday. + +"DEAR SIR: I beg leave to relinquish any claim that you may +feel I have established to the play you have in hand. As it now stands, +I do not see my part in it, and I can imagine why you should be +reluctant to make further changes in it, in order to meet my +requirements. + +"If I can be of any service to you in placing the piece, I shall be glad +to have you make use of me. + + "Yours truly, + "LAUNCELOT GODOLPHIN." + + +"You blame _me_!" she said, after a blinding moment, in which the letter +darkened before her eyes, and she tottered in her walk. She gave it back +to him as she spoke. + +"What a passion you have for blaming!" he answered, coldly. "If I fixed +the blame on you it wouldn't help." + +"No," Louise meekly assented, and they walked along towards their +cottage. They hardly spoke again before they reached it and went in. +Then she asked, "Did you expect anything like this from the way he +parted with you yesterday?" + +Maxwell gave a bitter laugh. "From the way we parted yesterday I was +expecting him early this afternoon, with the world in the palm of his +hand, to lay it at my feet. He all but fell upon my neck when he left +me. I suppose his not actually doing it was an actor's intimation that +we were to see each other no more." + +"I wish you had nothing to do with actors!" said Louise. + +"_They_ appear to have nothing to do with me," said Maxwell. "It comes +to the same thing." + +They reached the cottage, and sat down in the little parlor where she +had left him so hopefully at work in the morning, where they had talked +his play over so jubilantly the night before. + +"What are you going to do?" she asked, after an abysmal interval. + +"Nothing. What is there to do?" + +"You have a right to an explanation; you ought to demand it." + +"I don't need any explanation. The case is perfectly clear. Godolphin +doesn't want my play. That is all." + +"Oh, Brice!" she lamented. "I am so dreadfully sorry, and I know it was +my fault. Why don't you let me write to him, and explain--" + +Maxwell shook his head. "He doesn't want any explanation. He doesn't +want the play, even. We must make up our minds to that, and let him go. +Now we can try it with your managers." + +Louise felt keenly the unkindness of his calling them her managers, but +she was glad to have him unkind to her; deep within her Unitarianism she +had the Puritan joy in suffering for a sin; her treatment of +Godolphin's suggestion of a skirt-dance, while very righteous in itself, +was a sin against her husband's interest, and she would rather he were +unkind to her than not. The sooner she was punished for it and done with +it, the better; in her unscientific conception of life, the consequences +of a sin ended with its punishment. If Maxwell had upbraided her with +the bitterness she merited, it would have been to her as if it were all +right again with Godolphin. His failure to do so left the injury +unrepaired, and she would have to do something. "I suppose you don't +care to let me see what you've written to-day?" + +"No, not now," said Maxwell, in a tone that said, "I haven't the heart +for it." + +They sat awhile without speaking, and then she ventured, "Brice, I have +an idea, but I don't know what you will think of it. Why not take +Godolphin's letter on the face of it, and say that you are very sorry he +must give up the play, and that you will be greatly obliged to him if he +can suggest some other actor? That would be frank, at least." + +Maxwell broke into a laugh that had some joy in it. "Do you think so? It +isn't my idea of frankness exactly." + +"No, of course not. You always say what you mean, and you don't change. +That is what is so beautiful in you. You can't understand a nature that +is one thing to-day and another thing to-morrow." + +"Oh, I think I can," said Maxwell, with a satirical glance. + +"Brice!" she softly murmured; and then she said, "Well, I don't care. He +_is_ just like a woman." + +"You didn't like my saying so last night." + +"That was a different thing. At any rate, it's I that say so now, and I +want you to write that to him. It will bring him back flying. Will you?" + +"I'll think about it," said Maxwell; "I'm not sure that I want Godolphin +back, or not at once. It's a great relief to be rid of him, in a certain +way, though a manager might be worse slavery. Still, I think I would +like to try a manager. I have never shown this play to one, and I know +the Odeon people in Boston, and, perhaps--" + +"You are saying that to comfort me." + +"I wouldn't comfort you for worlds, my dear. I am saying this to +distress you. But since I have worked that love-business over, it seems +to me much less a one-part play, and if I could get a manager to take a +fancy to it I could have my own way with it much better; at least, he +wouldn't want me to take all the good things out of the other +characters' mouths and stuff them into Haxard's." + +"Do you really think so?" + +"I really thought so before I got Godolphin's letter. That made him seem +the one and only man for me." + +"Yes," Louise assented, with a sad intelligence. + +Maxwell seemed to have got some strength from confronting his calamity. +At any rate, he said, almost cheerfully, "I'll read you what I wrote +this morning," and she had to let him, though she felt that it was +taking her at a moment when her wish to console him was so great that +she would not be able to criticise him. But she found that he had done +it so well there was no need of criticism. + +"You are wonderful, Brice!" she said, in a transport of adoration, which +she indulged as simply his due. "You are miraculous! Well, this is the +greatest triumph yet, even of _your_ genius. How you have seized the +whole idea! And so subtly, so delicately! And so completely disguised! +The girl acts just as a girl _would_ have acted. How could you know it?" + +"Perhaps I've seen it," he suggested, demurely. + +"No, no, you _didn't_ see it! That is the amusing part of it. You were +as blind as a bat all the time, and you never had the least suspicion; +you've told me so." + +"Well, then, I've seen it retrospectively." + +"Perhaps that way. But I don't believe you've seen it at all. You've +divined it; and that's where your genius is worth all the experience in +the world. The girl is twice as good as the man, and you never +experienced a girl's feelings or motives. You divined them. It's pure +inspiration. It's the prophet in you!" + +"You'll be stoning me next," said Maxwell. "I don't think the man is so +very bad, even if I didn't divine him." + +"Yes, for a poor creature of experience and knowledge, he will do very +well. But he doesn't compare with the girl." + +"I hadn't so good a model." + +She hugged him for saying that. "You pay the prettiest compliments in +the world, even if you don't pick up handkerchiefs." + +Their joy in the triumph of his art was unalloyed by the hope of +anything outside of it, of any sort of honor or profit from it, though +they could not keep the thought of these out very long. + +"Yes," she said, after one of the delicious silences that divided their +moments of exaltation. "There won't be any trouble about getting your +play taken, _now_." + +After supper they strolled down for the sunset and twilight on the +rocks. There, as the dusk deepened, she put her wrap over his shoulders +as well as her own, and pulled it together in front of them both. "I am +not going to have you taking cold, now, when you need all your health +for your work more than ever. That love-business seems to me perfect +just as it is, but I know you won't be satisfied till you have put the +very last touch on it." + +"Yes, I see all sorts of things I can do to it. Louise!" + +"Well, what?" + +"Don't you see that the love-business is the play now? I have got to +throw away all the sin-interest, all the Haxard situation, or keep them +together as they are, and write a new play altogether, with the light, +semi-comic motive of the love-business for the motive of the whole. It's +out of tone with Haxard's tragedy, and it can't be brought into keeping +with it. The sin-interest will kill the love-business, or the +love-business will kill the sin-interest. Don't you see?" + +"Why, of course! You must make this light affair now, and when it's +opened the way for you with the public you can bring out the old play," +she assented, and it instantly became the old play in both their minds; +it became almost the superannuated play. They talked it over in this new +aspect, and then they went back to the cottage, to look at the new play +as it shadowed itself forth in the sketch Maxwell had made. He read the +sketch to her again, and they saw how it could be easily expanded to +three or four acts, and made to fill the stage and the evening. + +"And it will be the most original thing that ever was!" she exulted. + +"I don't think there's been anything exactly like it before," he +allowed. + +From time to time they spoke to each other in the night, and she asked +if he were asleep, and he if she were asleep, and then they began to +talk of the play again. Towards morning they drowsed a little, but at +their time of life the loss of a night's sleep means nothing, and they +rose as glad as they had lain down. + +"I'll tell you, Brice," she said, the first thing, "you must have it +that they have been engaged, and you can call the play 'The Second +Chapter,' or something more alliterative. Don't you think that would be +a good name?" + +"It would make the fortune of any play," he answered, "let alone a play +of such merit as this." + +"Well, then, sha'n't you always say that I did something towards it?" + +"I shall say you did everything towards it. You originated the idea, and +named it, and I simply acted as your amanuensis, as it were, and wrote +it out mostly from your dictation. It shall go on the bills, 'The Second +Chapter,' a demi-semi-serious comedy by Mrs. Louise Hilary Maxwell--in +letters half a foot high--and by B. Maxwell--in very small lower case, +that can't be read without the aid of a microscope." + +"Oh, Brice! If you make him talk that way to her, it will be perfectly +killing." + +"I dare say the audience will find it so." + +They were so late at breakfast, and sat there so long talking, for +Maxwell said he did not feel like going to work quite so promptly as +usual, that it was quite ten o'clock when they came out of the +dining-room, and then they stayed awhile gossiping with people on the +piazza of the hotel before they went back to their cottage. When they +came round the corner in sight of it they saw the figure of a man pacing +back and forth on the veranda, with his head dropped forward, and +swinging a stick thoughtfully behind him. Louise pulled Maxwell +convulsively to a halt, for the man was Godolphin. + +"What do you suppose it means?" she gasped. + +"I suppose he will tell us," said Maxwell, dryly. "Don't stop and stare +at him. He has got eyes all over him, and he's clothed with +self-consciousness as with a garment, and I don't choose to let him +think that his being here is the least important or surprising." + +"No, of course not. That would be ridiculous," and she would have liked +to pause for a moment's worship of her husband's sense, which appeared +to her almost as great as his genius. But it seemed to her an +inordinately long time before they reached the cottage-gate, and +Godolphin came half-way down the walk to meet them. + +He bowed seriously to her, and then said, with dignity, to her husband, +"Mr. Maxwell, I feel that I owe you an apology--or an explanation, +rather--for the abrupt note I sent you yesterday. I wish to assure you +that I had no feeling in the matter, and that I am quite sincere in my +offer of my services." + +"Why, you're very good, Mr. Godolphin," said Maxwell. "I knew that I +could fully rely on your kind offer. Won't you come in?" He offered the +actor his hand, and they moved together towards the cottage; Louise had +at once gone before, but not so far as to be out of hearing. + +"Why, thank you, I _will_ sit down a moment. I found the walk over +rather fatiguing. It's going to be a hot day." He passed his +handkerchief across his forehead, and insisted upon placing a chair for +Mrs. Maxwell before he could be made to sit down, though she said that +she was going indoors, and would not sit. "You understand, of course, +Mr. Maxwell, that I should still like to have your play, if it could be +made what I want?" + +Maxwell would not meet his wife's eye in answering. "Oh, yes; the only +question with me is, whether I can make it what you want. That has been +the trouble all along. I know that the love-business in the play, as it +stood, was inadequate. But yesterday, just before I got your note, I had +been working it over in a perfectly new shape. I wish, if you have a +quarter of an hour to throw away, you'd let me show you what I've +written. Perhaps you can advise me." + +"Why, I shall be delighted to be of any sort of use, Mr. Maxwell," said +Godolphin, with softened state; and he threw himself back in his chair +with an air of eager readiness. + +"I will get your manuscript, Brice," said Louise, at a motion her +husband made to rise. She ran in and brought it out, and then went away +again. She wished to remain somewhere within earshot, but, upon the +whole, she decided against it, and went upstairs, where she kept herself +from eavesdropping by talking with the chambermaid, who had come over +from the hotel. + + + + +V. + + +Louise did not come down till she heard Godolphin walking away on the +plank. She said to herself that she had shipwrecked her husband once by +putting in her oar, and she was not going to do it again. When the +actor's footfalls died out in the distance she descended to the parlor, +where she found Maxwell over his manuscript at the table. + +She had to call to him, "Well?" before he seemed aware of her presence. + +Even then he did not look round, but he said, "Godolphin wants to play +Atland." + +"The lover?" + +"Yes. He thinks he sees his part in it." + +"And do you?" + +"How do I know?" + +"Well, I am glad I let him get safely away before I came back, for I +certainly couldn't have held in when he proposed that, if I had been +here. I don't understand you, Brice! Why do you have anything more to +do with him? Why do you let him touch the new play? Was he ever of the +least use with the old one?" + +Maxwell lay back in his chair with a laugh. "Not the least in the +world." The realization of the fact amused him more and more. "I was +just thinking how everything he ever got me to do to it," he looked down +at the manuscript, "was false and wrong. They talk about a knowledge of +the stage as if the stage were a difficult science, instead of a very +simple piece of mechanism whose limitations and possibilities any one +can seize at a glance. All that their knowledge of it comes to is +clap-trap, pure and simple. They brag of its resources, and tell you the +carpenter can do anything you want nowadays, but if you attempt anything +outside of their tradition they are frightened. They think that their +exits and their entrances are great matters, and that they must come on +with such a speech, and go off with such another; but it is not of the +least consequence how they come or go if they have something interesting +to say or do." + +"Why don't you say these things to Godolphin?" + +"I do, and worse. He admits their truth with a candor and an +intelligence that are dismaying. He has a perfect conception of +Atland's part, and he probably will play it in a way to set your teeth +on edge." + +"Why do you let him? Why don't you keep your play and offer it to a +manager or some actor who will know how to do it?" demanded Louise, with +sorrowful submission. + +"Godolphin will know how to do it, even if he isn't able to. And, +besides, I should be a fool to fling him away for any sort of promising +uncertainty." + +"He was willing to fling you away!" + +"Yes, but I'm not so important to him as he is to me. He's the best I +can do for the present. It's a compromise all the way through--a cursed +spite from beginning to end. Your own words don't represent your ideas, +and the more conscience you put into the work the further you get from +what you thought it would be. Then comes the actor with the infernal +chemistry of his personality. He imagines the thing perfectly, not as +you imagined it, but as you wrote it, and then he is no more able to +play it as he imagined it than you were to write it as you imagined it. +What the public finally gets is something three times removed from the +truth that was first in the dramatist's mind. But I'm very lucky to have +Godolphin back again." + +"I hope you're not going to let him see that you think so." + +"Oh, no! I'm going to keep him in a suppliant attitude throughout, and +I'm going to let you come in and tame his spirit, if he--kicks." + +"Don't be vulgar, Brice," said Louise, and she laughed rather forlornly. +"I don't see how you have the heart to joke, if you think it's so bad as +you say." + +"I haven't. I'm joking without any heart." He stood up. "Let us go and +take a bath." + +She glanced at him with a swift inventory of his fagged looks, and said, +"Indeed, you shall not take a bath this morning. You couldn't react +against it. You won't, will you?" + +"No, I'll only lie on the sand, if you can pick me out a good warm spot, +and watch you." + +"I shall not bathe, either." + +"Well, then, I'll watch the other women." He put out his hand and took +hers. + +She felt his touch very cold. "You are excited I can see. I wish--" + +"What? That I was not an intending dramatist?" + +"That you didn't have such excitements in your life. They will kill +you." + +"They are all that will keep me alive." + +They went down to the beach, and walked back and forth on its curve +several times before they dropped in the sand at a discreet distance +from several groups of hotel acquaintance. People were coming and going +from the line of bath-houses that backed upon the low sand-bank behind +them, with its tufts of coarse silvery-green grasses. The Maxwells bowed +to some of the ladies who tripped gayly past them in their airy costumes +to the surf, or came up from it sobered and shivering. Four or five +young fellows, with sun-blackened arms and legs, were passing ball near +them. A pony-carriage drove by on the wet sand; a horseman on a +crop-tailed roan thumped after it at a hard trot. Dogs ran barking +vaguely about, and children with wooden shovels screamed at their play. +Far off shimmered the sea, of one pale blue with the sky. The rooks were +black at either end of the beach; a line of sail-boats and dories swung +across its crescent beyond the bathers, who bobbed up and down in the +surf, or showed a head here and there outside of it. + +"What a singular spectacle," said Maxwell. "The casting off of the +conventional in sea-bathing always seems to me like the effect of those +dreams where we appear in society insufficiently dressed, and wonder +whether we can make it go." + +"Yes, isn't it?" His wife tried to cover all the propositions with one +loosely fitting assent. + +"I'm surprised," Maxwell went on, "that some realistic wretch hasn't put +this sort of thing on the stage. It would be tremendously effective; if +he made it realistic enough it would be attacked by the press as +improper and would fill the house. Couldn't we work a sea-bathing scene +into the 'Second Chapter'? It would make the fortune of the play, and it +would give Godolphin a chance to show his noble frame in something like +the majesty of nature. Godolphin would like nothing better. We could +have Atland rescue Salome, and Godolphin could flop round among the +canvas breakers for ten minutes, and come on for a recall with the +heroine, both dripping real water all over the stage." + +"Don't be disgusting, Brice," said his wife, absently. She had her head +half turned from him, watching a lady who had just come out of her +bath-house and was passing very near them on her way to the water. +Maxwell felt the inattention in his wife's tone and looked up. + +The bather returned their joint gaze steadily from eyes that seemed, as +Maxwell said, to smoulder under their long lashes, and to question her +effect upon them in a way that he was some time finding a phrase for. +He was tormented to make out whether she were a large person or not; +without her draperies he could not tell. But she moved with splendid +freedom, and her beauty expressed a maturity of experience beyond her +years; she looked young, and yet she looked as if she had been taking +care of herself a good while. She was certainly very handsome, Louise +owned to herself, as the lady quickened her pace, and finally ran down +to the water and plunged into a breaker that rolled in at the right +moment in uncommon volume. + +"Well?" she asked her husband, whose eyes had gone with hers. + +"We ought to have clapped." + +"Do you think she is an actress?" + +"I don't know. I never saw her before. She seemed to turn the sunshine +into lime-light as she passed. Why! that's rather pretty, isn't it? And +it's a verse. I wonder what it is about these people. The best of them +have nothing of the stage in them--at least, the men haven't. I'm not +sure, though, that the women haven't. There are lots of women off the +stage who are actresses, but they don't seem so. They're personal; this +one was impersonal. She didn't seem to regard me as a man; she regarded +me as a house. Did you feel that?" + +"Yes, that was it, I suppose. But she regarded you more than she did me, +I think." + +"Why, of course. You were only a matinee." + +They sat half an hour longer in the sand, and then he complained that +the wind blew all the warmth out of him as fast as the sun shone it into +him. She felt his hand next her and found it still cold; after a glance +round she furtively felt his forehead. + +"You're still thinking," she sighed. "Come! We must go back." + +"Yes. That girl won't be out of the water for half an hour yet; and we +couldn't wait to see her clothed and in her right mind afterwards." + +"What makes you think she's a girl?" asked his wife, as they moved +slowly off. + +He did not seem to have heard her question. He said, "I don't believe I +can make the new play go, Louise; I haven't the strength for it. There's +too much good stuff in Haxard; I can't throw away what I've done on it." + +"That is just what I was thinking, Brice! It would be too bad to lose +that. The love-business as you've remodeled it is all very well. But it +_is_ light; it's comedy; and Haxard is such splendid tragedy. I want +you to make your first impression in that. You can do comedy afterwards; +but if you did comedy first, the public would never think your tragedy +was serious." + +"Yes, there's a law in that. A clown mustn't prophesy. If a prophet +chooses to joke, now and then, all well and good. I couldn't begin now +and expand that love-business into a whole play. It must remain an +episode, and Godolphin must take it or leave it. Of course he'll want +Atland emaciated to fatten Haxard, as he calls it. But Atland doesn't +amount to much, as it is, and I don't believe I could make him; it's +essentially a passive part; Salome must make the chief effect in that +business, and I think I'll have her a little more serious, too. It'll be +more in keeping with the rest." + +"I don't see why she shouldn't be serious. There's nothing ignoble in +what she does." + +"No. It can be very impassioned." + +Louise thought of the smouldering eyes of that woman, and she wondered +if they were what suggested something very impassioned to Maxwell; but +with all the frankness between them, she did not ask him. + +On their way to the cottage they saw one of the hotel bell-boys coming +out. "Just left a telegram in there for you," he called, as he came +towards them. + +Louise began, "Oh, dear, I hope there's nothing the matter with papa! Or +your mother." + +She ran forward, and Maxwell followed at his usual pace, so that she had +time to go inside and come out with the despatch before he mounted the +veranda steps. + +"You open it!" she entreated, piteously, holding it towards him. + +He pulled it impatiently open, and glanced at the signature. "It's from +Godolphin;" and he read, "Don't destroy old play. Keep new love-business +for episode. Will come over this afternoon." Maxwell smiled. "More mind +transference." + +Louise laughed in hysterical relief. "Now you can make him do just what +you want." + + + + +VI. + + +Maxwell, now, at least, knew that he had got his play going in the right +direction again. He felt a fresh pleasure in returning to the old lines +after his excursion in the region of comedy, and he worked upon them +with fresh energy. He rehabilitated the love-business as he and his wife +had newly imagined it, and, to disguise the originals the more +effectively, he made the girl, whom he had provisionally called Salome, +more like himself than Louise in certain superficial qualities, though +in an essential nobleness and singleness, which consisted with a great +deal of feminine sinuosity and subtlety, she remained a portrait of +Louise. He was doubtful whether the mingling of characteristics would +not end in unreality, but she was sure it would not; she said he was so +much like a woman in the traits he had borrowed from himself that Salome +would be all the truer for being like him; or, at any rate, she would be +finer, and more ideal. She said that it was nonsense, the way people +regarded women as altogether different from men; she believed they were +very much alike; a girl was as much the daughter of her father as of her +mother; she alleged herself as proof of the fact that a girl was often a +great deal more her father's daughter, and she argued that if Maxwell +made Salome quite in his own spiritual image, no one would dream of +criticising her as unwomanly. Then he asked if he need only make Atland +in her spiritual image to have him the manliest sort of fellow. She said +that was not what she meant, and, in any case, a man could have feminine +traits, and be all the nicer for them, but, if a woman had masculine +traits, she would be disgusting. At the same time, if you drew a man +from a woman, he would be ridiculous. + +"Then you want me to model Atland on myself, too," said Maxwell. + +She thought a moment. "Yes, I do. If Salome is to be taken mostly from +me, I couldn't bear to have him like anybody but you. It would be +indelicate." + +"Well, now, I'll tell you what, I'm not going to stand it," said +Maxwell. "I am going to make Atland like Pinney." + +But she would not be turned from the serious aspect of the affair by +his joking. She asked, "Do you think it would intensify the situation if +he were not equal to her? If the spectator could be made to see that she +was throwing herself away on him, after all?" + +"Wouldn't that leave the spectator a little too inconsolable? You don't +want the love-business to double the tragedy, you want to have it +relieved, don't you?" + +"Yes, that is true. You must make him worth all the sacrifice. I +couldn't stand it if he wasn't." + +Maxwell frowned, as he always did when he became earnest, and said with +a little sigh, "He must be passive, negative, as I said; you must simply +feel that he is _good_, and that she will be safe with him, after the +worst has happened to her father. And I must keep the interest of the +love-business light, without letting it become farcical. I must get +charm, all I can, into her character. You won't mind my getting the +charm all from you?" + +"Oh, Brice, what sweet things you say to me! I wish everybody could know +how divine you are." + +"The women would all be making love to me, and I should hate that. One +is quite enough." + +"_Am_ I quite enough?" she entreated. + +"You have been up to the present time." + +"And do you think I shall always be?" She slid from her chair to her +knees on the floor beside him, where he sat at his desk, and put her +arms round him. + +He did not seem to know it. "Look here, Louise, I have got to connect +this love-business with the main action of the play, somehow. It won't +do simply to have it an episode. How would it do to have Atland know all +the time that Haxard has killed Greenshaw, and be keeping it from +Salome, while she is betraying her love for him?" + +"Wouldn't that be rather tawdry?" Louise let her arms slip down to her +side, and looked up at him, as she knelt. + +"Yes, it would," he owned. + +He looked very unhappy about it, and she rose to her feet, as if to give +it more serious attention. "Brice, I want your play to be thoroughly +honest and true from beginning to end, and not to have any sort of +catchpenny effectivism in it. You have planned it so nobly that I can't +bear to have you lower the standard the least bit; and I think the +honest and true way is to let the love-business be a pleasant fact in +the case, as it might very well be. Those things _do_ keep going on in +life alongside of the greatest misery, the greatest unhappiness." + +"Well," said Maxwell, "I guess you are right about the love-business. +I'll treat it frankly for what it is, a fact in the case. That will be +the right way, and that will be the strong way. It will be like life. I +don't know that you are bound to relate things strictly to each other in +art, any more than they are related in life. There are all sorts of +incidents and interests playing round every great event that seem to +have no more relation to it than the rings of Saturn have to Saturn. +They form the atmosphere of it. If I can let Haxard's wretchedness be +seen at last through the atmosphere of his daughter's happiness!" + +"Yes," she said, "that will be quite enough." She knew that they had +talked up to the moment when he could best begin to work, and now left +him to himself. + +Within a week he got the rehabilitated love-business in place, and the +play ready to show to Godolphin again. He had managed to hold the actor +off in the meantime, but now he returned in full force, with suggestions +and misgivings which had first to be cleared away before he could give a +clear mind to what Maxwell had done. Then Maxwell could see that he was +somehow disappointed, for he began to talk as if there were no +understanding between them for his taking the play. He praised it +warmly, but he said that it would be hard to find a woman to do the +part of Salome. + +"That is the principal part in the piece now, you know," he added. + +"I don't see how," Maxwell protested. "It seems to me that her character +throws Haxard's into greater relief than before, and gives it more +prominence." + +"You've made the love-business too strong, I think. I supposed you would +have something light and graceful to occupy the house in the suspense +between the points in Haxard's case. If I were to do him, I should be +afraid that people would come back from Salome to him with more or less +of an effort, I don't say they would, but that's the way it strikes me +now; perhaps some one else would look at it quite differently." + +"Then, as it is, you don't want it?" + +"I don't say that. But it seems to me that Salome is the principal +figure now. I think that's a mistake." + +"If it's a fact, it's a mistake. I don't want to have it so," said +Maxwell, and he made such effort as he could to swallow his disgust. + +Godolphin asked, after a while, "In that last scene between her and her +father, and in fact in all the scenes between them, couldn't you give +more of the strong speeches to him? She's a great creation now, but +isn't she too great for Atland?" + +"I've kept Atland under, purposely, because the part is necessarily a +negative one, and because I didn't want him to compete with Haxard at +all." + +"Yes, that is all right; but as it is, _she_ competes with Haxard." + +After Godolphin had gone, Louise came down, and found Maxwell in a +dreary muse over his manuscript. He looked up at her with a lack-lustre +eye, and said, "Godolphin is jealous of Salome now. What he really wants +is a five-act monologue that will keep him on the stage all the time. He +thinks that as it is, she will take all the attention from him." + +Louise appeared to reflect. "Well, isn't there something in that?" + +"Good heavens! I should think you were going to play Haxard, too!" + +"No; but of course you can't have two characters of equal importance in +your play. Some one has to be first, and Godolphin doesn't want an +actress taking all the honors away from him." + +"Then why did you pretend to like the way I had done it," Maxwell +demanded, angrily, "if you think she will take the honors from him?" + +"I didn't say that I did. All that I want is that you should ask +yourself whether she would or not." + +"Are _you_ jealous of her?" + +"Now, my dear, if you are going to be unreasonable, I will not talk with +you." + +Nothing maddened Maxwell so much as to have his wife take this tone with +him, when he had followed her up through the sinuosities that always +began with her after a certain point. Short of that she was as frank and +candid as a man, and he understood her, but beyond that the eternal +womanly began, and he could make nothing of her. She evaded, and came +and went, and returned upon her course, and all with as good a +conscience, apparently, as if she were meeting him fairly and squarely +on the question they started with. Sometimes he doubted if she really +knew that she was behaving insincerely, or whether, if she knew it, she +could help doing it. He believed her to be a more truthful nature than +himself, and it was insufferable for her to be less so, and then accuse +him of illogicality. + +"I have no wish to talk," he said, smothering his rage, and taking up a +page of manuscript. + +"Of course," she went on, as if there had been no break in their good +feeling, "I know what a goose Godolphin is, and I don't wonder you're +vexed with him, but you know very well that I have nothing but the good +of the play in view as a work of art, and I should say that if you +couldn't keep Salome from rivalling Haxard in the interest of the +spectator, you had better go back to the idea of making two plays of it. +I think that the 'Second Chapter' would be a very good thing to begin +with." + +"Why, good heavens! you said just the contrary when we decided to drop +it." + +"Yes, but that was when I thought you would be able to subdue Salome." + +"There never was any question of subduing Salome; it was a question of +subduing Atland!" + +"It's the same thing; keeping the love-business in the background." + +"I give it up!" Maxwell flung down his manuscript in sign of doing so. +"The whole thing is a mess, and you seem to delight in tormenting me +about it. How am I to give the love-business charm, and yet keep it in +the background?" + +"I should think you could." + +"How?" + +"Well, I was afraid you would give Salome too much prominence." + +"Didn't you know whether I had done so or not? You knew what I had done +before Godolphin came!" + +"If Godolphin thinks she is too prominent, you ought to trust his +instinct." + +Maxwell would not answer her. He went out, and she saw him strolling +down the path to the rocks. She took the manuscript and began to read it +over. + +He did not come back, and when she was ready to go to supper she had to +go down to the rocks for him. His angry fit seemed to have passed, but +he looked abjectly sad, and her heart ached at sight of him. She said, +cheerfully, "I have been reading that love-business over again, Brice, +and I don't find it so far out as I was afraid it was. Salome is a +little too _prononcee_, but you can easily mend that. She is a +delightful character, and you have given her charm--too much charm. I +don't believe there's a truer woman in the whole range of the drama. She +is perfect, and that is why I think you can afford to keep her back a +little in the passages with Haxard. Of course, Godolphin wants to shine +there. You needn't give him her speeches, but you can put them somewhere +else, in some of the scenes with Atland; it won't make any difference +how much she outshines _him_, poor fellow." + +He would not be entreated at once, but after letting her talk on to much +the same effect for awhile, he said, "I will see what can be done with +it. At present I am sick of the whole thing." + +"Yes, just drop it for the present," she said. "I'm hungry, aren't you?" + +"I didn't know it was time." + +She was very tender with him, walking up to the hotel, and all that +evening she kept him amused, so that he would not want to look at his +manuscript. She used him, as a wife is apt to use her husband when he is +fretted and not very well, as if he were her little boy, and she did +this so sweetly that Maxwell could not resent it. + +The next morning she let him go to his play again, and work all the +morning. He ended about noon, and told her he had done what she wanted +done to the love-business, he thought, but he would not show it to her, +for he said he was tired of it, and would have to go over it with +Godolphin, at any rate, when he came in the afternoon. They went to the +beach, but the person with the smouldering eyes failed to appear, and in +fact they did not see her again at Magnolia, and they decided that she +must have been passing a few days at one of the other hotels, and gone +away. + +Godolphin arrived in the sunniest good-humor, as if he had never had any +thought of relinquishing the play, and he professed himself delighted +with the changes Maxwell had made in the love-business. He said the +character of Salome had the true proportion to all the rest now; and +Maxwell understood that he would not be jealous of the actress who +played the part, or feel her a dangerous rival in the public favor. He +approved of the transposition of the speeches that Maxwell had made, or +at least he no longer openly coveted them for Haxard. + +What was more important to Maxwell was that Louise seemed finally +contented with the part, too, and said that now, no matter what +Godolphin wanted, she would never let it be touched again. "I am glad +you have got that 'impassioned' rubbish out. I never thought that was in +character with Salome." + +The artistic consciousness of Maxwell, which caught all the fine +reluctances and all the delicate feminine preferences of his wife, was +like a subtle web woven around him, and took everything, without his +willing it, from within him as well as from without, and held it +inexorably for future use. He knew the source of the impassioned rubbish +which had displeased his wife; and he had felt while he was employing it +that he was working in a commoner material than the rest of Salome's +character; but he had experimented with it in the hope that she might +not notice it. The fact that she had instantly noticed it, and had +generalized the dislike which she only betrayed at last, after she had +punished him sufficiently, remained in the meshes of the net he wore +about his mind, as something of value, which he could employ to +exquisite effect if he could once find a scheme fit for it. + +In the meantime it would be hard to say whether Godolphin continued more +a sorrow or a joy to Maxwell, who was by no means always of the same +mind about him. He told his wife sometimes, when she was pitying him, +that it was a good discipline for him to work with such a man, for it +taught him a great deal about himself, if it did not teach him much +else. He said that it tamed his overweening pride to find that there was +artistic ability employing itself with literature which was so unlike +literary ability. Godolphin conceived perfectly of the literary +intention in the fine passages of the play, and enjoyed their beauty, +but he did not value them any more than the poorest and crudest verbiage +that promised him a point. In fact, Maxwell found that in two or three +places the actor was making a wholly wrong version of his words, and +maturing in his mind an effect from his error that he was rather loath +to give up, though when he was instructed as to their true meaning, he +saw how he could get a better effect out of it. He had an excellent +intelligence, but this was employed so entirely in the study of +impression that significance was often a secondary matter with him. He +had not much humor, and Maxwell doubted if he felt it much in others, +but he told a funny story admirably, and did character-stuff, as he +called it, with the subtlest sense; he had begun in sketches of the +variety type. Sometimes Maxwell thought him very well versed in the +history and theory of the drama; but there were other times when his +ignorance seemed almost creative in that direction. He had apparently no +feeling for values; he would want a good effect used, without regard to +the havoc it made of the whole picture, though doubtless if it could +have been realized to him, he would have abhorred it as thoroughly as +Maxwell himself. He would come over from Manchester one day with a +notion for the play so bad that it almost made Maxwell shed tears; and +the next with something so good that Maxwell marvelled at it; but +Godolphin seemed to value the one no more than the other. He was a +creature of moods the most extreme; his faith in Maxwell was as +profound as his abysmal distrust of him; and his frank and open nature +was full of suspicion. He was like a child in the simplicity of his +selfishness, as far as his art was concerned, but in all matters aside +from it he was chaotically generous. His formlessness was sometimes +almost distracting; he presented himself to the author's imagination as +mere human material, waiting to be moulded in this shape or that. From +day to day, from week to week, Maxwell lived in a superficial +uncertainty whether Godolphin had really taken his play, or would ever +produce it; yet at the bottom of his heart he confided in the promises +which the actor lavished upon him in both the written and the spoken +word. They had an agreement carefully drawn up as to all the business +between them, but he knew that Godolphin would not be held by any clause +of it that he wished to break; he did not believe that Godolphin +understood what it bound him to, either when he signed it or afterward; +but he was sure that he would do not only what was right, but what was +noble, if he could be taken at the right moment. Upon the whole, he +liked him; in a curious sort, he respected and honored him; and he +defended him against Mrs. Maxwell when she said Godolphin was wearing +her husband's life out, and that if he made the play as greatly +successful as "Hamlet," or the "Trip to Chinatown," he would not be +worth what it cost them both in time and temper. + +They lost a good deal of time and temper with the play, which was almost +a conjugal affair with them, and the struggle to keep up a show of gay +leisure before the summering world up and down the coast told upon Mrs. +Maxwell's nerves. She did not mind the people in the hotel so much; they +were very nice, but she did not know many of them, and she could not +care for them as she did for her friends who came up from Beverly Farms +and over from Manchester. She hated to call Maxwell from his work at +such times, not only because she pitied him, but because he came to help +her receive her friends with such an air of gloomy absence and open +reluctance; and she had hated still worse to say he was busy with his +play, the play he was writing for Mr. Godolphin. Her friends were +apparently unable to imagine anyone writing a play so seriously, and +they were unable to imagine Mr. Godolphin at all, for they had never +heard of him; the splendor of his unknown name took them more than +anything else. As for getting Maxwell to return their visits with her, +when men had come with the ladies who called upon her, she could only +manage it if he was so fagged with working at his play that he was too +weak to resist her will, and even then he had to be torn from it almost +by main force. He behaved so badly in the discharge of some of these +duties to society, and was, to her eye at least, so bored and worried by +them that she found it hard to forgive him, and made him suffer for it +on the way home till she relented at the sight of his thin face, the +face that she loved, that she had thought the world well lost for. After +the third or fourth time she made him go with her she gave it up and +went alone, though she was aware that it might look as if they were not +on good terms. She only obliged him after that to go with her to her +father's, where she would not allow any shadow of suspicion to fall upon +their happiness, and where his absent-mindedness would be accounted for. +Her mother seemed to understand it better than her father, who, she +could see, sometimes inwardly resented it as neglect. She also exacted +of Maxwell that he should not sit silent through a whole meal at the +hotel, and that, if he did not or could not talk, he should keep looking +at her, and smiling and nodding, now and then. If he would remember to +do this she would do all the talking herself. Sometimes he did not +remember, and then she trod on his foot in vain. + +The droll side of the case often presented itself for her relief, and, +after all, she knew beforehand that this was the manner of man she was +marrying, and she was glad to marry him. She was happier than she had +ever dreamed of being. She was one of those women who live so largely in +their sympathies that if these were employed she had no thought of +herself, and not to have any thought of one's self is to be blessed. +Maxwell had no thought of anything but his work, and that made his +bliss; if she could have no thought but of him in his work, she could +feel herself in Heaven with him. + + + + +VII. + + +July and August went by, and it was time for Godolphin to take the road +again. By this time Maxwell's play was in as perfect form as it could be +until it was tried upon the stage and then overhauled for repairs. +Godolphin had decided to try it first in Toronto, where he was going to +open, and then to give it in the West as often as he could. If it did as +well as he expected he would bring it on for a run in New York about the +middle of December. He would want Maxwell at the rehearsals there, but +for the present he said he preferred to stage-manage it himself; they +had talked it up so fully that he had all the author's intentions in +mind. + +He came over from Manchester the day before his vacation ended to take +leave of the Maxwells. He was in great spirits with the play, but he +confessed to a misgiving in regard to the lady whom he had secured for +the part of Salome. He said there was only one woman he ever saw fit to +do that part, but when he named the actress the Maxwells had to say +they had never heard of her before. "She is a Southerner. She is very +well known in the West," Godolphin said. + +Louise asked if she had ever played in Boston, and when he said she had +not, Louise said "Oh!" + +Maxwell trembled, but Godolphin seemed to find nothing latent in his +wife's offensive tone, and after a little further talk they all parted +on the friendliest terms. The Maxwells did not hear from him for a +fortnight, though he was to have tried the play in Toronto at least a +week earlier. Then there came a telegram from Midland: + + "_Tried play here last night. Went like wildfire. + Will write._ + GODOLPHIN. + +The message meant success, and the Maxwells walked the air. The +production of the piece was mentioned in the Associated Press despatches +to the Boston papers, and though Mrs. Maxwell studied these in vain for +some verbal corroboration of Godolphin's jubilant message, she did not +lose faith in it, nor allow her husband to do so. In fact, while they +waited for Godolphin's promised letter, they made use of their leisure +to count the chickens which had begun to hatch. The actor had agreed to +pay the author at the rate of five dollars an act for each performance +of the play, and as it was five acts long a simple feat of arithmetic +showed that the nightly gain from it would be twenty-five dollars, and +that if it ran every night and two afternoons, for matinees, the weekly +return from it would be two hundred dollars. Besides this, Godolphin had +once said, in a moment of high content with the piece, that if it went +as he expected it to go he would pay Maxwell over and above this +twenty-five dollars a performance five per cent. of the net receipts +whenever these passed one thousand dollars. His promise had not been put +in writing, and Maxwell had said at the time that he should be satisfied +with his five dollars an act, but he had told his wife of it, and they +had both agreed that Godolphin would keep it. They now took it into the +account in summing up their gains, and Mrs. Maxwell thought it +reasonable to figure at least twenty-five dollars more from it for each +time the play was given; but as this brought the weekly sum up to four +hundred dollars, she so far yielded to her husband as to scale the total +at three hundred dollars, though she said it was absurd to put it at any +such figure. She refused, at any rate, to estimate their earnings from +the season at less than fifteen thousand dollars. It was useless for +Maxwell to urge that Godolphin had other pieces in his repertory, +things that had made his reputation, and that he would naturally want to +give sometimes. She asked him whether Godolphin himself had not +voluntarily said that if the piece went as he expected he would play +nothing else as long as he lived, like Jefferson with Rip Van Winkle; +and here, she said, it had already, by his own showing, gone at once +like wildfire. When Maxwell pleaded that they did not know what wildfire +meant she declared that it meant an overwhelming house and unbridled +rapture in the audience; it meant an instant and lasting triumph for the +play. She began to praise Godolphin, or, at least, to own herself +mistaken in some of her decrials of him. She could not be kept from +bubbling over to two or three ladies at the hotel, where it was quickly +known what an immense success the first performance of Maxwell's play +had been. He was put to shame by several asking him when they were to +have it in Boston, but his wife had no embarrassment in answering that +it would probably be kept the whole winter in New York, and not come to +Boston till some time in the early spring. + +She was resolved, now, that he should drive over to Beverly Farms with +her, and tell her father and mother about the success of the play. She +had instantly telegraphed them on getting Godolphin's despatch, and she +began to call out to her father as soon as she got inside the house, and +saw him coming down the stairs in the hall, "_Now_, what do you say, +papa? Isn't it glorious? Didn't I tell you it would be the greatest +success? Did you ever hear anything like it? Where's mamma? If she +shouldn't be at home, I don't know what I shall do!" + +"She's here," said her father, arriving at the foot of the stairs, where +Louise embraced him, and then let him shake hands with her husband. +"She's dressing. We were just going over to see you." + +"Well, you've been pretty deliberate about it! Here it's after lunch, +and I telegraphed you at ten o'clock." She went on to bully her father +more and more, and to flourish Maxwell's triumph in his face. "We're +going to have three hundred dollars a week from it at the very least, +and fifteen thousand dollars for the season. What do you think of that? +Isn't that pretty good, for two people that had nothing in the world +yesterday? What do you say _now_, papa?" + +There were all sorts of lurking taunts, demands, reproaches, in these +words, which both the men felt, but they smiled across her, and made as +if they were superior to her simple exultation. + +"I should say you had written the play yourself, Louise," said her +father. + +"No," answered her husband, "Godolphin wrote the play; or I've no doubt +he's telling the reporters so by this time." + +Louise would not mind them. "Well, I don't care! I want papa to +acknowledge that I was right, for once. Anybody could believe in Brice's +genius, but I believed in his star, and I always knew that he would get +on, and I was all for his giving up his newspaper work, and devoting +himself to the drama; and now the way is open to him, and all he has got +to do is to keep on writing." + +"Come now, Louise," said her husband. + +"Well," her father interposed, "I'm glad of your luck, Maxwell. It isn't +in my line, exactly, but I don't believe I could be any happier, if it +were. After all, it's doing something to elevate the stage. I wish +someone would take hold of the pulpit." + +Maxwell shrugged. "I'm not strong enough for that, quite. And I can't +say that I had any conscious intention to elevate the stage with my +play." + +"But you had it unconsciously, Brice," said Louise, "and it can't help +having a good effect on life, too." + +"It will teach people to be careful how they murder people," Maxwell +assented. + +"Well, it's a great chance," said Hilary, with the will to steer a +middle course between Maxwell's modesty and Louise's overweening pride. +"There really isn't anything that people talk about more. They discuss +plays as they used to discuss sermons. If you've done a good play, +you've done a good thing." + +His wife hastened to make answer for him. "He's done a _great_ play, and +there are no ifs or ans about it." She went on to celebrate Maxwell's +achievement till he was quite out of countenance, for he knew that she +was doing it mainly to rub his greatness into her father, and he had so +much of the old grudge left that he would not suffer himself to care +whether Hilary thought him great or not. It was a relief when Mrs. +Hilary came in. Louise became less defiant in her joy then, or else the +effect of it was lost in Mrs. Hilary's assumption of an entire +expectedness in the event. Her world was indeed so remote from the world +of art that she could value success in it only as it related itself to +her family, and it seemed altogether natural to her that her daughter's +husband should take its honors. She was by no means a stupid woman; for +a woman born and married to wealth, with all the advantages that go +with it, she was uncommonly intelligent; but she could not help looking +upon aesthetic honors of any sort as in questionable taste. She would +have preferred position in a son-in-law to any distinction appreciable +to the general, but wanting that it was fit he should be distinguished +in the way he chose. In her feeling it went far to redeem the drama that +it should be related to the Hilarys by marriage, and if she had put her +feeling into words, which always oversay the feelings, they would have +been to the effect that the drama had behaved very well indeed, and +deserved praise. This is what Mrs. Hilary's instinct would have said, +but, of course, her reason would have said something quite different, +and it was her reason that spoke to Maxwell, and expressed a pleasure in +his success that was very gratifying to him. He got on with her better +than with Hilary, partly because she was a woman and he was a man, and +partly because, though she had opposed his marriage with Louise more +steadily than her husband, there had been no open offence between them. +He did not easily forgive a hurt to his pride, and Hilary, with all his +good will since, and his quick repentance at the time, had never made it +quite right with Maxwell for treating him rudely once, when he came to +him so helplessly in the line of his newspaper work. They were always +civil to each other, and they would always be what is called good +friends; they had even an air of mutual understanding, as regarded +Louise and her exuberances. Still, she was so like her father in these, +and so unlike her mother, that it is probable the understanding between +Hilary and Maxwell concerning her was only the understanding of men, and +that Maxwell was really more in sympathy with Mrs. Hilary, even about +Louise, even about the world. He might have liked it as much as she, if +he had been as much of it, and he thought so well of it as a world that +he meant to conquer one of the chief places in it. In the meantime he +would have been very willing to revenge himself upon it, to satirize it, +to hurt it, to humble it--but for his own pleasure, not the world's +good. + +Hilary wanted the young people to stay the afternoon, and have dinner, +but his wife perceived that they wished to be left alone in their +exultation, and she would not let him keep them beyond a decent moment, +or share too much in their joy. With only that telegram from Godolphin +they could not be definite about anything but their future, which +Louise, at least, beheld all rose color. Just what size or shape their +good fortune had already taken they did not know, and could not, till +they got the letter Godolphin had promised, and she was in haste to go +back to Magnolia for that, though it could not arrive before the next +morning at the earliest. She urged that he might have written before +telegraphing, or when he came from the theatre after the play was given. +She was not satisfied with the reception of her news, and she said so to +Maxwell, as soon as they started home. + +"What did you want?" he retorted, in a certain vexation. "They were as +cordial as they could be." + +"Cordial is not enough. You can't expect anything like uproar from +mamma, but she took it too much as a matter of course, and I _did_ +suppose papa would be a little more riotous." + +"If you are going to be as exacting as that with people," Maxwell +returned, "you are going to disappoint yourself frightfully; and if you +insist, you will make them hate you. People can't share your happiness +any more than they can share your misery; it's as much as they can do to +manage their own." + +"But I did think my own father and mother might have entered into it a +little more," she grieved. "Well, you are right, Brice, and I will try +to hold in after this. It wasn't for myself I cared." + +"I know," said Maxwell, so appreciatively that she felt all her loss +made up to her, and shrunk closer to him in the buggy he was driving +with a lax, absent-minded rein. "But I think a little less Fourth of +July on my account would be better." + +"Yes, you are wise, and I shall not say another word about it to +anybody; just treat it as a common every-day event." + +He laughed at what was so far from her possibilities, and began to tell +her of the scheme for still another play that had occurred to him while +they were talking with her father. She was interested in the scheme, but +more interested in the involuntary workings of his genius, and she +celebrated that till he had to beg her to stop, for she made him ashamed +of himself even in the solitude of the woodland stretches they were +passing through. Then he said, as if it were part of the same strain of +thought, "You have to lose a lot of things in writing a play. Now, for +instance, that beautiful green light there in the woods." He pointed to +a depth of the boscage where it had almost an emerald quality, it was so +vivid, so intense. "If I were writing a story about two lovers in such a +light, and how it bathed their figures and illumined their faces, I +could make the reader feel it just as I did. I could make them see it. +But if I were putting them in a play, I should have to trust the +carpenter and the scene-painter for the effect; and you know what broken +reeds they are." + +"Yes," she sighed, "and some day I hope you will write novels. But now +you've made such a success with this play that you must do some others, +and when you've got two or three going steadily you can afford to take +up a novel. It would be wicked to turn your back on the opportunity +you've won." + +He silently assented and said, "I shall be all the the better novelist +for waiting a year or two." + + + + +VIII. + + +There was no letter from Godolphin in the morning, but in the course of +the forenoon there came a newspaper addressed in his handwriting, and +later several others. They were Midland papers, and they had each, +heavily outlined in ink, a notice of the appearance of Mr. Launcelot +Godolphin in a new play written expressly for him by a young Boston +_litterateur_. Mr. Godolphin believed the author to be destined to make +his mark high in the dramatic world, he said in the course of a long +interview in the paper which came first, an evening edition preceeding +the production of the piece, and plainly meant to give the public the +right perspective. He had entered into a generous expression of his own +feelings concerning it, and had given Maxwell full credit for the lofty +conception of an American drama, modern in spirit, and broad in purpose. +He modestly reserved to himself such praise as might be due for the +hints his life-long knowledge of the stage had enabled him to offer the +dramatist. He told how they had spent the summer near each other on the +north shore of Massachusetts, and had met almost daily; and the reporter +got a picturesque bit out of their first meeting at the actor's hotel, +in Boston, the winter before, when the dramatist came to lay the scheme +of the play before Godolphin, and Godolphin made up his mind before he +had heard him half through, that he should want the piece. He had +permitted himself a personal sketch of Maxwell, which lost none of its +original advantages in the diction of the reporter, and which +represented him as young, slight in figure, with a refined and delicate +face, bearing the stamp of intellectual force; a journalist from the +time he left school, and one of the best exponents of the formative +influences of the press in the training of its votaries. From time to +time it was hard for Maxwell to make out whose words the interview was +couched in, but he acquitted Godolphin of the worst, and he certainly +did not accuse him of the flowery terms giving his patriotic reasons for +not producing the piece first in Toronto as he had meant to do. It +appeared that, upon second thoughts, he had reserved this purely +American drama for the opening night of his engagement in one of the +most distinctively American cities, after having had it in daily +rehearsal ever since the season began. + +"I should think they had Pinney out there," said Maxwell, as he and his +wife looked over the interview, with their cheeks together. + +"Not at all!" she retorted. "It isn't the least like Pinney," and he was +amazed to find that she really liked the stuff. She said that she was +glad, now, that she understood why Godolphin had not opened with the +play in Toronto, as he had promised, and she thoroughly agreed with him +that it ought first to be given on our own soil. She was dashed for a +moment when Maxwell made her reflect that they were probably the losers +of four or five hundred dollars by the delay; then she said she did not +care, that it was worth the money. She did not find the personal account +of Maxwell offensive, though she contended that it did not do him full +justice, and she cut out the interview and pasted it in a book, where +she was going to keep all the notices of his play and every printed fact +concerning it. He told her she would have to help herself out with some +of the fables, if she expected to fill her book, and she said she did +not care for that, either, and probably it was just such things as this +interview that drew attention to the play, and must have made it go +like wildfire that first night in Midland. Maxwell owned that it was but +too likely, and then he waited hungrily for further word of his play, +while she expected the next mail in cheerful faith. + +It brought them four or five morning papers, and it seemed from these +that a play might have gone like wildfire, and yet not been seen by a +very large number of people. The papers agreed in a sense of the +graceful compliment paid their city by Mr. Godolphin, who was always a +favorite there, in producing his new piece at one of their theatres, and +confiding it at once to the judgment of a cultivated audience, instead +of trying it first in a subordinate place, and bringing it on with a +factitious reputation worked up from all sorts of unknown sources. They +agreed, too, that his acting had never been better; that it had great +smoothness, and that it rose at times into passion, and was full of his +peculiar force. His company was well chosen, and his support had an even +excellence which reflected great credit upon the young star, who might +be supposed, if he had followed an unwise tradition, to be willing to +shine at the expense of his surroundings. His rendition of the role of +Haxard was magnificent in one journal, grand in another, superb in a +third, rich, full and satisfying in a fourth, subtle and conscientious +in a fifth. Beyond this, the critics ceased to be so much of one mind. +They were, by a casting vote, adverse to the leading lady, whom the +majority decided an inadequate Salome, without those great qualities +which the author had evidently meant to redeem a certain coquettish +lightness in her; the minority held that she had grasped the role with +intelligence, and expressed with artistic force a very refined intention +in it. The minority hinted that Salome was really the great part in the +piece, and that in her womanly endeavor to win back the lover whom she +had not at first prized at his true worth, while her heart was wrung by +sympathy with her unhappy father in the mystery brooding over him, she +was a far more interesting figure than the less complex Haxard; and they +intimated that Godolphin had an easier task in his portrayal. They all +touched more or less upon the conduct of the subordinate actors in their +parts, and the Maxwells, in every case, had to wade through their +opinions of the playing before they got to their opinions of the play, +which was the only vital matter concerned. + +Louise would have liked to read them, as she had read the first, with +her arm across Maxwell's shoulder, and, as it were, with the same eye +and the same mind, but Maxwell betrayed an uneasiness under the +experiment which made her ask: "Don't you _like_ to have me put my arm +round you, Brice?" + +"Yes, yes," he answered, impatiently, "I like to have you put your arm +around me on all proper occasions; but--it isn't favorable to collected +thought." + +"Why, _I_ think it is," she protested with pathos, and a burlesque of +her pathos. "I never think half so well as when I have my arm around +you. Then it seems as if I thought with your mind. I feel so judicial." + +"Perhaps I feel too emotional, under the same conditions, and think with +_your_ mind. At any rate, I can't stand it; and we can't both sit in the +same chair either. Now, you take one of the papers and go round to the +other side of the table. I want to have all my faculties for the +appreciation of this noble criticism; it's going to be full of +instruction." + +He made her laugh, and she feigned a pout in obeying him; but, +nevertheless, in her heart she felt herself postponed to the interest +that was always first in him, and always before his love. + +"And don't talk," he urged, "or keep calling out, or reading passages +ahead. I want to get all the sense there doesn't seem to be in this +thing." + +In fact the critics had found themselves confronted with a task which is +always confusing to criticism, in the necessity of valuing a work of art +so novel in material that it seems to refuse the application of +criterions. As he followed their struggles in the endeavor to judge his +work by such canons of art as were known to them, instead of taking it +frankly upon the plane of nature and of truth, where he had tried to put +it, and blaming or praising him as he had failed or succeeded in this, +he was more and more bowed down within himself before the generous +courage of Godolphin in rising to an appreciation of his intention. He +now perceived that he was a man of far more uncommon intelligence than +he had imagined him, and that in taking his play Godolphin had shown a +zeal for the drama which was not likely to find a response in criticism, +whatever its fate with the public might be. The critics frankly owned +that in spite of its defects the piece had a cordial reception from the +audience; that the principal actors were recalled again and again, and +they reported that Godolphin had spoken both for the author and himself +in acknowledging the applause, and had disclaimed all credit for their +joint success. This made Maxwell ashamed of the suspicion he had +harbored that Godolphin would give the impression of a joint +authorship, at the least. He felt that he had judged the man narrowly +and inadequately, and he decided that as soon as he heard from him, he +would write and make due reparation for the tacit wrong he had done him. + +Upon the whole he had some reason to be content with the first fortune +of his work, whatever its final fate might be. To be sure, if the +audience which received it was enthusiastic, it was confessedly small, +and it had got no more than a foothold in the public favor. It must +remain for further trial to prove it a failure or a success. His eye +wandered to the column of advertised amusements for the pleasure of +seeing the play announced there for the rest of the week. There was a +full list of the pieces for the time of Godolphin's stay; but it seemed +that neither at night nor at morning was Maxwell's play to be repeated. +The paper dropped from his hand. + +"What is the matter?" his wife asked, looking up from her own paper. +"This poor man is the greatest possible goose. He doesn't seem to know +what he is talking about, even when he praises you. But of course he has +to write merely from a first impression. Do you want to change papers?" + +Maxwell mechanically picked his up, and gave it to her. "The worst of +it is," he said, with the sardonic smile he had left over from an +unhappier time of life, "that he won't have an opportunity to revise his +first impression." + +"What do you mean?" + +He told her, but she could not believe him till she had verified the +fact by looking at the advertisements in all the papers. + +Then she asked: "What in the world _does_ he mean?" + +"Not to give it there any more, apparently. He hasn't entered upon the +perpetual performance of the piece. But if he isn't like Jefferson, +perhaps he's like Rip; he don't count this time. Well, I might have +known it! Why did I ever trust one of that race?" He began to walk up +and down the room, and to fling out, one after another, the expressions +of his scorn and his self-scorn. "They have no idea of what good faith +is, except as something that brings down the house when they register a +noble vow. But I don't blame him; I blame myself. What an ass, what an +idiot, I was! Why, _he_ could have told me not to believe in his +promises; he is a perfectly honest man, and would have done it, if I had +appealed to him. He didn't expect me to believe in them, and from the +wary way I talked, I don't suppose he thought I did. He hadn't the +measure of my folly; I hadn't, myself!" + +"Now, Brice!" his wife called out to him, severely, "I won't have you +going on in that way. When I denounced Godolphin you wouldn't listen to +me; and when I begged and besought you to give him up, you always said +he was the only man in the world for you, till I got to believing it, +and I believe it now. Why, dearest," she added, in a softer tone, "don't +you see that he probably had his programme arranged all beforehand, and +couldn't change it, just because your play happened to be a hit? I'm +sure he paid you a great compliment by giving it the first night. Now, +you must just wait till you hear from him, and you may be sure he will +have a good reason for not repeating it there." + +"Oh, Godolphin would never lack for a good reason. And I can tell you +what his reason in this case will be: that the thing was practically a +failure, and that he would have lost money if he had kept it on." + +"Is that what is worrying you? I don't believe it was a failure. I think +from all that the papers say, and the worst that they say, the piece was +a distinct success. It was a great success with nice people, you can +see that for yourself, and it will be a popular success, too; I know it +will, as soon as it gets a chance. But you may be sure that Godolphin +has some scheme about it, and that if he doesn't give it again in +Midland, it's because he wants to make people curious about it, and hold +it in reserve, or something like that. At any rate, I think you ought to +wait for his letter before you denounce him." + +Maxwell laughed again at these specious arguments, but he could not +refuse to be comforted by them, and he had really nothing to do but to +wait for Godolphin's letter. It did not come the next mail, and then his +wife and he collated his dispatch with the newspaper notices, and tried +to make up a judicial opinion from their combined testimony concerning +the fate of the play with the audience. Their scrutiny of the telegram +developed the fact that it must have been sent the night of the +performance, and while Godolphin was still warm from his recalls and +from the congratulations of his friends; it could not have reached them +so soon as it did in the morning if it had been sent to the office then; +it was not a night message, but it had probably lain in the office over +night. In this view it was not such valuable testimony to the success of +the play as it had seemed before. But a second and a third reading of +the notices made them seem friendlier than at first. The Maxwells now +perceived that they had first read them in the fever of their joy from +Godolphin's telegram, and that their tempered approval had struck cold +upon them because they were so overheated. They were really very +favorable, after all, and they witnessed to an interest in the play +which could not be ignored. Very likely the interest in it was partly +from the fact that Godolphin had given it, but apart from this it was +evident that the play had established a claim of its own. The mail, +which did not bring a letter from Godolphin, brought another copy of +that evening paper which had printed the anticipatory interview with +him, and this had a long and careful consideration of the play in its +editorial columns, apparently written by a lover of the drama, as well +as a lover of the theatre. Very little regard was paid to the +performance, but a great deal to the play, which was skilfully analyzed, +and praised and blamed in the right places. The writer did not attempt +to forecast its fate, but he said that whatever its fate with the public +might be, here, at least, was a step in the direction of the drama +dealing with facts of American life--simply, vigorously, and honestly. +It had faults of construction, but the faults were not the faults of +weakness. They were rather the effects of a young talent addressing +itself to the management of material too rich, too abundant for the +scene, and allowing itself to touch the borders of melodrama in its will +to enforce some tragic points of the intrigue. But it was not mawkish +and it was not romantic. In its highest reaches it made you think, by +its stern and unflinching fidelity to the implications, of Ibsen; but it +was not too much to say that it had a charm often wanting to that +master. It was full of the real American humor; it made its jokes, as +Americans did, in the very face of the most disastrous possibilities; +and in the love-passages it was delicious. The whole episode of the love +between Haxard's daughter, Salome, and Atland was simply the sweetest +and freshest bit of nature in the modern drama. It daringly portrayed a +woman in circumstances where it was the convention to ignore that she +ever was placed, and it lent a grace of delicate comedy to the somber +ensemble of the piece, without lowering the dignity of the action or +detracting from the sympathy the spectator felt for the daughter of the +homicide; it rather heightened this. + +Louise read the criticism aloud, and then she and Maxwell looked at each +other. It took their breath away; but Louise got her breath first. "Who +in the world would have dreamed that there was any one who could write +such a criticism, _out there_?" + +Maxwell took the paper, and ran the article over again. Then he said, +"If the thing did nothing more than get itself appreciated in that way, +I should feel that it had done enough. I wonder who the fellow is! Could +it be a woman?" + +There was, in fact, a feminine fineness in the touch, here and there, +that might well suggest a woman, but they finally decided against the +theory: Louise said that a woman writer would not have the honesty to +own that the part Salome played in getting back her lover was true to +life, though every woman who saw it would know that it was. She examined +the wrapper of the newspaper, and made sure that it was addressed in +Godolphin's hand, and she said that if he did not speak of the article +in his letter, Maxwell must write out to the newspaper and ask who had +done it. + +Godolphin's letter came at last, with many excuses for his delay. He +said he had expected the newspaper notices to speak for him, and he +seemed to think that they had all been altogether favorable to the play. +It was not very consoling to have him add that he now believed the piece +would have run the whole week in Midland, if he had kept it on; but he +had arranged merely to give it a trial, and Maxwell would understand +how impossible it was to vary a programme which had once been made out. +One thing was certain, however: the piece was an assured success, and a +success of the most flattering and brilliant kind, and Godolphin would +give it a permanent place in his _repertoire_. There was no talk of his +playing nothing else, and there was no talk of putting the piece on for +a run, when he opened in New York. He said he had sent Maxwell a paper +containing a criticism in the editorial columns, which would serve to +show him how great an interest the piece had excited in Midland, though +he believed the article was not written by one of the regular force, but +was contributed from the outside by a young fellow who had been +described to Godolphin as a sort of Ibsen crank. At the close, he spoke +of certain weaknesses which the piece had developed in the performance, +and casually mentioned that he would revise it at these points as he +found the time; it appeared to him that it needed overhauling, +particularly in the love episode; there was too much of that, and the +interest during an entire act centred so entirely upon Salome that, as +he had foreseen, the role of Haxard suffered. + + + + +IX. + + +The Maxwells stared at each other in dismay when they had finished this +letter, which Louise had opened, but which they had read together, she +looking over his shoulder. All interest in the authorship of the article +of the Ibsen crank, all interest in Godolphin's apparent forgetfulness +of his solemn promises to give the rest of his natural life to the +performance of the piece, was lost in amaze at the fact that he was +going to revise it to please himself, and to fashion Maxwell's careful +work over in his own ideal of the figure he should make in it to the +public. The thought of this was so petrifying that even Louise could not +at once find words for it, and they were both silent, as people +sometimes are, when a calamity has befallen them, in the hope that if +they do not speak it will turn out a miserable dream. + +"Well, Brice," she said at last, "you certainly never expected _this_!" + +"No," he answered with a ghastly laugh; "this passes my most sanguine +expectations, even of Godolphin. Good Heaven! Fancy the botch he will +make of it!" + +"You mustn't let him touch it. You must demand it back, peremptorily. +You must telegraph!" + +"What a mania you have for telegraphing," he retorted. "A special +delivery postage-stamp will serve every purpose. He isn't likely to do +the piece again for a week, at the earliest." He thought for awhile, and +then he said: "In a week he'll have a chance to change his mind so +often, that perhaps he won't revise and overhaul it, after all." + +"But he mustn't think that you would suffer it for an instant," his wife +insisted. "It's an indignity that you should not submit to; it's an +outrage!" + +"Very likely," Maxwell admitted, and he began to walk the floor, with +his head fallen, and his fingers clutched together behind him. The sight +of his mute anguish wrought upon his wife and goaded her to more and +more utterance. + +"It's an insult to your genius, Brice, dear, and you must resent it. I +am sure I have been as humble about the whole affair as any one could +be, and I should be the last person to wish you to do anything rash. I +bore with Godolphin's suggestions, and I let him worry you to death with +his plans for spoiling your play, but I certainly didn't dream of +anything so high-handed as his undertaking to work it over himself, or I +should have insisted on your breaking with him long ago. How patient you +have been through it all! You've shown so much forbearance, and so much +wisdom, and so much delicacy in dealing with his preposterous ideas, and +then, to have it all thrown away! It's too bad!" + +Maxwell kept walking hack and forth, and Louise began again at a new +point. + +"I was willing to have it remain simply a _succes d'estime_, as far as +Midland was concerned, though I think you were treated abominably in +that, for he certainly gave you reason to suppose that he would do it +every night there. He says himself that it would have run the whole +week; and you can see from that article how it was growing in public +favor all the time. What has become of his promise to play nothing else, +I should like to know? And he's only played it once, and now he proposes +to revise it himself!" + +Still Maxwell walked on and she continued: + +"I don't know what I shall say to my family. They can never understand +such a thing, never! Papa couldn't conceive of giving a promise and not +keeping it, much less giving a promise just for the _pleasure_ of +breaking it. What shall I tell them, Brice? I can't bear to say that +Godolphin is going to make your play over, unless I can say at the same +time that you've absolutely forbidden him to do so. That's why I wanted +you to telegraph. I wanted to say you had telegraphed." + +Maxwell stopped in his walk and gazed at her, but she could feel that he +did not see her, and she said: + +"I don't know that it's actually necessary for me to say anything at +present. I can show them the notices, or that article alone. It's worth +all the rest put together, and then we can wait, and see if we hear +anything more from Godolphin. But now I don't want you to lose any more +time. You must write to him at once, and absolutely forbid him to touch +your play. Will you?" + +Her husband returned from his wanderings of mind and body, and as he +dropped upon the lounge at her side, he said, gently, "No, I don't think +I'll write at all, Louise." + +"Not write at all! Then you're going to let him tamper with that +beautiful work of yours?" + +"I'm going to wait till I hear from him again. Godolphin is a good +fellow--" + +"Oh!" + +"And he won't be guilty of doing me injustice. Besides," and here +Maxwell broke off with a laugh that had some gayety in it, "he couldn't. +Godolphin is a fine actor, and he's going to be a great one, but his +gifts are not in the line of literature." + +"I should think not!" + +"He couldn't change the piece any more than if he couldn't read or +write. And if he could, when it came to touching it, I don't believe he +would, because the fact would remind him that it wasn't fair. He has to +realize things in the objective way before he can realize them at all. +That's the stage. If they can have an operator climbing a real +telegraph-pole to tap the wire and telegraph the girl he loves that he +is dead, so that she can marry his rich rival and go to Europe and +cultivate her gift for sculpture, they feel that they have got real +life." + +Louise would not be amused, or laugh with her husband at this. "Then +what in the world does Godolphin mean?" she demanded. + +"Why, being interpreted out of actor's parlance, he means that he wishes +he could talk the play over with me again and be persuaded that he is +wrong about it." + +"I must say," Louise remarked, after a moment for mastering the +philosophy of this, "that you take it very strangely, Brice." + +"I've thought it out," said Maxwell. + +"And what are you going to do?" + +"I am going to wait the turn of events. My faith in Godolphin is +unshaken--such as it is." + +"And what is going to be our attitude in regard to it?" + +"Attitude? With whom?" + +"With our friends. Suppose they ask us about the play, and how it is +getting along. And my family?" + +"I don't think it will be necessary to take any attitude. They can think +what they like. Let them wait the turn of events, too. If we can stand +it, they can." + +"No, Brice," said his wife. "That won't do. We might be silently patient +ourselves, but if we left them to believe that it was all going well, we +should be living a lie." + +"What an extraordinary idea!" + +"I've told papa and mamma--we've both told them, though I did the +talking, you can say--that the play was a splendid success, and +Godolphin was going to give it seven or eight times a week; and now if +it's a failure--" + +"It _isn't_ a failure!" Maxwell retorted, as if hurt by the notion. + +"No matter! If he's only going to play it once a fortnight or so, and is +going to tinker it up to suit himself without saying by-your-leave to +you, I say we're occupying a false position, and that's what I mean by +living a lie." + +Maxwell looked at her in that bewilderment which he was beginning to +feel at the contradictions of her character. She sometimes told outright +little fibs which astonished him; society fibs she did not mind at all; +but when it came to people's erroneously inferring this or that from her +actions, she had a yearning for the explicit truth that nothing else +could appease. He, on the contrary, was indifferent to what people +thought, if he had not openly misled them. Let them think this, or let +them think that; it was altogether their affair, and he did not hold +himself responsible; but he was ill at ease with any conventional lie on +his conscience. He hated to have his wife say to people, as he sometimes +overheard her saying, that he was out, when she knew he had run +upstairs with his writing to escape them; she contended that it was no +harm, since it deceived nobody. + +Now he said, "Aren't you rather unnecessarily complex?" + +"No, I'm not. And I shall tell papa as soon as I see him just how the +case stands. Why, it would be dreadful if we let him believe it was all +going well, and perhaps tell others that it was, and we knew all the +time that it wasn't. He would hate that, and he wouldn't like us for +letting him." + +"Hadn't you better give the thing a chance to go right? There hasn't +been time yet." + +"No, dearest, I feel that since I've bragged so to papa, I ought to eat +humble-pie before him as soon as possible." + +"Yes. Why should you make me eat it, too?" + +"I can't help that; I would if I could. But, unfortunately, we are one." + +"And you seem to be the one. Suppose I should ask you not to eat +humble-pie before your father?" + +"Then, of course, I should do as you asked. But I hope you won't." + +Maxwell did not say anything, and she went on, tenderly, entreatingly, +"And I hope you'll never allow me to deceive myself about anything you +do. I should resent it a great deal more than if you had positively +deceived me. Will you promise me, if anything sad or bad happens, that +you don't want me to know because it will make me unhappy or +disagreeable, you'll tell me at once?" + +"It won't be necessary. You'll find it out." + +"No, do be serious, dearest. _I_ am _very_ serious. Will you?" + +"What is the use of asking such a thing as that? It seems to me that +I've invited you to a full share of the shame and sorrow that Godolphin +has brought upon me." + +"Yes, you have," said Louise, thoughtfully. "And you may be sure that I +appreciate it. Don't you like to have me share it?" + +"Well, I don't know. I might like to get at it first myself." + +"Ah, you didn't like my opening Godolphin's letter when it came!" + +"I shouldn't mind, now, if you would answer it." + +"I shall be only too glad to answer it, if you will let me answer it as +it deserves." + +"That needs reflection." + + + + +X. + + +The weather grew rough early in September, and all at once, all in a +moment, as it were, the pretty watering-place lost its air of summer +gayety. The sky had an inner gray in its blue; the sea looked cold. A +few hardy bathers braved it out on select days in the surf, but they +were purple and red when they ran up to the bath-houses, and they came +out wrinkled, and hurried to their hotels, where there began to be a +smell of steam-heat and a snapping of radiators in the halls. The barges +went away laden to the stations, and came back empty, except at night, +when they brought over the few and fewer husbands whose wives were +staying down simply because they hated to go up and begin the social +life of the winter. The people who had thronged the grassy-bordered +paths of the village dwindled in number; the riding and driving on the +roads was less and less; the native life showed itself more in the +sparsity of the sojourners. The sweet fern in the open fields, and the +brakes and blackberry-vines among the bowlders, were blighted with the +cold wind; even the sea-weed swaying at the foot of the rocks seemed to +feel a sharper chill than that of the brine. A storm came, and strewed +the beach with kelp, and blew over half the bath-houses; and then the +hardiest lingerer ceased to talk of staying through October. There began +to be rumors at the Maxwells' hotel that it would close before the month +was out; some ladies pressed the landlord for the truth, and he +confessed that he expected to shut the house by the 25th. This spread +dismay; but certain of the boarders said they would go to the other +hotels, which were to keep open till October. The dependent cottages had +been mostly emptied before; those who remained in them, if they did not +go away, came into the hotel. The Maxwells themselves did this at last, +for the sake of the warmth and the human companionship around the +blazing hearth-fires in the parlors. They got a room with a stove in it, +so that he could write; and there was a pensive, fleeting coziness in it +all, with the shrinking numbers in the vast dining-room grouped at two +or three tables for dinner, and then gathered in the light of the +evening lamps over the evening papers. In these conditions there came, +if not friendship, an intensification of acquaintance, such as is +imaginable of a company of cultured castaways. Ladies who were not quite +socially certain of one another in town gossiped fearlessly together; +there was whist among the men; more than once it happened that a young +girl played or sang by request, and not, as so often happens where a +hotel is full, against the general desire. It came once to a wish that +Mr. Maxwell would read something from his play; but no one had the +courage to ask him. In society he was rather severe with women, and his +wife was not sorry for that; she made herself all the more approachable +because of it. But she discouraged the hope of anything like reading +from him; she even feigned that he might not like to do it without +consulting Mr. Godolphin, and if she did not live a lie concerning the +status of his play, she did not scruple to tell one, now and then. + +That is, she would say it was going beyond their expectations, and this +was not so fabulous as it might seem, for their expectations were not so +high as they had been, and Godolphin was really playing the piece once +or twice a week. They heard no more from him by letter, for Maxwell had +decided that it would be better not to answer his missive from Midland; +but he was pretty faithful in sending the newspaper notices whenever he +played, and so they knew that he had not abandoned it. They did not know +whether he had carried out his threat of overhauling it; and Maxwell +chose to remain in ignorance of the fact till Godolphin himself should +speak again. Unless he demanded the play back he was really helpless, +and he was not ready to do that, for he hoped that when the actor +brought it on to New York he could talk with him about it, and come to +some understanding. He had not his wife's belief in the perfection of +the piece; it might very well have proved weak in places, and after his +first indignation at the notion of Godolphin's revising it, he was +willing to do what he could to meet his wishes. He did not so much care +what shape it had in these remote theatres of the West; the real test +was New York, and there it should appear only as he wished. + +It was a comfort to his wife when he took this stand, and she vowed him +to keep it; she would have made him go down on his knees and hold up his +right hand, which was her notion of the way an oath was taken in court, +but she did not think he would do it, and he might refuse to seal any +vow at all if she urged it. + +In the meanwhile she was not without other consolations. At her +insistence he wrote to the newspaper which had printed the Ibsen crank's +article on the play, and said how much pleasure it had given him, and +begged his thanks to the author. They got a very pretty letter back from +him, adding some praises of the piece which he said he had kept out of +print because he did not want to seem too gushing about it; and he +ventured some wary censures of the acting, which he said he had +preferred not to criticise openly, since the drama was far more +important to him than the theatre. He believed that Mr. Godolphin had a +perfect conception of the part of Haxard, and a thorough respect for the +piece, but his training had been altogether in the romantic school; he +was working out of it, but he was not able at once to simplify himself. +This was in fact the fault of the whole company. The girl who did Salome +had moments of charming reality, but she too suffered from her +tradition, and the rest went from bad to worse. He thought that they +would all do better as they familiarized themselves with the piece, and +he deeply regretted that Mr. Godolphin had been able to give it only +once in Midland. + +At this Mrs. Maxwell's wounds inwardly bled afresh, and she came little +short of bedewing the kind letter with her tears. She made Maxwell +answer it at once, and she would not let him deprecate the writer's +worship of him as the first American dramatist to attempt something in +the spirit of the great modern masters abroad. She contended that it +would be as false to refuse this tribute as to accept one that was not +due him, and there could be no doubt but it was fully and richly +merited. The critic wrote again in response to Maxwell, and they +exchanged three or four letters. + +What was even more to Louise was the admirable behavior of her father +when she went to eat humble-pie before him. He laughed at the notion of +Godolphin's meddling with the play, and scolded her for not taking her +husband's view of the case, which he found entirely reasonable, and the +only reasonable view of it. He argued that Godolphin simply chose to +assert in that way a claim to joint authorship, which he had all along +probably believed he had, and he approved of Maxwell's letting him have +his head in the matter, so far as the West was concerned. If he +attempted to give it with any alterations of his own in the East, there +would be time enough to stop him. Louise seized the occasion to confirm +herself in her faith that her father admired Maxwell's genius as much as +she did herself; and she tried to remember just the words he used in +praising it, so that she could repeat them to Maxwell. She also +committed to memory his declaration that the very fact of Godolphin's +playing the piece every now and then was proof positive that he would be +very reluctant to part with it, if it came to that. This seemed to her +very important, and she could hardly put up with Maxwell's sardonic +doubt of it. + +Before they left Magnolia there came a letter from Godolphin himself, +wholly different in tone from his earlier letter. He said nothing now of +overhauling the piece, which he felt was gradually making its way. He +was playing it at various one-night stands in the Northwest, preparatory +to bringing it to Chicago and putting it on for a week, and he asked if +Maxwell could not come out and see it there. He believed they were all +gradually getting down to it, and the author's presence at the +rehearsals would be invaluable. He felt more and more that they had a +fortune in it, and it only needed careful working to realize a bonanza. +He renewed his promises, in view of his success so far, to play it +exclusively if the triumph could be clinched by a week's run in such a +place as Chicago. He wrote from Grand Rapids, and asked Maxwell to reply +to him at Oshkosh. + +"Tell him you'll come, of course," said his wife. + +Maxwell shook his head. "He doesn't mean this any more than he meant to +revise the thing himself. He probably finds that he can't do that, and +wants me to do it. But if I did it he might take it off after the first +night in Chicago if the notices were unfavorable." + +"But they won't be," she argued. "I _know_ they won't." + +"I should simply break him up from the form he's got into, if I went to +the rehearsals. He must keep on doing it in his own way till he comes to +New York." + +"But think of the effect it will have in New York if you should happen +to make it go in Chicago." + +"It won't have the slightest effect. When he brings it East, it will +have to make its way just as if it had never been played anywhere +before." + +A bright thought occurred to Louise. "Then tell him that if he will +bring it on to Boston you will superintend all the rehearsals. And I +will go with you to them." + +Maxwell only laughed at this. "Boston wouldn't serve any better than +Chicago, as far as New York is concerned. We shall have to build a +success from the ground up there, if we get one. It might run a whole +winter in Boston, and then we should probably begin with half a house in +New York, or a third. The only advantage of trying it anywhere before, +is that the actors will be warm in their parts. Besides, do you suppose +Godolphin could get a theatre in Boston out of the order of his +engagement there next spring?" + +"Why not?" + +"Simply because every night at every house is taken six months +beforehand." + +"Who would ever have dreamt," said Louise, ruefully, "that simply +writing a play would involve any one in all these exasperating business +details." + +"Nobody can get free of business," Maxwell returned. + +"Then I will tell you," she brightened up to say. "Why not sell him the +piece outright, and wash your hands of it?" + +"Because he wouldn't buy it outright, and if I washed my hands of it he +could do what he pleased with it. If he couldn't tinker it up himself he +could hire some one else to do it, and that would be worse yet." + +"Well, then, the only thing for us to do is to go on to New York, and +wait there till Godolphin comes. I suppose papa and mamma would like to +have us stay through October with them in Boston, but I don't see much +sense in that, and I don't choose to have the air of living on them. I +want to present an unbroken front of independence from the beginning, as +far as inquiring friends are concerned; and in New York we shall be so +lost to sight that nobody will know how we are living. You can work at +your new play while we're waiting, and we can feel that the onset in the +battle of life has sounded." + +Maxwell laughed, as she meant him, at the mock heroics of her phrase, +and she pulled off his hat, and rubbed his hair round on his skull in +exultation at having arrived at some clear understanding. "I wouldn't +have hair like silk," she jeered. + +"And I wouldn't have hair like corn-silk," he returned. "At least not on +my own head." + +"Yes, it _is_ coarse. And it's yours quite as much as mine," she said, +thoughtfully. "We _do_ belong to each other utterly, don't we? I never +thought of it in that light before. And now our life has gone into your +work, already! I can't tell you, Brice, how sweet it is to think of that +love-business being our own! I shall be so proud of it on the stage! But +as long as we live no one but ourselves must know anything about it. Do +you suppose they will?" she asked, in sudden dismay. + +He smiled. "Should you care?" + +She reflected a moment. "No!" she shouted, boldly. "What difference?" + +"Godolphin would pay any sum for the privilege of using the fact as an +advertisement. If he could put it into Pinney's hands, and give him +_carte blanche_, to work in all the romance he liked--" + +"Brice!" she shrieked. + +"Well, we needn't give it away, and if _we_ don't, nobody else will." + +"No, and we must always keep it sacredly secret. Promise me one thing!" + +"Twenty!" + +"That you will let me hold your hand all through the first performance +of that part. Will you?" + +"Why, we shall be set up like two brazen images in a box for all the +first-nighters to stare at and the society reporters to describe. What +would society journalism say to your holding my hand throughout the +tender passages? It would be onto something personal in them in an +instant." + +"No; now I will show you how we will do." They were sitting in a nook of +the rocks, in the pallor of the late September sunshine, with their +backs against a warm bowlder. "Now give me your hand." + +"Why, you've got hold of it already." + +"Oh yes, so I have! Well, I'll just grasp it in mine firmly, and let +them both rest on your knee, so; and fling the edge of whatever I'm +wearing on my shoulders over them, or my mantle, if it's hanging on the +back of the chair, so"--she flung the edge of her shawl over their +clasped hands to illustrate--"and nobody will suspect the least thing. +Suppose the sea was the audience--a sea of faces you know; would any one +dream down there that I was squeezing your hand at all the important +moments, or you squeezing mine?" + +"I hope they wouldn't think me capable of doing anything so indelicate +as squeezing a lady's hand," said Maxwell. "I don't know what they might +think of you, though, if there was any such elaborate display of +concealment as you've got up here." + +"Oh, this is merely rehearsing. Of course, I shall be more adroit, more +careless, when I really come to it. But what I mean is that when we +first see it together, the love-business, I shall want to feel that you +are feeling every instant just as I do. Will you?" + +"I don't see any great objection to that. We shall both be feeling very +anxious about the play, if that's what you mean." + +"That's what I mean in one sense," Louise allowed. "Sha'n't you be very +anxious to see how they have imagined Salome and Atland?" + +"Not so anxious as about how Godolphin has 'created' Haxard." + +"I care nothing about that. But if the woman who does _me_ is vulgar, or +underbred, or the least bit coarse, and doesn't keep the character just +as sweet and delicate as you imagined it, I don't know what I shall do +to her." + +"Nothing violent, I hope," Maxwell suggested languidly. + +"I am not so sure," said Louise. "It's a dreadfully intimate affair with +me, and if I didn't like it I should hiss, anyway." + +Maxwell laughed long and loud. "What a delightful thing that would be +for society journalism. 'At one point the wife of the author was +apparently unable to control her emotions, and she was heard to express +her disapprobation by a prolonged sibilation. All eyes were turned upon +the box where she sat with her husband, their hands clasped under the +edge of her mantle.' No, you mustn't hiss, my dear; but if you find +Salome getting too much for you you can throw a dynamite bomb at the +young woman who is doing her. I dare say we shall want to blow up the +whole theatre before the play is over." + +"Oh, I don't believe we shall. I know the piece will go splendidly if +the love-business is well done. But you can understand, can't you, just +how I feel about Salome?" + +"I think I can, and I am perfectly sure that you will be bitterly +disappointed in her, no matter how she's done, unless you do her +yourself." + +"I wish I could!" + +"Then the other people might be disappointed." + + + + +XI. + + +The Maxwells went to New York early in October, and took a little +furnished flat for the winter on the West Side, between two streets +among the Eighties. It was in a new apartment-house, rather fine on the +outside, and its balconies leaned caressingly towards the tracks of the +Elevated Road, whose trains steamed back and forth under them night and +day. At first they thought it rather noisy, but their young nerves were +strong, and they soon ceased to take note of the uproar, even when the +windows were open. + +The weather was charming, as the weather of the New York October is apt +to be. The month proved much milder than September had been at Magnolia. +They were not very far from Central Park, and they went for whole +afternoons into it. They came to have such a sense of ownership in one +of the seats in the Ramble, that they felt aggrieved when they found +anybody had taken it, and they resented other people's intimacy with +the squirrels, which Louise always took a pocketful of nuts to feed; the +squirrels got a habit of climbing into her lap for them. Sometimes +Maxwell hired a boat and rowed her lazily about on the lake, while he +mused and she talked. Sometimes, to be very lavish, they took places in +the public carriage which plied on the drives of the Park, and went up +to the tennis-grounds beyond the reservoirs, and watched the players, or +the art-students sketching the autumn scenery there. They began to know, +without acquaintance, certain attached or semi-attached couples; and no +doubt they passed with these for lovers themselves, though they felt a +vast superiority to them in virtue of their married experience; they +looked upon them, though the people were sometimes their elders, as very +young things, who were in the right way, but were as yet deplorably +ignorant how happy they were going to be. They almost always walked back +from these drives, and it was not so far but they could walk over to the +North River for the sunset before their dinner, which they had late when +they did that, and earlier when they did not do it. Dinner was rather a +matter of caprice with them. Sometimes they dined at a French or Italian +_table d'hote_; sometimes they foraged for it before they came in from +their sunset, or their afternoon in the park. When dinner consisted +mainly of a steak or chops, with one of the delicious salads their +avenue abounded in, and some improvisation of potatoes, and coffee +afterward, it was very easy to get it up in half an hour. They kept one +maid, who called herself a Sweden's girl, and Louise cooked some of the +things herself. She did not cook them so well as the maid, but Maxwell +never knew what he was eating, and he thought it all alike good. + +In their simple circumstances, Louise never missed the affluence that +had flattered her whole life in her father's house. It seemed to her as +if she had not lived before her marriage--as if she had always lived as +she did now. She made the most of her house-keeping, but there was not a +great deal of that, at the most. She knew some New York people, but it +was too early yet for them to be back to town, and, besides, she doubted +if she should let them know where she was; for society afflicted +Maxwell, and she could not care for it unless he did. She did not wish +to do anything as yet, or be anything apart from him; she was timid +about going into the street without him. She wished to be always with +him, and always talking to him; but it soon came to his imploring her +not to talk when she was in the room where he was writing; and he often +came to the table so distraught that the meal might have passed without +a word but for her. + +He valued her all she could possibly have desired in relation to his +work, and he showed her how absolutely he rested upon her sympathy, if +not her judgment, in it. He submitted everything to her, and forbore, +and changed, and amended, and wrote and rewrote at her will; or when he +revolted, and wrote on in defiance of her, he was apt to tear the work +up. He destroyed a good deal of good literature in this way, and more +than once it happened that she had tacitly changed her mind and was of +his way of thinking when it was too late. In view of such a chance she +made him promise that he would always show her what he had written, even +when he had written wholly against her taste and wish. He was not to let +his pride keep him from doing this, though, as a general thing, she took +a good deal of pride in his pride, having none herself, as she believed. +Whether she had or not, she was very wilful, and rather prepotent; but +she never bore malice, as the phrase is, when she got the worst of +anything, though she might have been quite to blame. She had in all +things a high ideal of conduct, which she expected her husband to live +up to when she was the prey of adverse circumstances. At other times +she did her share of the common endeavor. + +All through the month of October he worked at the new play, and from +time to time they heard from the old play, which Godolphin was still +giving, here and there, in the West. He had not made any reply to +Maxwell's letter of regret that he could not come to the rehearsals at +Chicago, but he sent the notices marked in the newspapers, at the +various points where he played, and the Maxwells contented themselves as +they could with these proofs of an unbroken amity. They expected +something more direct and explicit from him when he should get to +Chicago, where his engagement was to begin the first week in November. +In the meantime the kind of life they were living had not that stressful +unreality for Louise that it had for Maxwell on the economic side. For +the first time his regular and serious habits of work did not mean the +earning of money, but only the chance of earning money. Ever since he +had begun the world for himself, and he had begun it very early, there +had been some income from his industry; however little it was, it was +certain; the salary was there for him at the end of the week when he +went to the cashier's desk. His mother and he had both done so well and +so wisely in their several ways of taking care of themselves, that +Maxwell had not only been able to live on his earnings, but he had been +able to save out of them the thousand dollars which Louise bragged of to +her father, and it was this store which they were now consuming, not +rapidly, indeed, but steadily, and with no immediate return in money to +repair the waste. The fact kept Maxwell wakeful at night sometimes, and +by day he shuddered inwardly at the shrinkage of his savings, so much +swifter than their growth, though he was generously abetted by Louise in +using them with frugality. She could always have had money from her +father, but this was something that Maxwell would not look forward to. +There could be no real anxiety for them in the situation, but for +Maxwell there was care. He might be going to get a great deal out of the +play he was now writing, but as yet it was in no form to show to a +manager or an actor; and he might be going to get a great deal out of +his old play, but so far Godolphin had made no sign that he remembered +one of the most essential of the obligations which seemed all to rest so +lightly upon him. Maxwell hated to remind him of it, and in the end he +was very glad that he never did, or that he had not betrayed the +slightest misgiving of his good faith. + +One morning near the end of the month, when he was lower in his spirits +than usual from this cause, there came a letter from the editor of the +Boston _Abstract_ asking him if he could not write a weekly letter from +New York for his old newspaper. It was a temptation, and Maxwell found +it a hardship that his wife should have gone out just then to do the +marketing for the day; she considered this the duty of a wife, and she +fulfilled it often enough to keep her sense of it alive, but she much +preferred to forage with him in the afternoon; that was poetry, she +said, and the other was prose. He would have liked to talk the +proposition over with her; to realize the compliment while it was fresh, +to grumble at it a little, and to be supported in his notion that it +would be bad business just then for him to undertake a task that might +draw him away from his play too much; to do the latter well would take a +great deal of time. Yet he did not feel quite that he ought to refuse +it, in view of the uncertainties of the future, and it might even be +useful to hold the position aside from the money it would bring him; the +New York correspondent of the Boston _Abstract_ might have a claim upon +the attention of the managers which a wholly unaccredited playwright +could not urge; there was no question of their favor with Maxwell; he +would disdain to have that, even if he could get it, except by the +excellence, or at least the availability of his work. + +Louise did not come in until much later than usual, and then she came in +looking very excited. "Well, my dear," she began to call out to him as +soon as the door was opened for her, "I have seen that woman again!" + +"What woman?" he asked. + +"You know. That smouldering-eyed thing in the bathing-dress." She added, +in answer to his stupefied gaze: "I don't mean that she was in the +bathing-dress still, but her eyes were smouldering away just as they +were that day on the beach at Magnolia." + +"Oh!" said Maxwell, indifferently. "Where did you see her?" + +"On the avenue, and I know she lives in the neighborhood somewhere, +because she was shopping here on the avenue, and I could have easily +followed her home if she had not taken the Elevated for down town." + +"Why didn't you take it, too? It might have been a long way round, but +it would have been certain. I've been wanting you here badly. Just tell +me what you think of that." + +He gave her the editor's letter, and she hastily ran it through. "I +wouldn't think of it for a moment," she said. "Were there any letters +for me?" + +"It isn't a thing to be dismissed without reflection," he began. + +"I thought you wanted to devote yourself entirely to the drama?" + +"Of course." + +"And you've always said there was nothing so killing to creative work as +any sort of journalism." + +"This wouldn't take more than a day or two each week, and twenty-five +dollars a letter would be convenient while we are waiting for our cards +to turn up." + +"Oh, very well! If you are so fickle as all that, _I_ don't know what to +say to you." She put the letter down on the table before him, and went +out of the room. + +He tried to write, but with the hurt of what he felt her unkindness he +could not, and after a certain time he feigned an errand into their +room, where she had shut herself from him, and found her lying down. +"Are you sick?" he asked, coldly. + +"Not at all," she answered. "I suppose one may lie down without being +sick, as you call it. I should say ill, myself." + +"I'm so glad you're not sick that I don't care what you call it." + +He was going out, when she spoke again: "I didn't know you cared +particularly, you are always so much taken up with your work. I suppose, +if you wrote those letters for the _Abstract_, you need never think of +me at all, whether I was ill or well." + +"You would take care to remind me of your existence from time to time, I +dare say. You haven't the habit of suffering in silence a great deal." + +"You would like it better, of course, if I had." + +"A great deal better, my dear. But I didn't know that you regarded my +work as self-indulgence altogether. I have flattered myself now and then +that I was doing it for you, too." + +"Oh yes, very likely. But if you had never seen me you would be doing it +all the same." + +"I'm afraid so. I seem to have been made that way. I'm sorry you don't +approve. I supposed you did once." + +"Oh, I do approve--highly." He left her, and she heard him getting his +hat and stick in the little hallway, as if he were going out of doors. +She called to him, "What I wonder is how a man so self-centred that he +can't look at his wife for days together, can tell whether another +woman's eyes are smouldering or not." + +Maxwell paused, with his hand on the knob, as if he were going to make +some retort, but, perhaps because he could think of none, he went out +without speaking. + +He stayed away all the forenoon, walking down the river along the +squalid waterside avenues; he found them in sympathy with the squalor in +himself which always followed a squabble with his wife. At the end of +one of the westward streets he found himself on a pier flanked by vast +flotillas of canal-boats. As he passed one of these he heard the sound +of furious bickering within, and while he halted a man burst from the +gangway and sprang ashore, followed by the threats and curses of a +woman, who put her head out of the hatch to launch them after him. + +The incident turned Maxwell faint; he perceived that the case of this +unhappy man, who tried to walk out of earshot with dignity, was his own +in quality, if not in quantity. He felt the shame of their human +identity, and he reached home with his teeth set in a hard resolve to +bear and forbear in all things thereafter, rather than share ever again +in misery like that, which dishonored his wife even more than it +dishonored him. At the same time he was glad of a thought the whole +affair suggested to him, and he wondered whether he could get a play out +of it. This was the notion of showing the evil eventuation of good. +Their tiffs came out of their love for each other, and no other quarrels +could have the bitterness that these got from the very innermost +sweetness of life. It would be hard to show this dramatically, but if it +could be done the success would be worth all the toil it would cost. + +At his door he realized with a pang that he could not submit the notion +to his wife now, and perhaps never. But the door was pulled open before +he could turn his latch-key in the lock, and Louise threw her arms round +his neck. + +"Oh, dearest, guess!" she commanded between her kisses. + +"Guess what?" he asked, walking her into the parlor with his arms round +her. She kept her hands behind her when he released her, and they stood +confronted. + +"What should you consider the best news--or not news exactly; the best +thing--in the world?" + +"Why, I don't know. Has the play been a great success in Chicago?" + +"Better than that!" she shouted, and she brought an open letter from +behind her, and flourished it before him, while she went on +breathlessly: "It's from Godolphin, and of course I opened it at once, +for I thought if there was anything worrying in it, I had better find it +out while you were gone, and prepare you for it. He's sent you a check +for $300--twelve performances of the play--and he's written you the +sweetest letter in the world, and I take back everything I ever said +against him! Here, shall I read it? Or, no, you'll want to read it +yourself. Now, sit down at your desk, and I'll put it before you, with +the check on top!" + +She pushed him into his chair, and he obediently read the check first, +and then took up the letter. It was dated at Chicago, and was written +with a certain histrionic consciousness, as if Godolphin enjoyed the +pose of a rising young actor paying over to the author his share of the +profits of their joint enterprise in their play. There was a list of the +dates and places of the performances, which Maxwell noted were chiefly +matinees; and he argued a distrust of the piece from this fact, which +Godolphin did not otherwise betray. He said that the play constantly +grew upon him, and that with such revision as they should be able to +give it together when he reached New York, they would have one of the +greatest plays of the modern stage. He had found that wherever he gave +it the better part of his audience was best pleased with it, and he felt +sure that when he put it on for a run the houses would grow up to it in +every way. He was going to test it for a week in Chicago; there was no +reference to his wish that Maxwell should have been present at the +rehearsals there; but otherwise Godolphin's letter was as candid as it +was cordial. + +Maxwell read it with a silent joy which seemed to please his wife as +well as if he had joined her in rioting over it. She had kept the lunch +warm for him, and now she brought it in from the kitchen herself and set +it before him, talking all the time. + +"Well, now we can regard it as an accomplished fact, and I shall not +allow you to feel any anxiety about it from this time forward. I +consider that Godolphin has done his whole duty by it. He has kept the +spirit of his promises if he hasn't the letter, and from this time +forward I am going to trust him implicitly, and I'm going to make you. +No more question of Godolphin in _this_ family! Don't you long to know +how it goes in Chicago? But I don't really care, for, as you say, that +won't have the slightest influence in New York; and I know it will go +here, anyway. Yes, I consider it, from this time on, an assured success. +And isn't it delightful that, as Godolphin says, it's such a favorite +with refined people?" She went on a good while to this effect, but when +she had talked herself out, Maxwell had still said so little that she +asked, "What is it, Brice?" + +"Do you think we deserve it?" he returned, seriously. + +"For squabbling so? Why, I suppose I was tired and overwrought, or I +shouldn't have done it." + +"And I hadn't even that excuse," said Maxwell. + +"Oh, yes you had," she retorted. "I provoked you. And if any one was to +blame, I was. Do you mind it so much?" + +"Yes, it tears my heart. And it makes me feel so low and mean." + +"Oh, how good you are!" she began, but he stopped her. + +"Don't! I'm not good; and I don't deserve success. I don't feel as if +this belonged to me. I ought to send Godolphin's check back, in common +honesty, common decency." He told of the quarrel he had witnessed on the +canal-boat, and she loved him for his simple-hearted humility; but she +said there was nothing parallel in the cases, and she would not let him +think so; that it was morbid, and showed he had been overworking. + +"And now," she went on, "you must write to Mr. Ricker at once and thank +him, and tell him you can't do the letters for him. Will you?" + +"I'll see." + +"You must. I want you to reserve your whole strength for the drama. +That's your true vocation, and it would be a sin for you to turn to the +right or left." He continued silent, and she went on: "Are you still +thinking about our scrap this morning? Well, then, I'll promise never to +begin it again. Will that do?" + +"Oh, I don't know that you began it. And I wasn't thinking--I was +thinking of an idea for a play--the eventuation of good in evil--love +evolving in hate." + +"That will be grand, if you can work it out. And now you see, don't you, +that there is some use in squabbling, even?" + +"I suppose nothing is lost," said Maxwell. He took out his pocket-book, +and folded Godolphin's check into it. + + + + +XII. + + +A week later there came another letter from Godolphin. It was very +civil, and in its general text it did not bear out the promise of +severity in its change of address to _Dear Sir_, from the _Dear Mr. +Maxwell_ of the earlier date. + +It conveyed, in as kindly terms as could have been asked, a fact which +no terms could have flattered into acceptability. + +Godolphin wrote, after trying the play two nights and a matinee in +Chicago, to tell the author that he had withdrawn it because its failure +had not been a failure in the usual sense but had been a grievous +collapse, which left him no hopes that it would revive in the public +favor if it were kept on. Maxwell would be able to judge, he said, from +the newspapers he sent, of the view the critics had taken of the piece; +but this would not have mattered at all if it had not been the view of +the public, too. He said he would not pain Maxwell by repeating the +opinions which he had borne the brunt of alone; but they were such as to +satisfy him fully and finally that he had been mistaken in supposing +there was a part for him in the piece. He begged to return it to +_Maxwell_, and he ventured to send his prompt-book with the original +manuscript, which might facilitate his getting the play into other +hands. + +The parcel was brought in by express while they were sitting in the +dismay caused by the letter, and took from them the hope that Godolphin +might have written from a mood and changed his mind before sending back +the piece. Neither of them had the nerve to open the parcel, which lay +upon Maxwell's desk, very much sealed and tied and labelled, diffusing a +faint smell of horses, as express packages mostly do, through the room. + +Maxwell found strength, if not heart, to speak first. "I suppose I am to +blame for not going to Chicago for the rehearsals." Louise said she did +not see what that could have done to keep the play from failing, and he +answered that it might have kept Godolphin from losing courage. "You +see, he says he had to take the brunt of public opinion _alone_. He was +sore about that." + +"Oh, well, if he is so weak as that, and would have had to be bolstered +up all along, you are well rid of him." + +"I am certainly rid of him," Maxwell partially assented, and they both +lapsed into silence again. Even Louise could not talk. They were as if +stunned by the blow that had fallen on them, as all such blows fall, +when it was least expected, and it seemed to the victims as if they were +least able to bear it. In fact, it was a cruel reverse from the +happiness they had enjoyed since Godolphin's check came, and although +Maxwell had said that they must not count upon anything from him, except +from hour to hour, his words conveyed a doubt that he felt no more than +Louise. Now his gloomy wisdom was justified by a perfidy which she could +paint in no colors that seemed black enough. Perhaps the want of these +was what kept her mute at first; even when she began to talk she could +only express her disdain by urging her husband to send back Godolphin's +check to him. "We want nothing more to do with such a man. If he felt no +obligation to keep faith with you, it's the same as if he had sent that +money out of charity." + +"Yes, I have thought of that," said Maxwell. "But I guess I shall keep +the money. He may regard the whole transaction as child's play; but I +don't, and I never did. I worked very hard on the piece, and at the +rates for space-work, merely, I earned his money and a great deal more. +If I can ever do anything with it, I shall be only too glad to give him +his three hundred dollars again." + +She could see that he had already gathered spirit for new endeavor with +the play, and her heart yearned upon him in pride and fondness. "Oh, you +dear! What do you intend to do next?" + +"I shall try the managers." + +"Brice!" she cried in utter admiration. + +He rose and said, as he took up the express package, and gave +Godolphin's letter a contemptuous push with his hand, "You can gather up +this spilt milk. Put it away somewhere; I don't want to see it or think +of it again." He cut open the package, and found the prompt-book, which +he laid aside, while he looked to see if his own copy of the play were +all there. + +"You are going to begin at once?" gasped Louise. + +"This instant," he said. "It will be slow enough work at the best, and +we mustn't lose time. I shall probably have to go the rounds of all the +managers, but I am not going to stop till I have gone the rounds. I +shall begin with the highest, and I sha'n't stop till I reach the +lowest." + +"But when? How? You haven't thought it out." + +"Yes, I have. I have been thinking it out ever since I got the play into +Godolphin's hands. I haven't been at peace about him since that day when +he renounced me in Magnolia, and certainly till we got his check there +has been nothing in his performance to restore my confidence. Come, now, +Louise, you mustn't stop me, dear," he said, for she was beginning to +cling about him. "I shall be back for lunch, and then we can talk over +what I have begun to do. If I began to talk of it before, I should lose +all heart for it. Kiss me good luck!" + +She kissed him enough for all the luck in the world, and then he got +himself out of her arms while she still hardly knew what to make of it +all. He was half-way down the house-stairs, when her eye fell on the +prompt-book. She caught it up and ran out upon the landing, and screamed +down after him, "Brice, Brice! You've forgotten something." + +He came flying back, breathless, and she held the book out to him. "Oh, +I don't want that," he panted, "It would damage the play with a manager +to know that Godolphin had rejected it." + +"But do you think it would be quite right--quite frank--to let him take +it without telling him?" + +"It will be right to show it him without telling him. It will be time +enough to tell him if he likes it." + +"That is true," she assented, and then she kissed him again and let him +go; he stood a step below her, and she had to stoop a good deal; but she +went in doors, looking up to him as if he were a whole flight of steps +above her, and saying to herself that he had always been so good and +wise that she must now simply trust him in everything. + +Louise still had it on her conscience to offer Maxwell reparation for +the wrong she thought she had done him when she had once decided that he +was too self-seeking and self-centred, and had potentially rejected him +on that ground. The first thing she did after they became engaged was to +confess the wrong, and give him a chance to cast her off if he wished; +but this never seemed quite reparation enough, perhaps because he +laughed and said that she was perfectly right about him, and must take +him with those faults or not at all. She now entered upon a long, +delightful review of his behavior ever since that moment, and she found +that, although he was certainly as self-centred as she had ever thought +or he had owned himself to be, self-seeking he was not, in any mean or +greedy sense. She perceived that his self-seeking, now, at least, was as +much for her sake as his own, and that it was really after all not +self-seeking, but the helpless pursuit of aims which he was born into +the world to achieve. She had seen that he did not stoop to achieve +them, but had as haughty a disdain of any but the highest means as she +could have wished him to have, and much haughtier than she could have +had in his place. If he forgot her in them, he forgot himself quite as +much, and they were equal before his ambition. In fact, this seemed to +her even more her charge than his, and if he did not succeed as with his +genius he had a right to succeed, it would be constructively her fault, +and at any rate she should hold herself to blame for it; there would be +some satisfaction in that. She thought with tender pathos how hard he +worked, and was at his writing all day long, except when she made him go +out with her, and was then often so fagged that he could scarcely speak. +She was proud of his almost killing himself at it, but she must study +more and more not to let him kill himself, and must do everything that +was humanly possible to keep up his spirits when he met with a reverse. + +She accused herself with shame of having done nothing for him in the +present emergency, but rather flung upon him the burden of her own +disappointment. She thought how valiantly he had risen up under it, and +had not lost one moment in vain repining; how instantly he had collected +himself for a new effort, and taken his measures with a wise prevision +that omitted no detail. In view of all this, she peremptorily forbade +herself to be uneasy at the little reticence he was practising with +regard to Godolphin's having rejected his play; and imagined the +splendor he could put on with the manager after he had accepted it, in +telling him its history, and releasing him, if he would, from his +agreement. She imagined the manager generously saying this made no +difference whatever, though he appreciated Mr. Maxwell's candor in the +matter, and should be all the happier to make a success of it because +Godolphin had failed with it. + +But she returned from this flight into the future, and her husband's +part in it, to the present and her own first duty in regard to him; and +it appeared to her, that this was to look carefully after his health in +the strain put upon it, and to nourish him for the struggle before him. +It was to be not with one manager only, but many managers, probably, and +possibly with all the managers in New York. That was what he had said +it would be before he gave up, and she remembered how flushed and +excited he looked when he said it, and though she did not believe he +would get back for lunch--the manager might ask him to read his play to +him, so that he could get just the author's notion--she tried to think +out the very most nourishing lunch she could for him. Oysters were in +season, and they were very nourishing, but they had already had them for +breakfast, and beefsteak was very good, but he hated it. Perhaps chops +would do, or, better still, mushrooms on toast, only they were not in +the market at that time of year. She dismissed a stewed squab, and +questioned a sweetbread, and wondered if there were not some kind of +game. In the end she decided to leave it to the provision man, and she +lost no time after she reached her decision in going out to consult him. +He was a bland, soothing German, and it was a pleasure to talk with him, +because he brought her married name into every sentence, and said, "No, +Mrs. Maxwell;" "Yes, Mrs. Maxwell;" "I send it right in, Mrs. Maxwell." +She went over his whole list of provisions with him, and let him +persuade her that a small fillet was the best she could offer a person +whose frame needed nourishing, while at the same time his appetite +needed coaxing. She allowed him to add a can of mushrooms, as the right +thing to go with it, and some salad; and then while he put the order up +she stood reproaching herself for it, since it formed no fit lunch, and +was both expensive and commonplace. + +She was roused from her daze, when she was going to countermand the +whole stupid order by the man's saying: "What can I do for you this +morning, Mrs. Harley?" and she turned round to find at her elbow the +smouldering-eyed woman of the bathing-beach. She lifted her heavy lids +and gave Louise a dull glance, which she let a sudden recognition burn +through for a moment and then quenched. But in that moment the two women +sealed a dislike that had been merely potential before. Their look said +for each that the other was by nature, tradition, and aspiration +whatever was most detestable in their sex. + +Mrs. Harley, whoever she was, under a name that Louise electrically +decided to be fictitious, seemed unable to find her voice at first in +their mutual defiance, and she made a pretence of letting her strange +eyes rove about the shop before she answered. Her presence was so +repugnant to Louise that she turned abruptly and hurried out of the +place without returning the good-morning which the German sent after +her with the usual addition of her name. She resented it now, for if it +was not tantamount to an introduction to that creature, it was making +her known to her, and Louise wished to have no closer acquaintance with +her than their common humanity involved. It seemed too odious to have +been again made aware that they were inhabitants of the same planet, and +the anger that heaved within her went out in a wild flash of resentment +towards her husband for having forever fixed that woman in her +consciousness with a phrase. If it had not been for that, she would not +have thought twice of her when they first saw her, and she would not +have known her when they met again, and at the worst would merely have +been harassed with a vague resemblance which would never have been +verified. + +She had climbed the stairs to their apartment on the fourth floor, when +she felt the need to see more, know more, of this hateful being so +strong upon her, that she stopped with her latch-key in her door and +went down again. She did not formulate her intention, but she meant to +hurry back to the provision store, with the pretext of changing her +order, and follow the woman wherever she went, until she found out where +she lived; and she did not feel, as a man would, the disgrace of +dogging her steps in that way so much as she felt a fatal dread of her. +If she should be gone by the time Louise got back to the shop, she would +ask the provision man about her, and find out in that way. She stayed a +little while to rehearse the terms of her inquiry, and while she +lingered the woman herself came round the corner of the avenue and +mounted the steps where Louise stood and, with an air of custom, went on +upstairs to the second floor, where Louise heard her putting a latch-key +into the door, which then closed after her. + + + + +XIII. + + +Maxwell went to a manager whom he had once met in Boston, where they had +been apparently acceptable to each other in a long talk they had about +the drama. The manager showed himself a shrewd and rather remorseless +man of business in all that he said of the theatre, but he spoke as +generously and reverently of the drama as Maxwell felt, and they parted +with a laughing promise to do something for it yet. In fact, if it had +not been for the chances that threw him into Godolphin's hand +afterwards, he would have gone to this manager with his play in the +first place, and he went to him now, as soon as he was out of +Godolphin's hands, not merely because he was the only manager he knew in +the city, but because he believed in him as much as his rather sceptical +temper permitted him to believe in any one, and because he believed he +would give him at least an intelligent audience. + +The man in the box-office, where he stood in the glow of an electric +light at midday, recovered himself from the disappointment he suffered +when Maxwell asked for the manager instead of a seat for the night's +performance. He owned that the manager was in his room, but said he was +very much engaged, and he was hardly moved from this conviction by +Maxwell's urgence that he should send in his card; perhaps something in +Maxwell's tone and face as of authority prevailed with him; perhaps it +was the title of the Boston _Abstract_, which Maxwell wrote under his +name, to recall himself better to the manager's memory. The answer was a +good while getting back; people came in and bought tickets and went +away, while Maxwell hung about the vestibule of the theatre and studied +the bill of the play which formed its present attraction, but at last +the man in the box-office put his face sidewise to the semi-circular +opening above the glass-framed plan of seats and, after he had +identified Maxwell, said, "Mr. Grayson would like to see you." At the +same time the swinging doors of the theatre opened, and a young man came +out, to whom the other added, indicating Maxwell, "This is the +gentleman;" and the young man held the door open for him to pass in, and +then went swiftly before him into the theatre, and led the way around +the orchestra circle to a little door that opened in the wall beside +one of the boxes. There was a rehearsal going on in the glare of some +grouped incandescent bulbs on the stage, and people moving about in top +hats and bonnets and other every-day outside gear, which Maxwell lost +sight of in his progress through the wings and past a rough brick wall +before he arrived at another door down some winding stairs in the depths +of the building. His guide knocked at it, and when an answering voice +said, "Come in!" he left Maxwell to go in alone. The manager had risen +from his chair at his table, and stood, holding out his hand, with a +smile of kindly enough welcome. He said, "I've just made you out, Mr. +Maxwell. Do you come as a friendly interviewer, or as a deadly +dramatist!" + +"As both or as neither, whichever you like," said Maxwell, and he gladly +took the manager's hand, and then took the chair which he cleared of +some prompt-books for him to sit down in. + +"I hadn't forgotten the pleasant talk I had with you in Boston, you +see," the manager began again, "but I had forgotten whom I had it with." + +"I can't say I had even done that," Maxwell answered, and this seemed to +please the manager. + +"Well, that counts you one," he said. "You noticed that we have put on +'Engaged?' We've made a failure of the piece we began with; it's several +pieces now. _Couldn't_ you do something like 'Engaged?'" + +"I wish I could! But I'm afraid Gilbert is the only man living who can +do anything like 'Engaged.' My hand is too heavy for that kind." + +"Well, the heavy hand is not so bad if it hits hard enough," said the +manager, who had a face of lively intelligence and an air of wary +kindliness. He looked fifty, but this was partly the effect of overwork. +There was something of the Jew, something of the Irishman, in his +visage; but he was neither; he was a Yankee, from Maine, with a Boston +training in his business. "What have you got?" he asked, for Maxwell's +play was evident. + +"Something I've been at work on for a year, more or less." Maxwell +sketched the plot of his play, and the manager seemed interested. + +"Rather Ibsenish, isn't it?" he suggested at the end. + +The time had passed with Maxwell when he wished to have this said of his +play, not because he did not admire Ibsen, but because he preferred the +recognition of the original quality of his work. "I don't know that it +is, very. Perhaps--if one didn't like it." + +"Oh, I don't know that I should dislike it for its Ibsenism. The time +of that sort of thing may be coming. You never can be sure, in this +business, when the time of anything is coming. I've always thought that +a naturalized Ibsenism wouldn't be so bad for our stage. You don't want +to be quite so bleak, you know, as the real Norwegian Ibsen." + +"I've tried not to be very bleak, because I thought it wasn't in the +scheme," said Maxwell. + +"I don't understand that it ends well?" + +"Unless you consider the implicated marriage of the young people a good +ending. Haxard himself, of course, is past all surgery. But the thing +isn't pessimistic, as I understand, for its doctrine is that harm comes +only from doing wrong." + +The manager laughed. "Oh, the average public would consider that _very_ +pessimistic. They want no harm to come even from doing wrong. They want +the drama to get round it, somehow. If you could show that Divine +Providence forgets wrong-doing altogether in certain cases, you would +make the fortune of your piece. Come, why couldn't you try something of +that kind? It would be the greatest comfort to all the sinners in front, +for every last man of them--or woman--would think she was the one who +was going to get away." + +"I might come up to that, later," said Maxwell, willing to take the +humorous view of the matter, if it would please the manager and smooth +the way for the consideration of his work; but, more obscurely, he was +impatient, and sorry to have found him in so philosophical a mood. + +The manager was like the man of any other trade; he liked to talk of his +business, and this morning he talked of it a long time, and to an effect +that Maxwell must have found useful if he had not been so bent upon +getting to his manuscript that he had no mind for generalities. At last +the manager said, abruptly, "You want me to read your play?" + +"Very much," Maxwell answered, and he promptly put the packet he had +brought into the manager's extended hand. + +He not only took it, but he untied it, and even glanced at the first few +pages. "All right," he said, "I'll read it, and let you hear from me as +soon as I can. Your address--oh, it's on the wrapper, here. By-the-way, +why shouldn't you lunch with me? We'll go over to the Players' Club." + +Maxwell flushed with eager joy; then he faltered. + +"I should like to do it immensely. But I'm afraid--I'm afraid Mrs. +Maxwell will be waiting for me." + +"Oh, all right; some other time," answered the manager; and then Maxwell +was vexed that he had offered any excuse, for he thought it would have +been very pleasant and perhaps useful for him to lunch at the Players'. +But the manager did not urge him. He only said, as he led the way to the +stage-door, "I didn't know there was a Mrs. Maxwell." + +"She's happened since we met," said Maxwell, blushing with fond pride. +"We're such a small family that we like to get together at lunch," he +added. + +"Oh, yes, I can understand that stage of it," said the manager. +"By-the-way, are you still connected with the _Abstract_? I noticed the +name on your card." + +"Not quite in the old way. But," and with the words a purpose formed +itself in Maxwell's mind, "they've asked me to write their New York +letter." + +"Well, drop in now and then. I may have something for you." The manager +shook hands with him cordially, and Maxwell opened the door and found +himself in the street. + +He was so little conscious of the transit homeward that he seemed to +find himself the next moment with Louise in their little parlor. He +remembered afterwards that there was something strange in her manner +towards him at first, but, before he could feel presently cognizant of +it, this wore off in the interest of what he had to tell. + +"The sum of it all," he ended his account of the interview with the +manager, "is that he's taken the thing to read, and that he's to let me +hear from him when he's read it. When that will be nobody knows, and I +should be the last to ask. But he seemed interested in my sketch of it, +and he had an intelligence about it that was consoling. And it was a +great comfort, after Godolphin, and Godolphin's pyrotechnics, to have +him take it in a hard, business way. He made no sort of promises, and he +held out no sort of hopes; he didn't commit himself in any sort of way, +and he can't break his word, for he hasn't given it. I wish, now, that I +had never let Godolphin have the play back after he first renounced it; +I should have saved a great deal of time and wear and tear of feelings. +Yes, if I had taken your advice then--" + +At this generous tribute to her wisdom, all that was reluctant ceased +from Louise's manner and behavior. She put her arm around his neck and +protested. "No, no! I can't let you say that, Brice! You were right +about that, as you are about everything. If you hadn't had this +experience with Godolphin, you wouldn't have known how to appreciate Mr. +Grayson's reception of you, and you might have been unreasonable. I can +see now that it's all been for the best, and that we needed just this +discipline to prepare us for prosperity. But I guess Godolphin will +wish, when he hears that Mr. Grayson has taken your piece, and is going +to bring it out at the Argosy, here--" + +"Oh, good heavens! Do give those poor chickens a chance to get out of +the shell this time, my dear!" + +"Well, I know it vexes you, and I know it's silly; but still I feel sure +that Mr. Grayson will take it. You don't mind that, do you?" + +"Not if you don't say it. I want you to realize that the chances are +altogether against it. He was civil, because I think he rather liked me +personally--" + +"Of _course_ he did!" + +"Oh!" + +"Well, never mind. Personally--" + +"And I don't suppose it did me any harm with him to suppose that I still +had a newspaper connection. I put Boston _Abstract_ on my card--for +purposes of identification, as the editors say--because I was writing +for it when I met him in Boston." + +"Oh, well, as long as you're not writing for it now, I don't care. I +want you to devote yourself entirely to the drama, Brice." + +"Yes, that's all very well. But I think I shall do Ricker's letters for +him this winter at least. I was thinking of it on the way down. It'll be +work, but it'll be money, too, and if I have something coming in I +sha'n't feel as if I were ruined every time my play gets back from a +manager." + +"Mr. Grayson will take it!" + +"Now, Louise, if you say that, you will simply drive me to despair, for +I shall know how you will feel when he doesn't--" + +"No, I shall not feel so; and you will see. But if you don't let me hope +for you--" + +"You know I can't stand hoping. The only safe way is to look for the +worst, and if anything better happens it is so much pure gain. If we +hadn't been so eager to pin our faith to Godolphin--" + +"How much better off should we have been? What have we lost by it?" she +challenged him. + +He broke off with a laugh. "We have lost the pins. Well, hope away! But, +remember, you take the whole responsibility." Maxwell pulled out his +watch. "Isn't lunch nearly ready? This prosperity is making me hungry, +and it seems about a year since breakfast." + +"I'll see what's keeping it," said Louise, and she ran out to the +kitchen with a sudden fear in her heart. She knew that she had meant to +countermand her order for the fillet and mushrooms, and she thought that +she had forgotten to order anything else for lunch. She found the cook +just serving it up, because such a dish as that took more time than an +ordinary lunch, and the things had come late. Louise said, Yes, she +understood that; and went back to Maxwell, whom she found walking up and +down the room in a famine very uncommon for him. She felt the motherly +joy a woman has in being able to appease the hunger of the man she +loves, and now she was glad that she had not postponed the fillet till +dinner as she had thought of doing. Everything was turning out so +entirely for the best that she was beginning to experience some revival +of an ancestral faith in Providence in a heart individually agnostic, +and she was piously happy when Maxwell said at sight of the lunch, +"Isn't this rather prophetic? If it isn't that, it's telepathic. I +sha'n't regret now that I didn't go with Grayson to lunch at the +Players' Club." + +"Did he ask you to do that?" + +Maxwell nodded with his mouth full. + +A sudden misgiving smote her. "Oh, Brice, you ought to have gone! Why +didn't you go?" + +"It must have been a deep subconsciousness of the fillet and mushrooms. +Or perhaps I didn't quite like to think of your lunching alone." + +"Oh, you dear, faithful little soul!" she cried. The tears came into her +eyes, and she ran round the table to kiss him several times on the top +of his head. + +He kept on eating as well as he could, and when she got back to her +place, "Of course, it would have been a good thing for me to go to the +Players'," he teased, "for it would have pleased Grayson, and I should +probably have met some other actors and managers there, and made +interest with them provisionally for my play, if he shouldn't happen to +want it." + +"Oh, I know it," she moaned. "You have ruined yourself for me. I'm not +worth it. No, I'm not! Now, I want you to promise, dearest, that you'll +never mind me again, but lunch or dine, or breakfast, or sup whenever +anybody asks you?" + +"Well, I can't promise all that, quite." + +"I mean, when the play is at stake." + +"Oh, in that case, yes." + +"What in the world did you say to Mr. Grayson?" + +"Very much what I have said to you: that I hated to leave you to lunch +alone here." + +"Oh, didn't he think it very silly?" she entreated, fondly. "Don't you +think he'll laugh at you for it!" + +"Very likely. But he won't like me the less for it. Men are glad of +marital devotion in other men; they feel that it acts as a sort of +dispensation for them." + +"You oughtn't to waste those things on me," she said, humbly. "You ought +to keep them for your plays." + +"Oh, they're not wasted, exactly. I can use them over again. I can say +much better things than that with a pen in my hand." + +She hardly heard him. She felt a keen remorse for something she had +meant to do and to say when he came home. Now she put it far from her; +she thought she ought not to keep even an extinct suspicion in her heart +against him, and she asked, "Brice, did you know that woman was living +in this house?" + +"What woman?" + +Louise was ashamed to say anything about the smouldering eyes. "That +woman on the bathing-beach at Magnolia--the one I met the other day." + +He said, dryly: "She seems to be pursuing us. How did you find it out?" + +She told him, and she added, "I think she _must_ be an actress of some +sort." + +"Very likely, but I hope she won't feel obliged to call because we're +connected with the profession." + +Some time afterwards Louise was stitching at a centre-piece she was +embroidering for the dining-table, and Maxwell was writing a letter for +the _Abstract_, which he was going to send to the editor with a note +telling him that if it were the sort of thing he wanted he would do the +letters for them. + +"After all," she breathed, "that look of the eyes may be purely +physical." + +"What look?" Maxwell asked, from the depths of his work. + +She laughed in perfect content, and said: "Oh, nothing." But when he +finished his letter, and was putting it into the envelope, she asked: +"Did you tell Mr. Grayson that Godolphin had returned the play?" + +"No, I didn't. That wasn't necessary at this stage of the proceedings." + +"No." + + + + +XIV. + + +During the week that passed before Maxwell heard from the manager +concerning his play, he did another letter for the _Abstract_, and, with +a journalistic acquaintance enlarged through certain Boston men who had +found places on New York papers, familiarized himself with New York ways +and means of getting news. He visited what is called the Coast, a series +of points where the latest intelligence grows in hotel bars and lobbies +of a favorable exposure, and is nurtured by clerks and barkeepers +skilled in its culture, and by inveterate gossips of their acquaintance; +but he found this sort of stuff generally telegraphed on by the +Associated Press before he reached it, and he preferred to make his +letter a lively comment on events, rather than a report of them. The +editor of the _Abstract_ seemed to prefer this, too. He wrote Maxwell +some excellent criticism, and invited him to appeal to the better rather +than the worse curiosity of his readers, to remember that this was the +principle of the _Abstract_ in its home conduct. Maxwell showed the +letter to his wife, and she approved of it all so heartily that she +would have liked to answer it herself. "Of course, Brice," she said, +"it's _you_ he wants, more than your news. Any wretched reporter could +give him that, but you are the one man in the world who can give him +your mind about it." + +"Why not say universe?" returned Maxwell, but though he mocked her he +was glad to believe she was right, and he was proud of her faith in him. + +In another way this was put to proof more than once during the week, for +Louise seemed fated to meet Mrs. Harley on the common stairs now when +she went out or came in. It was very strange that after living with her +a whole month in the house and not seeing her, she should now be seeing +her so much. Mostly she was alone, but sometimes she was with an elderly +woman, whom Louise decided at one time to be her mother, and at another +time to be a professional companion. The first time she met them +together she was sure that Mrs. Harley indicated her to the chaperon, +and that she remembered her from Magnolia, but she never looked at +Louise, any more than Louise looked at her, after that. + +She wondered if Maxwell ever met her, but she was ashamed to ask him, +and he did not mention her. Only once when they were together did they +happen to encounter her, and then he said, quite simply, "I think she's +certainly an actress. That public look of the eyes is unmistakable. +Emotional parts, I should say." + +Louise forced herself to suggest, "You might get her to let you do a +play for her." + +"I doubt if I could do anything unwholesome enough for her." + +At last the summons they were expecting from Grayson came, just after +they had made up their minds to wait another week for it. + +Louise had taken the letter from the maid, and she handed it to Maxwell +with a gasp at sight of the Argosy theatre address printed in the corner +of the envelope. "I know it's a refusal." + +"If you think that will make it an acceptance," he had the hardihood to +answer, "it won't. I've tried that sort of thing too often;" and he tore +open the letter. + +It was neither a refusal nor an acceptance, and their hopes soared +again, hers visibly, his secretly, to find it a friendly confession that +the manager had not found time to read the play until the night before, +and a request that Maxwell would drop in any day between twelve and one, +which was rather a leisure time with him, and talk it over. + +"Don't lose an instant, dear!" she adjured him. + +"It's only nine o'clock," he answered, "and I shall have to lose several +instants." + +"That is so," she lamented; and then they began to canvas the probable +intention of the manager's note. She held out passionately to the end +for the most encouraging interpretation of it, but she did not feel that +it would have any malign effect upon the fact for him to say, "Oh, it's +just a way of letting me down easy," and it clearly gave him great heart +to say so. + +When he went off to meet his fate, she watched him, trembling, from the +window; as she saw him mounting the elevated steps, she wondered at his +courage; she had given him all her own. + +The manager met him with "Ah, I'm glad you came soon. These things fade +out of one's mind so, and I really want to talk about your play. I've +been very much interested in it." + +Maxwell could only bow his head and murmur something about being very +glad, very, very glad, with a stupid iteration. + +"I suppose you know, as well as I do, that it's two plays, and that it's +only half as good as if it were one." + +The manager wheeled around from his table, and looked keenly at the +author, who contrived to say, "I think I know what you mean." + +"You've got the making of the prettiest kind of little comedy in it, and +you've got the making of a very strong tragedy. But I don't think your +oil and water mix, exactly," said Grayson. + +"You think the interest of the love-business will detract from the +interest of the homicide's fate?" + +"And vice versa. Excuse me for asking something that I can very well +understand your not wanting to tell till I had read your play. Isn't +this the piece Godolphin has been trying out West?" + +"Yes, it is," said Maxwell. "I thought it might prejudice you against +it, if--" + +"Oh, that's all right. Why have you taken it from him?" + +Maxwell felt that he could make up for his want of earlier frankness +now. "I didn't take it from him; he gave it back to me." + +He sketched the history of his relation to the actor, and the manager +said, with smiling relish, "Just like him, just like Godolphin." Then +he added, "I'll tell you, and you mustn't take it amiss. Godolphin may +not know just why he gave the piece up, and he probably thinks it's +something altogether different, but you may depend upon it the trouble +was your trying to ride two horses in it. Didn't you feel that it was a +mistake yourself?" + +"I felt it so strongly at one time that I decided to develop the +love-business into a play by itself and let the other go for some other +time. My wife and I talked it over. We even discussed it with Godolphin. +He wanted to do Atland. But we all backed out simultaneously, and went +back to the play as it stood." + +"Godolphin saw he couldn't make enough of Atland," said the manager, as +if he were saying it to himself. "Well, you may be sure he feels now +that the character which most appeals to the public in the play is +Salome." + +"He felt that before." + +"And he was right. Now, I will tell you what you have got to do. You +have either got to separate the love-business from the rest of the play +and develop it into a comedy by itself--" + +"That would mean a great deal of work, and I am rather sick of the whole +thing." + +"Or," the manager went on without minding Maxwell, "you have got to cut +the part of Salome, and subordinate it entirely to Haxard"--Maxwell made +a movement of impatience and refusal, and the manager finished--"or else +you have got to treat it frankly as the leading part in the piece, and +get it into the hands of some leading actress." + +"Do you mean," the author asked, "that you--or any manager--would take +it if that were done?" + +Grayson looked a little unhappy. "No, that isn't what I mean, exactly. I +mean that as it stands, no manager would risk it, and that as soon as an +actor had read it, he would see, as Godolphin must have seen from the +start, that Haxard was a subordinate part. What you want to do is to get +it in the hands of some woman who wants to star, and would take the road +with it." The manager expatiated at some length on the point, and then +he stopped, and sat silent, as if he had done with the subject. + +Maxwell perceived that the time had come for him to get up and go away. + +"I'm greatly obliged to you for all your kindness, Mr. Grayson, and I +won't abuse your patience any further. You've been awfully good to me, +and--" He faltered, in a dejection which he could not control. Against +all reason, he had hoped that the manager would have taken his piece +just as it stood, and apparently he would not have taken it in any +event. + +"You mustn't speak of that," said the manager. "I wish you would let me +see anything else you do. There's a great deal that's good in this +piece, and I believe that a woman who would make it her battle-horse +could make it go." + +Maxwell asked, with melancholy scorn, "But you don't happen to know any +leading lady who is looking round for a battle-horse?" + +The manager seemed trying to think. "Yes, I do. You wouldn't like her +altogether, and I don't say she would be the ideal Salome, but she would +be, in her way, effective; and I know that she wants very much to get a +play. She hasn't been doing anything for a year or two but getting +married and divorced, but she made a very good start. She used to call +herself Yolande Havisham; I don't suppose it was her name; and she had a +good deal of success in the West; I don't think she's ever appeared in +New York. I believe she was of quite a good Southern family; the +Southerners all are; and I hear she has money." + +"Godolphin mentioned a Southern girl for the part," said Maxwell. "I +wonder if--" + +"Very likely it's the same one. She does emotional leads. She and +Godolphin played together in California, I believe. I was trying to +think of her married name--or her unmarried name--" + +Some one knocked at the door, and the young man put his head in, with +what Maxwell fancied a preconcerted effect, and gave the manager a card. +He said, "All right; bring him round," and he added to Maxwell, "Shall I +send your play--" + +"No, no, I will take it," and Maxwell carried it away with a heavier +heart than he had even when he got it back from Godolphin. He did not +know how to begin again, and he had to go home and take counsel with his +wife as to the next step. + +He could not bear to tell her of his disappointment, and it was harder +still to tell her of the kind of hope the manager had held out to him. +He revolved a compromise in his mind, and when they sat down together he +did not mean to conceal anything, but only to postpone something; he did +not clearly know why. He told her the alternatives the manager had +suggested, and she agreed with him they were all impossible. + +"Besides," she said, "he doesn't promise to take the play, even if you +do everything to a 't.' Did he ask you to lunch again?" + +"No, that seemed altogether a thing of the past." + +"Well, let us have ours, and then we can go into the Park, and forget +all about it for a while, and perhaps something new will suggest +itself." + +That was what they did, but nothing new suggested itself. They came home +fretted with their futile talk. There seemed nothing for Maxwell to do +but to begin the next day with some other manager. + +They found a note from Grayson waiting Maxwell. "Well, you open it," he +said, listlessly, to his wife, and in fact he felt himself at that +moment physically unable to cope with the task, and he dreaded any +fluctuation of emotion that would follow, even if it were a joyous one. + +"What does this mean, Brice?" demanded his wife, with a terrible +provisionality in her tone, as she stretched out the letter to him, and +stood before him where he lounged in the cushioned window-seat. + +Grayson had written: "If you care to submit your play to Yolande +Havisham, you can easily do so. I find that her address is the same as +yours. Her name is Harley. But I was mistaken about the divorce. It was +a death." + +Maxwell lay stupidly holding the note before him. + +"Will you tell me what it means?" his wife repeated. "Or why you didn't +tell me before, if you meant to give your play to that creature?" + +"I don't mean to give it to her," said Maxwell, doggedly. "I never did, +for an instant. As for not telling you that Grayson had suggested +it--well, perhaps I wished to spare myself a scene like the present." + +"Do you think I will believe you?" + +"I don't think you will insult me. Why shouldn't you believe I am +telling you the truth?" + +"Because--because you didn't tell me at once." + +"That is nonsense, and you know it. If I wanted to keep this from you, +it was to spare you the annoyance I can't help now, and because the +thing was settled in my mind as soon as Grayson proposed it." + +"Then, why has he written to you about it?" + +"I suppose I didn't say it was settled." + +"Suppose? Don't you _know_ whether you did?" + +"Come, now, Louise! I am not on the witness-stand, and I won't be +cross-questioned. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. What is the +matter with you? Am I to blame because a man who doesn't imagine your +dislike of a woman that you never spoke to suggests her taking part in a +play that she probably wouldn't look at? You're preposterous! Try to +have a little common-sense!" These appeals seemed to have a certain +effect with his wife; she looked daunted; but Maxwell had the misfortune +to add, "One would think you were jealous of the woman." + +"_Now_ you are insulting _me_!" she cried. "But it's a part of the +vulgarity of the whole business. Actors, authors, managers, you're all +alike." + +Maxwell got very pale. "Look out, Louise!" he warned her. + +"I _won't_ look out. If you had any delicacy, the least delicacy in the +world, you could imagine how a woman who had given the most sacred +feelings of her nature to you for your selfish art would loathe to be +represented by such a creature as that, and still not be jealous of her, +as you call it! But I am justly punished! I might have expected it." + +The maid appeared at the door and said something, which neither of them +could make out at once, but which proved to be the question whether Mrs. +Maxwell had ordered the dinner. + +"No, I will go--I was just going out for it," said Louise. She had in +fact not taken off her hat or gloves since she came in from her walk, +and she now turned and swept out of the room without looking at her +husband. He longed to detain her, to speak some kindly or clarifying +word, to set himself right with her, to set her right with herself; but +the rage was so hot in his heart that he could not. She came back to the +door a moment, and looked in. "_I_ will do _my_ duty." + +"It's rather late," he sneered, "but if you're very conscientious, I +dare say we shall have dinner at the usual time." + +He did not leave the window-seat, and it was as if the door had only +just clashed to after her when there came a repeated and violent ringing +at the bell, so that he jumped up himself, to answer it, without waiting +for the maid. + +"Your wife--your wife!" panted the bell-boy, who stood there. "She's +hurt herself, and she's fainted." + +"My wife? Where--how?" He ran down stairs after the boy, and in the +hallway on the ground floor he found Louise stretched upon the marble +pavement, with her head in the lap of a woman, who was chafing her +hands. He needed no look at this woman's face to be sure that it was the +woman of his wife's abhorrence, and he felt quite as sure that it was +the actress Yolande Havisham, from the effective drama of her +self-possession. + +"Don't be frightened. Your wife turned her foot on the steps here. I +was coming into the house, and caught her from falling. It's only a +swoon." She spoke with the pseudo-English accent of the stage, but with +a Southern slip upon the vowels here and there. "Get some water, +please." + +The hall-boy came running up the back stairs with some that he had gone +to get, and the woman bade Maxwell sprinkle his wife's face. But he +said: "No--you," and he stooped and took his wife's head into his own +hands, so that she might not come to in the lap of Mrs. Harley; in the +midst of his dismay he reflected how much she would hate that. He could +hardly keep himself from being repellant and resentful towards the +woman. In his remorse for quarrelling with Louise, it was the least +reparation he could offer her. Mrs. Harley, if it were she, seemed not +to notice his rudeness. She sprinkled Louise's face, and wiped her +forehead with the handkerchief she dipped in the water; but this did not +bring her out of her faint, and Maxwell began to think she was dead, and +to feel that he was a murderer. With a strange aesthetic vigilance he +took note of his sensations for use in revising Haxard. + +The janitor of the building had somehow arrived, and Mrs. Harley said: +"I will go for a doctor, if you can get her up to your apartment;" and +she left Louise with the two men. + +The janitor, a burly Irishman, lifted her in his arms, and carried her +up the three flights of steps; Maxwell followed, haggardly, helplessly. + +On her own bed, Louise revived, and said: "My shoe--Oh, get it off!" + +The doctor came a few minutes later, but Mrs. Harley did not appear with +him as Maxwell had dreaded she would. He decided that Mrs. Maxwell had +strained, not sprained, her ankle, and he explained how the difference +was all the difference in the world, as he bound the ankle up with a +long ribbon of india-rubber, and issued directions for care and quiet. + +He left them there, and Maxwell heard him below in parley, apparently +with the actress at her door. Louise lay with her head on her husband's +arm, and held his other hand tight in hers, while he knelt by the bed. +The bliss of repentance and mutual forgiveness filled both their hearts, +while she told him how she had hurt herself. + +"I had got down to the last step, and I was putting my foot to the +pavement, and I thought, Now I am going to turn my ankle. Wasn't it +strange? And I turned it. How did you get me upstairs?" + +"The janitor carried you." + +"How lucky he happened to be there! I suppose the hall-boy kept me from +falling--poor little fellow! You must give him some money. How did you +find out about me?" + +"He ran up to tell," Maxwell said this, and then he hesitated. "I guess +you had better know all about it. Can you bear something disagreeable, +or would you rather wait--" + +"No, no, tell me now! I can't bear to wait. What is it?" + +"It wasn't the hall-boy that caught you. It was that--woman." + +He felt her neck and hand grow rigid, but he went on, and told her all +about it. At the end some quiet tears came into her eyes. "Well, then, +we must be civil to her. I am glad you told me at once, Brice!" She +pulled his head down and kissed him, and he was glad, too. + + + + +XV. + + +Louise sent Maxwell down to Mrs. Harley's apartment to thank her, and +tell her how slight the accident was; and while he was gone she +abandoned herself to an impassioned dramatization of her own death from +blood-poisoning, and her husband's early marriage with the actress, who +then appeared in all his plays, though they were not happy together. Her +own spectre was always rising between them, and she got some fearful joy +out of that. She counted his absence by her heart-beats, but he came +back so soon that she was ashamed, and was afraid that he had behaved so +as to give the woman a notion that he was not suffered to stay longer. +He explained that he had found her gloved and bonneted to go out, and +that he had not stayed for fear of keeping her. She had introduced him +to her mother, who was civil about Louise's accident, and they had both +begged him to let them do anything they could for her. He made his +observations, and when Louise, after a moment, asked him about them, he +said they affected him as severally typifying the Old South and the New +South. They had a photograph over the mantel, thrown up large, of an +officer in Confederate uniform. Otherwise the room had nothing personal +in it; he suspected the apartment of having been taken furnished, like +their own. Louise asked if he should say they were ladies, and he +answered that he thought they were. + +"Of course," she said, and she added, with a wide sweep of censure: +"They get engaged to four or five men at a time, down there. Well," she +sighed, "you mustn't stay in here with me, dear. Go to your writing." + +"I was thinking whether you couldn't come out and lie on the lounge. I +hate to leave you alone in here." + +"No, the doctor said to be perfectly quiet. Perhaps I can, to-morrow, if +it doesn't swell up any worse." + +She kept her hold of his hand, which he had laid in hers, and he sat +down beside the bed, in the chair he had left there. He did not speak, +and after a while she asked, "What are you thinking of?" + +"Oh, nothing. The confounded play, I suppose." + +"You're disappointed at Grayson's not taking it." + +"One is always a fool." + +"Yes," said Louise, with a catching of the breath. She gripped his hand +hard, and said, as well as she could in keeping back the tears, "Well, I +will never stand in your way, Brice. You may do +anything--_anything_--with it that you think best." + +"I shall never do anything you don't like," he answered, and he leaned +over and kissed her, and at this her passion burst in a violent sobbing, +and when she could speak she made him solemnly promise that he would not +regard her in the least, but would do whatever was wisest and best with +the play, for otherwise she should never be happy again. + +As she could not come out to join him at dinner, he brought a little +table to the bedside, and put his plate on it, and ate his dinner there +with her. She gave him some attractive morsels off her own plate, which +he had first insisted on bestowing upon her. They had such a gay evening +that the future brightened again, and they arranged for Maxwell to take +his play down-town the next day, and not lose a moment in trying to +place it with some manager. + +It all left him very wakeful, for his head began to work upon this +scheme and that. When he went to lock the outer door for the night, the +sight of his overcoat hanging in the hall made him think of a +theatrical newspaper he had bought coming home, at a certain corner of +Broadway, where numbers of smooth-shaven, handsome men, and women with +dark eyes and champagned hair were lounging and passing. He had got it +on the desperate chance that it might suggest something useful to him. +He now took it out of his coat-pocket, and began to look its +advertisements over in the light of his study lamp, partly because he +was curious about it, and partly because he knew that he should begin to +revise his play otherwise, and then he should not sleep all night. + +In several pages of the paper ladies with flowery and alliterative names +and pseudonyms proclaimed themselves in large letters, and in smaller +type the parts they were presently playing in different combinations; +others gave addresses and announced that they were At Liberty, or +specified the kinds of roles they were accustomed to fill, as Leads or +Heavies, Dancing Soubrettes and Boys; Leads, Emotional and Juvenile; +Heavy or Juvenile or Emotional Leads. There were gentlemen seeking +engagements who were Artistic Whistling Soloists, Magicians, Leading +Men, Leading Heavies, Singing and Dancing Comedians, and there were both +ladies and gentlemen who were now Starring in this play or that, but +were open to offers later. A teacher of stage dancing promised +instruction in skirt and serpentine dancing, as well as high kicking, +front and back, the backward bend, side practice, toe-practice, and all +novelties. Dramatic authors had their cards among the rest, and one poor +fellow, as if he had not the heart to name himself, advertised a play to +be heard of at the office of the newspaper. Whatever related to the +theatre was there, in bizarre solidarity, which was droll enough to +Maxwell in one way. But he hated to be mixed up with all that, and he +perceived that he must be mixed up with it more and more, if he wrote +for the theatre. Whether he liked it or not, he was part of the thing +which in its entirety meant high-kicking and toe-practice, as well as +the expression of the most mystical passions of the heart. There was an +austerity in him which the fact offended, and he did what he could to +appease this austerity by reflecting that it was the drama and never the +theatre that he loved; but for the time this was useless. He saw that if +he wrote dramas he could not hold aloof from the theatre, nor from +actors and actresses--heavies and juveniles, and emotionals and +soubrettes. He must know them, and more intimately; and at first he must +be subject to them, however he mastered them at last; he must flatter +their oddities and indulge their caprices. His experience with +Godolphin had taught him that, and his experience with Godolphin in the +construction of his play could be nothing to what he must undergo at +rehearsals and in the effort to adapt his work to a company. He reminded +himself that Shakespeare even must have undergone all that. But this did +not console him. He was himself, and what another, the greatest, had +suffered would not save him. Besides, it was not the drama merely that +Maxwell loved; it was not making plays alone; it was causing the life +that he had known to speak from the stage, and to teach there its +serious and important lesson. In the last analysis he was a moralist, +and more a moralist than he imagined. To enforce, in the vividest and +most palpable form, what he had thought true, it might be worth while to +endure all the trials that he must; but at that moment he did not think +so; and he did not dare submit his misgiving to his wife. + +They had now been six months married, and if he had allowed himself to +face the fact he must have owned that, though they loved each other so +truly, and he had known moments of exquisite, of incredible rapture, he +had been as little happy as in any half-year he had lived. He never +formulated his wife's character, or defined the precise relation she +bore to his life; if he could have been challenged to do so, he would +have said that she was the whole of life to him, and that she was the +most delightful woman in the world. + +He tasted to its last sweetness the love of loving her and of being +loved by her. At the same time there was an obscure stress upon him +which he did not trace to her at once; a trouble in his thoughts which, +if he could have seen it clearly, he would have recognized for a lurking +anxiety concerning how she would take the events of their life as they +came. Without realizing it, for his mind was mostly on his work, and it +was only in some dim recess of his spirit that the struggle took place, +he was perpetually striving to adjust himself to the unexpected, or +rather the unpredictable. + +But when he was most afraid of her harassing uncertainty of emotion or +action he was aware of her fixed loyalty to him; and perhaps it was the +final effect with himself that he dreaded. Should he always be able to +bear and forbear, as he felt she would, with all her variableness and +turning? The question did not put itself in words, and neither did his +conviction that his relation to the theatre was doubled in difficulty +through her. But he perceived that she had no love for the drama, and +only a love for his love of it; and sometimes he vaguely suspected that +if he had been in business she would have been as fond of business as +she was of the drama. He never perhaps comprehended her ideal, and how +it could include an explicit and somewhat noisy devotion to the aims of +his ambition, because it was his, and a patronizing reservation in +regard to the ambition itself. But this was quite possible with Louise, +just as it was possible for her to have had a humble personal joy in +giving herself to him, while she had a distinct social sense of the +sacrifice she had made in marrying him. In herself she looked up to him; +as her father's and mother's daughter, as the child of her circumstance, +there is no doubt she looked down upon him. But neither of these +attitudes held in their common life. Love may or may not level ranks, +but marriage unquestionably does, and is the one form of absolute +equality. The Maxwells did not take themselves or each other +objectively; they loved and hated, they made war and made peace, without +any sense of the difference or desert that might have been apparent to +the spectators. + +Maxwell had never been so near the standpoint of the impartial observer +as now when he confronted the question of what he should do, with a +heart twice burdened by the question whether his wife would not make it +hard for him to do it, whatever it was. He thought, with dark +foreboding, of the difficulties he should have to smooth out for her if +it ever came to a production of the piece. The best thing that could +happen, perhaps, would be its rejection, final and total, by all +possible managers and actors; for she would detest any one who took the +part of Salome, and would hold him responsible for all she should suffer +from it. + +He recurred to what he had felt so strongly himself, and what Grayson +had suggested, and thought how he could free himself from fealty to her +by cutting out the whole love-business from his play. But that would be +very hard. The thing had now knitted itself in one texture in his mind, +and though he could sever the ties that bound the parts together, it +would take from the piece the great element of charm. It was not +symmetrical as it stood, but it was not two distinct motives; the +motives had blended, and they really belonged to each other. He would +have to invent some other love-business if he cut this out, but still it +could be done. Then it suddenly flashed upon him that there was +something easier yet, and that was to abandon the notion of getting his +piece played at all, and to turn it into a novel. He could give it +narrative form without much trouble, if any, beyond that of copying it, +and it would be thought a very dramatic story. He saw instantly how he +could keep and even enhance all the charm of the love-business as it +stood, in a novel; and in his revulsion of feeling he wished to tell his +wife. He made a movement towards the door of her room, but he heard the +even breathing of her sleep, and he stopped and flung himself on the +lounge to think. It was such a happy solution of the whole affair! He +need not even cease trying it with the managers, for he could use the +copy of the play that Godolphin had returned for that, and he could use +the copy he had always kept for recasting it in narrative. By the time +that he had got his play back from the last manager he would have his +novel ready for the first publisher. In the meantime he should be +writing his letters for the _Abstract_, and not consuming all his little +savings. + +The relief from the stress upon him was delicious. He lay at rest and +heard the soft breathing of his wife from the other room, and an +indescribable tenderness for her filled his heart. Then he heard her +voice saying, "Well, don't wake him, poor boy!" + + + + +XVI. + + +Maxwell opened his eyes and found the maid lightly escaping from the +room. He perceived that he had slept all night on the lounge, and he +sent a cheery hail into his wife's room, and then followed it to tell +her how he had thought it all out. She was as glad as he was; she +applauded his plan to the ceiling; and he might not have thought of her +accident if he had not seen presently that she was eating her breakfast +in bed. + +Then he asked after her ankle, and she said, "Oh, that is perfectly +well, or the same as perfectly. There's no pain at all there to speak +of, and I shall get up to luncheon. You needn't mind me any more. If you +haven't taken your death of cold sleeping there on the lounge--" + +"I haven't." + +"I want you to go down town to some manager with your play, and get some +paper, the kind I like; and then, after lunch, we'll begin turning it +into a novel, from your copy. It will be so easy for you that you can +dictate, and I'll do the writing, and we'll work it up together. Shall +you like collaborating with me?" + +"Ah!--" + +"It will be our story, and I shall like it twice as well as if it were a +play. We shall be independent of the theatre, that's one satisfaction; +they can take the play, if they like, but it will be perfectly +indifferent to us. I shall help you get in all those nice touches that +you said you could never get into a play, like that green light in the +woods. I know just how we shall manage that love business, and we +sha'n't have any horror of an actress interpreting our inspirations to +the public. We'll play Atland and Salome ourselves. We'll--ow!" + +She had given her foot a twist in the excitement and she fell back on +the pillow rather faint. But she instantly recovered herself with a +laugh, and she hurried him away to his breakfast, and then away with his +play. He would rather have stayed and begun turning it into a story at +once. But she would not let him; she said it would be a loss of time, +and she should fret a good deal more to have him there with her, than +to have him away, for she should know he was just staying to cheer her +up. + +When he was gone she sent for whatever papers the maid could find in the +parlor, so that she need not think of him in the amusement she would get +out of them. Among the rest was that dramatic newspaper which caught her +eye first, with the effigy of a very dramatized young woman whose +portrait filled the whole first page. Louise abhorred her, but with a +novel sense of security in the fact that Maxwell's play was going so +soon to be turned into a story; and she felt personally aloof from all +the people who had dragged him down with a sense of complicity in their +professional cards. She found them neither so droll nor so painful as he +had, but she was very willing to turn from them, and she was giving the +paper a parting glance before dropping it when she was arrested by an +advertisement which made her start: + + WANTED.--A drama for prominent star; light comic and emotional: + star part must embody situations for the display of intense + effects. Address L. STERNE, this office. + +A series of effects as intense as the advertiser could have desired in a +drama followed one another in the mind of Louise. She now wildly +reproached herself that she had, however unwittingly, sent her husband +out of reach for four or five hours, when his whole future might depend +upon his instantly answering this notice. Whether he had already seen +the notice and rashly decided to ignore it, or had not seen it, he might +involve himself with some manager irretrievably before he could be got +at with a demand which seemed specifically framed to describe his play. +She was in despair that there was no means of sending a messenger-boy +after him with any chance of finding him. The light comic reliefs which +the advertiser would have wished to give the dark phases of her mood +were suggested by her reckless energy in whirling herself into her +dressing-gown, and hopping out to Maxwell's desk in the other room, +where she dashed off a note in reply to the advertisement in her +husband's name, and then checked herself with the reflection that she +had no right to sign his name: even in such a cause she must not do +anything wrong. Something must be done, however, right or wrong, and she +decided that a very formal note in the third person would involve the +least moral trespass. She fixed upon these terms, after several +experiments, almost weeping at the time they cost her, when every moment +was precious: + +_Mr. Brice Maxwell writes to Mr. L. Sterne and begs to inform him that +he has a play which he believes will meet the requirements of Mr. +Sterne, as stated in his advertisement in the Theatrical Register of +November the tenth. Mr. Maxwell asks the favor of an interview with Mr. +Sterne at any time and place that Mr. Sterne may appoint._ + +It seemed to her that this violated no law of man or God, or if it did +the exigency was such that the action could be forgiven, if not +justified. She ransacked Maxwell's desk for a special delivery stamp, +and sent the letter out beyond recall; and then it occurred to her that +its opening terms were too much those of a lady addressing a seamstress; +but after a good deal of anguish on this point she comforted herself +with the hope that a man would not know the form, or at least would not +suspect another man of using it offensively. + +She passed the time till Maxwell came back, in doubt whether to tell him +what she had done. There was no reason why she should not, except that +he might have seen the advertisement and decided not to answer it for +some reason; but in that case it might be said that he ought to have +spoken to her about it. She told him everything at once, but there were +many things that he did not tell her till long afterwards; it would be a +good thing to let him realize how that felt; besides, it would be a +pleasure to keep it and let it burst upon him, if that L. Sterne, +whoever he was, asked to see the play. In any case, it would not be a +great while that she need keep from him what she had done, but at sight +of him when he came in she could hardly be silent. He was gloomy and +dispirited, and he confessed that his pleasant experience with Grayson +had not been repeated with the other managers. They had all been civil +enough, and he had seen three or four of them, but only one had +consented to let him even leave his play with him; the others said that +it would be useless for them to look at it. + +She could not forbear showing him the advertisement she had answered as +they sat at lunch; but he glanced at it with disdain, and said there +must be some sort of fake in it; if it was some irresponsible fellow +getting up a combination he would not scruple to use the ideas of any +manuscript submitted to him and work them over to suit himself. Louise +could not speak. All heart went out of her; she wanted to cry, and she +did not tell what she had done. + +Neither of them ate much. He asked her if she was ready to begin on the +story with him; she said, "Oh yes;" and she hobbled off into the other +room. Then he seemed to remember her hurt for the first time; he had +been so full of his failure with the play before. He asked her how she +was, and she said much better; and then he stretched himself on the +lounge and tried to dictate, and she took her place at his desk and +tried to write. But she either ran ahead of him and prompted him, which +vexed him, or she lagged so far behind that he lost the thread of what +he was saying and became angry. At last she put her head down on the +paper and blotted it with her tears. + +At that he said, "Oh, you'd better go back to bed," and then, though he +spoke harshly, he lifted her tenderly and half carried her to her room. + + + + +XVII. + + +They did not try working the play into a story again together. Maxwell +kept doggedly at it, though he said it was of no use; the thing had +taken the dramatic form with inexorable fixity as it first came from his +mind; it could be changed, of course, but it could only be changed for +the worse, artistically. If he could sell it as a story, the work would +not be lost; he would gain the skill that came from doing, in any event, +and it would keep him alive under the ill-luck that now seemed to have +set in. + +None of the managers wanted his play. Some of them seemed to want it +less than others; some wanted it less immediately than others; some did +not want it after reading; some refused it without reading it; some had +their arrangements made for an indefinite time, others in the present +uncertain state of affairs could not make any arrangements; some said it +was an American play; others that it was un-American in its pessimistic +spirit; some found it too literary; others, lacking in imagination. They +were nearly all so kind that at first Maxwell was guilty of the folly of +trying to persuade them against the reasons they gave; when he realized +that these reasons were also excuses, he set his teeth and accepted them +in silence. + +For a number of days Louise suffered in momentary expectation of a reply +from L. Sterne. She thought it would come by district messenger the day +she wrote; and for several days afterwards she had the letters brought +to her first, so that she could read them, and not disturb Maxwell with +them at his work, if it were not necessary. He willingly agreed to that; +he saw that it helped to pass the irksome time for her. She did not mean +to conceal any answer she should have from L. Sterne, but she meant when +the answer came to prepare her husband for it in such sort that he would +understand her motive, and though he condemned it, would easily forgive +her. But the days went and no letter from L. Sterne came, and after a +season of lively indignation at his rudeness, Louise began to forget him +a little, though she still kept her surveillance of the mail. + +It was always on her conscience, in the meantime, to give some of the +first moments of her recovery to going with Maxwell and thanking Mrs. +Harley for the kindness she had shown her in her accident. She was the +more strenuous in this intention because the duty was so distasteful, +and she insisted upon Maxwell's company, though he argued that he had +already done enough himself in thanking her preserver, because she +wished to punish a certain reluctance of her own in having him go. She +promised herself that she would do everything that was right by the +creature; and perhaps she repaired to her presence in rather +overwhelming virtue. If this was so, Mrs. Harley showed herself equal to +the demand upon her, and was overwhelming in her kind. She not only made +nothing of what she had done for Louise, but she made nothing of Louise, +and contrived with a few well-directed strokes to give her distinctly +the sense of being a chit, a thing Louise was not at all used to. She +was apparently one of those women who have no use for persons of their +own sex; but few women, even of that sort, could have so promptly +relegated Louise to the outside of their interest, or so frankly devoted +themselves to Maxwell. The impartial spectator might easily have +imagined that it was his ankle which had been strained, and that Louise +was at best an intrusive sympathizer. Sometimes Mrs. Harley did not +hear what she said; at other times, if she began a response to her, she +ended it in a question to him; even when she talked to Louise, her eyes +were smouldering upon Maxwell. If this had all or any of it been +helpless or ignorant rudeness, it could have been borne and forgiven; +but Louise was aware of intention, of perfect intelligence in it; she +was sensible of being even more disliked than disliking, and of finally +being put to flight with a patronizing benevolence for her complete +recovery that was intolerable. What was worse was that, while the woman +had been so offensive, she could not wholly rid herself of the feeling +that her punishment was in a measure merited, though it was not justice +that had dealt with her. + +"Well, that is over," said Maxwell, when they were again by themselves. + +"Yes, forever," sighed Louise, and for once she was not let have the +last word. + +"I hope you'll remember that I didn't want to go." + +At least, they had not misunderstood each other about Mrs. Harley. + +Towards the end of the month, Louise's father and mother came on from +Boston. They professed that they had been taken with that wish to see +the autumn exhibition at the National Academy which sometimes affects +Bostonians, and that their visit had nothing to do with the little hurt +that Louise wrote them of when she was quite well of it. They drove over +from their hotel the morning they arrived, and she did not know anything +of their coming till she heard their voices at the door; her father's +voice was rather husky from the climb to her apartment. + +The apartment was looking somewhat frouzy, for the Maxwells breakfasted +late, and the house-maid had not had time to put it in order. Louise saw +it through her father's and mother's eyes with the glance they gave it, +and found the rooms ridiculously little, and furnished with cheap +Fourteenth Street things; but she bragged all the more noisily of it on +that account, and made her mother look out of the window for the pretty +view they had from their corner room. Mrs. Hilary pulled her head back +from the prospect of the railroad-ridden avenue with silent horror, and +Louise burst into a wild laugh. "Well, it _isn't_ Commonwealth Avenue, +mamma; I don't pretend that, you know." + +"Where's Maxwell?" asked Hilary, still puffing from the lounge he had +sunk upon as soon as he got into the room. + +"Oh, he's down town interviewing a manager about his play." + +"I thought that fellow out West had his play. Or is this a new one?" + +"No," said Louise, very slowly and thoughtfully, "Brice has taken back +his play from Mr. Godolphin." This was true; he _had_ taken it back in a +sense. She added, as much to herself as to her father, "But he _has_ got +a new play--that he's working at." + +"I hope he hasn't been rash with Godolphin; though I always had an idea +that it would have been better for him to deal with a manager. It seems +more business-like." + +"Oh, much," said Louise. + +After a little while they were more at home with each other; she began +to feel herself more their child, and less Maxwell's wife; the barriers +of reluctance against him, which she always knew were up with them, fell +away from between them and herself. But her father said they had come to +get her and Maxwell to lunch with them at their hotel, and then Louise +felt herself on her husband's side of the fence again. She said no, they +must stay with her; that she was sure Brice would be back for lunch; and +she wanted to show them her house-keeping. Mrs. Hilary cast her eye +about the room at the word, as if she had seen quite enough of it +already, and this made Louise laugh again. She was no better in person +than the room was, and she felt her mother's tacit censure apply to her +slatternly dressing-gown. + +"I know what you're thinking, mamma. But I got the habit of it when I +had my strained ankle." + +"Oh, I'm sure it must be very comfortable," Mrs. Hilary said, of the +dressing-gown. "Is it entirely well now?" she added, of the ankle; and +she and Hilary both looked at Louise in a way that would have convinced +her that their final anxiety concerning it had brought them to New York, +if she had not guessed it already. "The doctor," and by this she meant +their old family doctor, as if he were the only one, "said you couldn't +be too careful." + +"Well, I haven't been careful," said Louise, gayly; "but I'm quite well, +and you can go back at once, if that's all, mamma." + +Hilary laughed with her. "You haven't changed much, Louise." + +Her mother said, in another sense, "I think you look a little pulled +down," and that made her and her father laugh again. She got to playing +with him, and poking him, and kissing him, in the way she had with him +when she was a girl; it was not so very long ago. + +Her mother bore with this for awhile, and then she rose to go. + +"You're not going to stay!" Louise protested. + +"Not to-day, my dear. I've got some shopping to do before lunch." + +"Well," said Louise, "I didn't suppose you would stay the first time, +such swells as you and papa. But I shall insist upon your coming +to-morrow when you've recovered a little from the blow this home of +virtuous poverty has given you, and I've had a chance to dust and +prepare for you. And I'll tell you what, mamma; Brice and I will come to +dinner with you to-night, and we won't take any refusal. We'll be with +you at seven. How will that do, papa?" + +"That will do," said Hilary, with his arm round her waist, and they +kissed each other to clinch the bargain. + +"And don't you two old things go away and put your frosty paws together +and say Brice and I are not happy. We do quarrel like cats and dogs +every now and then, but the rest of the time we're the happiest couple +in the universe, and an example to parents." + +Hilary would have manifestly liked to stay and have her go on with her +nonsense, but his wife took him away. + +When Maxwell came in she was so full of their visit that she did not ask +him what luck he had with his play, but told him at once they were going +to dine with her father and mother. "And I want you to brace up, my +dear, and not let them imagine anything." + +"How, anything?" he asked, listlessly. + +"Oh, nothing. About your play not going perfectly. I didn't think it +necessary to go into particulars with them, and you needn't. Just pass +it over lightly if they ask you anything about it. But they won't." + +Maxwell did not look so happy as he might at the prospect of dining with +his wife's father and mother, but he did not say anything disagreeable, +and after an instant of silent resentment Louise did not say anything +disagreeable either. In fact, she devoted herself to avoiding any +displeasures with him, and she arrived with him at the Hilarys' hotel on +perfectly good terms, and, as far as he was concerned, in rather good +spirits. + +Upon the whole, they had a very good time. Hilary made occasion to speak +to Maxwell of his letters to the _Abstract_, and told him they were +considered by far the best letters of the kind published anywhere, which +meant anywhere in Boston. + +"You do that sort of thing so well, newspaper writing," he continued, +with a slyness that was not lost upon Louise, though Maxwell was +ignorant of his drift, "that I wonder you don't sometimes want to take +it up again." + +"It's well enough," said Maxwell, who was gratified by his praise. + +"By the way," said Hilary, "I met your friend, Mr. Ricker, the other +day, and he spoke most cordially about you. I fancy he would be very +glad to have you back." + +"In the old way? I would rather be excused." + +"No, from what he said, I thought he would like your writing in the +editorial page." + +Maxwell looked pleased. "Ricker's always been very good, but he has very +little influence on the _Abstract_. He has no money interest in the +paper." + +Hilary said, with the greatest artfulness, "I wonder he doesn't buy in. +I hear it can be done." + +"Not by Ricker, for the best of all possible reasons," said Maxwell, +with a laugh. + +Louise could hardly wait till she had parted from her father and mother +before she began on her husband: "You goose! Didn't you see that papa +was hinting at buying _you_ a share in the _Abstract_?" + +"He was very modest about it, then; I didn't see anything of the kind." + +"Oh, do you think _you_ are the only modest man? Papa is _very_ modest, +and he wouldn't make you an offer outright, unless he saw that you would +like it. But I know that was what he was coming to, and if you'll let +me--" + +A sentiment of a reluctance rather than a refusal was what made itself +perceptible from his arm to hers, as they hurried along the street +together, and Louise would not press the question till he spoke again. + +He did not speak till they were in the train on their way home. Then he +said, "I shouldn't care to have a money interest in a newspaper. It +would tie me up to it, and load me down with cares I should hate. It +wouldn't be my real life." + +"Yes," said his wife, but when they got into their little apartment she +cast an eye, opened to its meanness and narrowness, over the common +belongings, and wondered if he would ask himself whether this was her +real life. But she did not speak, though she was apt to speak out most +things that she thought. + + + + +XVIII. + + +Some people began to call, old friends of her mother, whose visit to New +York seemed to have betrayed to them the fact of Louise's presence for +the first time, and some friends of her own, who had married, and come +to New York to live, and who said they had just got back to town long +enough to learn that she was there. These all reproached her for not +having let them know sooner where she was, and they all more or less +followed up their reproaches with the invitations which she dreaded +because of Maxwell's aversion for them. But she submitted them to him, +and submitted to his refusal to go with her, and declined them. In her +heart she thought he was rather ungracious, but she did not say so, +though in two or three cases of people whom she liked she coaxed him a +little to go with her. Meeting her mother and talking over the life she +used to lead in Boston, and the life so many people were leading there +still, made her a little hungry for society; she would have liked well +enough to find herself at a dinner again, and she would have felt a +little dancing after the dinner no hardship; but she remembered the +promise she had made herself not to tease Maxwell about such things. So +she merely coaxed him, and he so far relented as to ask her why she +could not go without him, and that hurt her, and she said she never +would go without him. All the same, when there came an invitation for +lunch, from a particularly nice friend of her girlhood, she hesitated +and was lost. She had expected, somehow, that it was going to be a very +little lunch, but she found it a very large one, in the number of +people, and after the stress of accounting for her husband's failure to +come with her, she was not sorry to have it so. She inhaled with joy the +atmosphere of the flower-scented rooms; her eye dwelt with delight on +their luxurious and tasteful appointments, the belongings of her former +life, which seemed to emerge in them from the past and claim her again; +the women in their _chic_ New York costumes and their miracles of early +winter hats hailed her a long-lost sister by every graceful movement and +cultivated tone; the correctly tailored and agreeably mannered men had +polite intelligence of a world that Maxwell never would and never could +be part of; the talk of the little amusing, unvital things that began at +once was more precious to her than the problems which the austere +imagination of her husband dealt with; it suddenly fatigued her to think +how hard she had tried to sympathize with his interest in them. Her +heart leaped at sight of the long, rose-heaped table, with its glitter +of glass and silver, and the solemn perfection of the serving-men; a +spectacle not important in itself was dear to her from association with +gayeties, which now, for a wicked moment, seemed to her better than +love. + +There were all sorts of people: artists and actors, as well as people of +fashion. Her friend had given her some society notable to go out with, +but she had appointed for the chair next her, on the other hand, a young +man in a pretty pointed beard, whom she introduced across from the head +of the table as soon as she could civilly take the notable to herself. +Louise did not catch his name, and it seemed presently that he had not +heard hers, but their acquaintance prospered without this knowledge. He +made some little jokes, which she promptly responded to, and they talked +awhile as if they were both New-Yorkers, till she said, at some remark +of his, "But I am not a New-Yorker," and then he said, "Well, neither am +I," and offered to tell her what he was if she would tell him what she +was. + +"Oh, I'm from Boston, of course," she answered, but then, instead of +saying where he was from, he broke out: + +"Now I will fulfil my vow!" + +"Your vow? What is your vow?" + +"To ask the first Boston person I met if that Boston person knew +anything about another Boston person, who wrote a most remarkable play I +saw in the fall out at home." + +"A play?" said Louise, with a total loss of interest in the gentleman's +city or country. + +"Yes, by a Boston man named Maxwell--" + +Louise stared at him, and if their acquaintance had been a little older, +she might have asked him to come off. As it was she could not speak, and +she let him go on. + +"I don't know when I've ever had a stronger impression in the theatre +than I had from that play. Perfectly modern, and perfectly American." He +briefly sketched it. "It was like a terrible experience on the tragic +side, and on the other side it was a rapture. I never saw love-making on +the stage before that made me wish to be a lover--" + +A fire-red flew over Louise's face, and she said, almost snubbingly, as +if he had made some unwarrantable advance: "I think I had better not let +you go on. It was my husband who wrote that play. I am Mrs. Maxwell." + +"Mrs. Maxwell! You are Mrs. Maxwell?" he gasped, and she could not doubt +the honesty of his amaze. + +His confusion was so charming that she instantly relented. "Of course I +should like to have you go on all day as you've begun, but there's no +telling what exceptions you might be going to make later. Where did you +see my husband's play?" + +"In Midland--" + +"What! You are not--you can't be--Mr. Ray?" + +"I am--I can," he returned, gleefully, and now Louise impulsively gave +him her hand under the table-cloth. + +The man[oe]uvre caught the eye of the hostess. "A bet?" she asked. + +"Better," cried Louise, not knowing her pun, "a thousand times," and she +turned without further explanation to the gentleman: "When I tell Mr. +Maxwell of this he will suffer as he ought, and that's saying a great +deal, for not coming with me to-day. To think of it's being _you_!" + +"Ah, but to think of it's being _he_! You acquit me of the poor taste of +putting up a job?" + +"Oh, of anything you want to be acquitted of! What crime would you +prefer? There are whole deluges of mercy for you. But now go on, and +tell me everything you thought about the play." + +"I'd rather you'd tell me what you know about the playwright." + +"Everything, of course, and nothing." She added the last words from a +sudden, poignant conviction. "Isn't that the way with the wives of you +men of genius?" + +"Am I a man of genius?" + +"You're literary." + +"Oh, literary, yes. But I'm not married." + +"You're determined to get out of it, somehow. Tell me about Midland. It +has filled such a space in our imagination! You can't think what a +comfort and stay you have been to us! But why in Midland? Is it a large +place?" + +"Would it take such a very big one to hold me? It's the place I brought +myself up in, and it's very good to me, and so I live there. I don't +think it has any vast intellectual or aesthetic interests, but there are +very nice people there, very cultivated, some of them, and very well +read. After all, you don't need a great many people; three or four will +do." + +"And have you always lived there?" + +"I lived a year or so in New York, and I manage to get on here some time +every winter. The rest of the year Midland is quite enough for me. It's +gay at times; there's a good deal going on; and I can write there as +well as anywhere, and better than in New York. Then, you know, in a +small way I'm a prophet in my own country, perhaps because I was away +from it for awhile. It's very pretty. But it's very base of you to make +me talk about myself when I'm so anxious to hear about Mr. Maxwell." + +"And do you spend all your time writing Ibsen criticisms of Ibsen +plays?" Louise pursued against his protest. + +"I do some other kind of writing." + +"As--" + +"Oh, no! I'm not here to interview myself." + +"Oh, but you ought. I know you've written something--some novel. Your +name was so familiar from the first." Mr. Ray laughed and shook his head +in mockery of her cheap device. "You mustn't be vexed because I'm so +vague about it. I'm very ignorant." + +"You said you were from Boston." + +"But there are Bostons and Bostons. The Boston that I belonged to never +hears of American books till they are forgotten!" + +"Ah, how famous I must be there!" + +"I see you are determined to be bad. But I remember now; it was a play. +Haven't you written a play?" He held up three fingers. "I knew it! What +was it?" + +"My plays," said the young fellow, with a mock of superiority, "have +never been played. I've been told that they are above the heads of an +audience. It's a great consolation. But now, really, about Mr. +Maxwell's. When is it to be given here? I hoped very much that I might +happen on the very time." + +Louise hesitated a moment, and then she said: "You know he has taken it +back from Godolphin." It was not so hard to say this as it was at first, +but it still required resolution. + +"Oh, I'm so glad!" said Mr. Ray. "I never thought he appreciated it. He +was so anxious to make his part all in all that he would have been +willing to damage the rest of it irretrievably. I could see, from the +way he talked of it, that he was mortally jealous of Salome; and the +girl who did that did it very sweetly and prettily. Who has got the play +now?" + +"Well," said Louise, with rather a painful smile, "nobody has it at +present. We're trying to stir up strife for it among managers." + +"What play is that?" asked her friend, the hostess, and all that end of +the table became attentive, as any fashionable company will at the +mention of a play; books may be more or less out of the range of +society, but plays never at all. + +"My husband's," said Louise, meekly. + +"Why, does _your_ husband write _plays_?" cried the lady. + +"What did you think he did?" returned Louise, resentfully; she did not +in the least know what her friend's husband did, and he was no more +there to speak for himself than her own. + +"He's written a very _great_ play," Mr. Ray spoke up with generous +courage; "the very greatest American play I have seen. I don't say ever +written, for I've written some myself that I haven't seen yet," he +added, and every one laughed at his bit of self-sacrifice. "But Mr. +Maxwell's play is just such a play as I would have written if I +could--large, and serious, and charming." + +He went on about it finely, and Louise's heart swelled with pride. She +wished Maxwell could have been there, but if he had been, of course Mr. +Ray would not have spoken so freely. + +The hostess asked him where he had seen it, and he said in Midland. + +Then she said, "We must all go," and she had the effect of rising to do +so, but it was only to leave the men to their tobacco. + +Louise laid hold of her in the drawing-room: "Who is he? What is he?" + +"A little dear, isn't he?" + +"Yes, of course. But what has he done?" + +"Why, he wrote a novel--I forget the name, but I have it somewhere. It +made a great sensation. But surely _you_ must know what it was?" + +"No, no," Louise lamented. "I am ashamed to say I don't." + +When the men joined the ladies, she lingered long enough to thank Mr. +Ray, and try to make him tell her the name of his novel. She at least +made him promise to let them know the next time he was in New York, and +she believed all he said of his regret that he was going home that +night. He sent many sweet messages to Maxwell, whom he wanted to talk +with about his play, and tell him all he had thought about it. He felt +sure that some manager would take it and bring it out in New York, and +again he exulted that it was out of the actor's hands. A manager might +not have an artistic interest in it; an actor could only have a personal +interest in it. + + + + +XIX. + + +Louise came home in high spirits. The world seemed to have begun to move +again. It was full of all sorts of gay hopes, or at least she was, and +she was impatient to impart them to Maxwell. Now she decided that her +great office in his life must be to cheer him up, to supply that spring +of joyousness which was so lacking in him, and which he never could do +any sort of work without. She meant to make him go into society with +her. It would do him good, and he would shine. He could talk as well as +Mr. Ray, and if he would let himself go, he could be as charming. + +She rushed in to speak with him, and was vexed to find a strange man +sitting in the parlor alone. The stranger rose at her onset, and then, +when she confusedly retreated, he sank into his chair again. She had +seen him black against the window, and had not made out any feature or +expression of his face. + +The maid explained that it was a gentleman who had called to see Mr. +Maxwell earlier in the day, and the last time had asked if he might sit +down and wait for him. He had been waiting only a few minutes. + +"But who is he?" demanded Louise, with a provisional indignation in case +it should be a liberty on some unauthorized person's part. "Didn't he +give you a card?" + +He had given the girl a card, and she now gave it to Mrs. Maxwell. It +bore the name Mr. Lawrence Sterne, which Louise read with much the same +emotion as if it had been Mr. William Shakespeare. She suspected what +her husband would have called a fake of some sort, and she felt a little +afraid. She did not like the notion of the man's sitting there in her +parlor while she had nobody with her but the girl. He might be all +right, and he might even be a gentleman, but the dark bulk which had +risen up against the window and stood holding a hat in its hand was not +somehow a gentlemanly bulk, the hat was not definitively a gentleman's +hat, and the baldness which had shone against the light was not exactly +what you would have called a gentleman's baldness. Clearly, however, the +only thing to do was to treat the event as one of entire fitness till it +proved itself otherwise, and Louise returned to the parlor with an air +of lady-*like inquiry, expressed in her look and movement; if this +effect was not wholly unmixed with patronage, it still was kind. + +"I am sorry," she said, "that my husband is out, and I am sorry to say +that I don't know just when he will be at home." She stood and the man +had risen again, with his portly frame and his invisible face between +her and the light again. "If I could be of any use in giving him a +message--" She stopped; it was really sending the man out of the house, +and she could not do that; it was not decent. She added, "Or if you +don't mind waiting a few minutes longer--" + +She sat down, but the man did not. He said: "I can't wait any longer +just now; but if Mr. Maxwell would like to see me, I am at the Coleman +House." She looked at him as if she did not understand, and he went on: +"If he doesn't recall my name he'll remember answering my advertisement, +some weeks ago in the _Theatrical Register_, for a play." + +"Oh yes!" said Louise. This was the actor whom she had written to on +behalf of Maxwell. With electrical suddenness and distinctness she now +recalled the name, L. Sterne, along with all the rest, though the card +of Mr. Lawrence Sterne had not stirred her sleeping consciousness. She +had always meant to tell Maxwell what she had done, but she was always +waiting for something to come of it, and when nothing came of it, she +did not tell; she had been so disgusted at the mere notion of answering +the man's advertisement. Now, here was the man himself, and he had to be +answered, and that would probably be worse than answering his +advertisement. "I remember," she said, provisionally, but with the +resolution to speak exactly the truth; "I wrote to you _for_ Mr. +Maxwell," which did not satisfy her as the truth ought to have done. + +"Well, then, I wish you would please tell him that I didn't reply to his +letter because it kept following me from place to place, and I only got +it at the _Register_ office this morning." + +"I will tell Mr. Maxwell," said Louise. + +"I should be glad to see his play, if he still has it to dispose of. +From what Mr. Grayson has told me of it, I think it might--I think I +should like to see it. It might suit the--the party I am acting for," he +added, letting himself go. + +"Then you are not the--the--star?" + +"I am the manager for the star." + +"Oh," said Louise, with relief. The fact seemed to put another +complexion on the affair. A distaste which she had formed for Mr. Sterne +personally began to cede to other feelings. If he was manager for the +star, he must be like other managers, such as Maxwell was willing to +deal with, and if he knew Mr. Grayson he must be all right. "I will +tell Mr. Maxwell," she said, with no provisionality this time. + +Mr. Sterne prepared to go, so far as buttoning his overcoat and making +some paces towards the door gave token of his intention. Louise followed +him with a politeness which was almost gratitude to him for reinstating +her in her own esteem. He seemed to have atmospheric intelligence of her +better will towards him, for he said, as if it were something she might +feel an interest in: "If I can get a play that will suit, I shall take +the road with a combination immediately after New Year's. I don't know +whether you have ever seen the lady I want the play for." + +"The lady?" gasped Louise. + +"She isn't very well-known in the East yet, but she will be. She wants a +play of her own. As I understand Mr. Grayson, there is a part in Mr. +Maxwell's play that would fit her to a T, or could be fitted to her; +these things always need some little adaptation." Mr. Sterne's manner +became easier and easier. "Curious thing about it is that you are next +door--or next floor--neighbors, here. Mrs. Harley." + +"We--we have met her," said Louise in a hollow murmur. + +"Well, you can't have any idea what Yolande Havisham is from Mrs. +Harley. I shall be at the Coleman the whole evening, if Mr. Maxwell +would like to call. Well, good-morning," said Mr. Sterne, and he got +himself away before Louise could tell him that Maxwell would never give +his play to a woman; before she could say that it was already as good as +accepted by another manager; before she could declare that if no manager +ever wanted it, still, as far as Mrs. Harley was concerned, with her +smouldering eyes, it would always be in negotiation; before she could +form or express any utter and final refusal and denial of his abominable +hopes. + +It remained for her either to walk quietly down to the North River and +drown herself or to wait her husband's return and tell him everything +and throw herself on his mercy, implore him, adjure him, not to give +that woman his play; and then to go into a decline that would soon rid +him of the clog and hinderance she had always been to him. It flashed +through her turmoil of emotion that it was already dark, in spite of +Mr. Sterne's good-morning at parting, and that some one might speak to +her on the way to the river; and then she thought how Maxwell would +laugh when she told him the fear of being spoken to had kept her from +suicide; and she sat waiting for him to come with such an inward +haggardness that she was astonished, at sight of herself in the glass, +to find that she wan looking very much as usual. Maxwell certainly +noticed no difference when he came in and flung himself wearily on the +lounge, and made no attempt to break the silence of their meeting; they +had kissed, of course, but had not spoken. + +She was by no means sure what she was going to do; she had hoped there +would be some leading on his part that would make it easy for her to do +right, whatever the right was, but her heart sank at sight of him. He +looked defeated and harassed. But there was no help for it. She must +speak, and speak unaided; the only question was whether she had better +speak before dinner or after. She decided to speak after dinner, and +then all at once she was saying: "Brice, I have brought something +dreadful on myself." + +"At the lunch?" he asked, wearily, and she saw that he thought she had +been making some silly speech she was ashamed of. + +"Oh, if it had only been at the lunch!" she cried. "No, it was +here--here in this very room." + +"_I_ don't know what's the matter with you, Louise," he said, lying back +and shutting his eyes. + +"Then I must tell you!" And she came out with the whole story, which she +had to repeat in parts before he could understand it. When he did +understand that she had answered an advertisement in the _Register_, in +his name, he opened his eyes and sat up. + +"Well?" he said. + +"Well, don't you see how wrong and wicked that was?" + +"I've heard of worse things." + +"Oh, don't say so, dearest! It was living a lie, don't you see. And I've +been living a lie ever since, and now I'm justly punished for not +telling you long ago." + +She told him of the visit she had just had, and who the man was, and +whom he wanted the play for; and now a strange thing happened with her. +She did not beseech him not to give his play to that woman; on the +contrary she said: "And now, Brice, I want you to let her have it. I +know she will play Salome magnificently, and that will make the fortune +of the piece, and it will give you such a name that anything you write +after this will get accepted; and you can satisfy your utmost ambition, +and you needn't mind me--no--or think of me at all any more than if I +were the dust of the earth; and I am! Will you?" + +He got up from the lounge and began to walk the floor, as he always did +when he was perplexed; and she let him walk up and down in silence as +long as she could bear it. At last she said: "I am in earnest, Brice, I +am indeed, and if you don't do it, if you let me or my feelings stand in +your way, in the slightest degree, I will never forgive you. Will you go +straight down to the Coleman House, as soon as you've had your dinner, +and tell that man he can have your play for that woman?" + +"No," said Maxwell, stopping in his walk, and looking at her in a dazed +way. + +Her heart seemed to leap into her throat. "Why?" she choked. + +"Because Godolphin is here." + +"Godo--" she began; and she cast herself on the lounge that Maxwell had +vacated, and plunged her face in the pillow and sobbed, "Oh, cruel, +cruel, _cruel_! Oh, _cruel_, cruel, cruel, cruel!" + + + + +XX. + + +Maxwell stood looking at his wife with the cold disgust which hysterics +are apt to inspire in men after they have seen them more than once. "I +suppose that when you are ready you will tell me what is the matter with +you." + +"To let me suffer so, when you knew all the time that Godolphin was +here, and you needn't give your play to that creature at all," wailed +Louise. + +"How did _I_ know you were suffering?" he retorted. "And how do I know +that I can do anything with Godolphin?" + +"Oh, I _know_ you can!" She sprang up with the greatest energy, and ran +into the bedroom to put in order her tumbled hair; she kept talking to +him from there. "I want you to go down and see him the instant you have +had dinner; and don't let him escape you. Tell him he can have the play +on any terms. I believe he is the only one who can make it go. He was +the first to appreciate the idea, and--Frida!" she called into the hall +towards the kitchen, "we will have dinner at once, now, please--he +always talked so intelligently about it; and now if he's where you can +superintend the rehearsals, it will be the greatest success. How in the +world did you find out he was here?" + +She came out of her room, in surprising repair, with this question, and +the rest of their talk went on through dinner. + +It appeared that Maxwell had heard of Godolphin's presence from Grayson, +whom he met in the street, and who told him that Godolphin had made a +complete failure of his venture. His combination had gone to pieces at +Cleveland, and his company were straggling back to New York as they +could. Godolphin was deeply in debt to them all, and to everybody else; +and yet the manager spoke cordially of him, and with no sort of +disrespect, as if his insolvency were only an affair of the moment, +which he would put right. Louise took the same view of it, and she urged +Maxwell to consider how Godolphin had promptly paid him, and would +always do so. + +"Probably I got the pay of some poor devil who needed it worse," said +Maxwell. + +She said, "Nonsense! The other actors will take care of all that. They +are so good to each other," and she blamed Maxwell for not going to see +Godolphin at once. + +"That was what I did," he answered, "but he wasn't at home. He was to be +at home after dinner." + +"Well, that makes it all the more providential," said Louise; her piety +always awoke in view of favorable chances. "You mustn't lose any time. +Better not wait for the coffee." + +"I think I'll wait for the coffee," said Maxwell. "It's no use going +there before eight." + +"No," she consented. "Where is he stopping?" + +"At the Coleman House." + +"The Coleman House? Then if that wretch should see you?" She meant the +manager of Mrs. Harley. + +"He wouldn't know me, probably," Maxwell returned, scornfully. "But if +you think there's any danger of his laying hold of me, and getting the +play away before Godolphin has a chance of refusing it, I'll go masked. +I'm tired of thinking about it. What sort of lunch did you have?" + +"I had the best time in the world. You ought to have come with me, +Brice. I shall make you, the next one. Oh, and guess who was there! Mr. +Ray!" + +"_Our_ Mr. Ray?" Maxwell breathlessly demanded. + +"There is no other, and he's the sweetest little dear in the world. He +isn't so big as you are, even, and he's such a merry spirit; he hasn't +the bulk your gloom gives you. I want you to be like him, Brice. I don't +see why you shouldn't go into society, too." + +"If I'd gone into society to-day, I should have missed seeing Grayson, +and shouldn't have known Godolphin was in town." + +"Well, that is true, of course. But if you get your play into +Godolphin's hands, you'll have to show yourself a little, so that nice +people will be interested in it. You ought to have heard Mr. Ray +celebrate it. He piped up before the whole table." + +Louise remembered what Ray said very well, and she repeated it to a +profound joy in Maxwell. It gave him an exquisite pleasure, and it +flattered him to believe that, as the hostess had said in response, +they, the nice people, must see it, though he had his opinion of nice +people, apart from their usefulness in seeing his play. To reward his +wife for it all, he rose as soon as he had drunk his coffee, and went +out to put on his hat and coat. She went with him, and saw that he put +them on properly, and did not go off with half his coat-collar turned +up. After he got his hat on, she took it off to see whether his +cow-lick was worse than usual. + +"Why, good heavens! Godolphin's seen me before, and besides, I'm not +going to propose marriage to him," he protested. + +"Oh, it's much more serious than that!" she sighed. "Anybody would take +_you_, dear, but it's your play we want him to take--or take back." + +When Maxwell reached the hotel, he did not find Godolphin there. He came +back twice; then, as something in his manner seemed to give Maxwell +authority, the clerk volunteered to say that he thought he might find +the actor at the Players' Club. In this hope he walked across to +Gramercy Park. Godolphin had been dining there, and when he got +Maxwell's name, he came half way down the stairs to meet him. He put his +arm round him to return to the library. + +There happened to be no one else there, and he made Maxwell sit down in +an arm-chair fronting his own, and give an account of himself since they +parted. He asked after Mrs. Maxwell's health, and as far as Maxwell +could make out he was sincere in the quest. He did not stop till he had +asked, with the most winning and radiant smile, "And the play, what have +you done with the play?" + +He was so buoyant that Maxwell could not be heavy about it, and he +answered as gayly: "Oh, I fancy I have been waiting for you to come on +and take it." + +Godolphin did not become serious, but he became if possible more +sincere. "Do you really think I could do anything with it?" + +"If you can't nobody can." + +"Why, that is very good of you, very good indeed, Maxwell. Do you know, +I have been thinking about that play. You see, the trouble was with the +Salome. The girl I had for the part was a thoroughly nice girl, but she +hadn't the weight for it. She did the comic touches charmingly, but when +it came to the tragedy she wasn't there. I never had any doubt that I +could create the part of Haxard. It's a noble part. It's the greatest +role on the modern stage. It went magnificently in Chicago--with the +best people. You saw what the critics said of it?" + +"No; you didn't send me the Chicago papers." Maxwell did not say that +all this was wholly different from what Godolphin had written him when +he renounced the play. Yet he felt that Godolphin was honest then and +was honest now. It was another point of view; that was all. + +"Ah, I thought I sent them. There was some adverse criticism of the +play as a whole, but there was only one opinion of Haxard. And you +haven't done anything with the piece yet?" + +"No, nothing." + +"And you think I could do Haxard? You still have faith in me?" + +"As much faith as I ever had," said Maxwell; and Godolphin found nothing +ambiguous in a thing certainly susceptible of two interpretations. + +"That is very good of you, Maxwell; very good." He lifted his fine head +and gazed absently a moment at the wall before him. "Well, then I will +tell you what I will do, Mr. Maxwell; I will take the play." + +"You will!" + +"Yes; that is if you think I can do the part." + +"Why, of course!" + +"And if--if there could be some changes--very slight changes--made in +the part of Salome. It needs subduing." Godolphin said this as if he had +never suggested anything of the kind before; as if the notion were newly +evolved from his experience. + +"I will do what I can, Mr. Godolphin," Maxwell promised, while he +knitted his brows in perplexity "But I do think that the very strength +of Salome gives relief to Haxard--gives him greater importance." + +"It _may_ be so, dramatically. But theatrically, it detracts from him. +Haxard must be the central figure in the eye of the audience from first +to last." + +Maxwell mused for a moment of discouragement. They were always coming +back to that; very likely Godolphin was right; but Maxwell did not know +just how to subdue the character of Salome so as to make her less +interesting. "Do you think that was what gave you bad houses in +Chicago--the double interest, or the weakened interest in Haxard?" + +"I think so," said Godolphin. + +"Were the houses bad--comparatively?" + +Godolphin took a little note-book out of his breast-pocket. "Here are my +dates. I opened the first night, the tenth of November, with Haxard, but +we papered the house thoroughly, and we made a good show to the public +and the press. There were four hundred and fifty dollars in it. The next +night there were three hundred; the next night, two eighty; Wednesday +matinee, less than two hundred. That night we put on 'Virginius,' and +played to eight hundred dollars; Thursday night, with the 'Lady of +Lyons,' we had eleven hundred; Friday night, we gave the 'Lady' to +twelve hundred; Saturday afternoon with the same piece, we took in +eleven hundred and fifty; Saturday night, with 'Ingomar,' we had +fifteen hundred dollars in the house, and a hundred people standing." +Maxwell listened with a drooping head; he was bitterly mortified. "But +it was too late then," said Godolphin, with a sigh, as he shut his hook. + +"Do you mean," demanded Maxwell, "that my piece had crippled you so +that--that--" + +"I didn't say that, Mr. Maxwell. I never meant to let you see the +figures. But you asked me." + +"Oh, you're quite right," said Maxwell. He thought how he had blamed the +actor, in his impatience with him, for not playing his piece +oftener--and called him fool and thought him knave for not doing it all +the time, as Godolphin had so lavishly promised to do. He caught at a +straw to save himself from sinking with shame. "But the houses, were +they so bad everywhere?" + +Godolphin checked himself in a movement to take out his note-book again; +Maxwell had given him such an imploring glance. "They were pretty poor +everywhere. But it's been a bad season with a good many people." + +"No, no," cried Maxwell. "You did very well with the other plays, +Godolphin. Why do you want to touch the thing again? It's been ruinous +to you so far. Give it up! Come! I can't let you have it!" + +Godolphin laughed, and all his beautiful white teeth shone. There was a +rich, wholesome red in his smoothly shaven cheeks; he was a real +pleasure to the eye. "I believe it would go better in New York. I'm not +afraid to try it. You mustn't take away my last chance of retrieving the +season. Hair of the dog, you know. Have you seen Grayson lately?" + +"Yes, I saw him this afternoon. It was he that told me you were in +town." + +"Ah, yes." + +"And Godolphin, I've got it on my conscience, if you do take the play, +to tell you that I offered it to Grayson, and he refused it. I think you +ought to know that; it's only fair; and for the matter of that, it's +been kicking round all the theatres in New York." + +"Dear boy!" said Godolphin, caressingly, and with a smile that was like +a benediction, "that doesn't make the least difference." + +"Well, I wished you to know," said Maxwell, with a great load off his +mind. + +"Yes, I understand that. Will you drink anything, or smoke anything? +Or--I forgot! I hate all that, too. But you'll join me in a cup of tea +downstairs?" They descended to the smoking-room below, and Godolphin +ordered the tea, and went on talking with a gay irrelevance till it +came. Then he said, as he poured out the two cups of it: "The fact is, +Grayson is going in with me, if I do your piece." This was news to +Maxwell, and yet he was somehow not surprised at it. "I dare say he told +you?" + +"No, he didn't give me any hint of it. He simply told me that you were +in town, and where you were." + +"Ah, that was like Grayson. Queer fish." + +"But I'm mighty glad to know it. You can make it go, together, if any +power on earth can do it; and if it fails," Maxwell added, "I shall have +the satisfaction of ruining some one else this time." + +"Well, Grayson has made nearly as bad a mess of it as I have, this +season," said Godolphin. "He's got to take off that thing he has going +now, and it's a question of what he shall put on. It will be an +experiment with Haxard, but I believe it will be a successful +experiment. I have every confidence in that play." Godolphin looked up, +his lips set convincingly, and with the air of a man who had stood +unfalteringly by his opinion from the first. "Now, if you will excuse +me, I will tell you what I think ought to be done to it." + +"By all means," said Maxwell; "I shall be glad to do anything you wish, +or that I can." + +Godolphin poured out a cloudy volume of suggestion, with nothing clear +in it but the belief that the part of Haxard ought to be fattened. He +recurred to all the structural impossibilities that he had ever desired, +and there was hardly a point in the piece that he did not want changed. +At the end he said: "But all these things are of no consequence, +comparatively speaking. What we need is a woman who can take the part of +Salome, and play it with all the feminine charm that you've given it, +and yet keep it strictly in the background, or thoroughly subordinated +to the interest of Haxard." + +For all that Godolphin seemed to have learned from his experience with +the play, Maxwell might well have thought they were still talking of it +at Magnolia. It was a great relief to his prepossessions in the form of +conclusions to have Grayson appear, with the air of looking for some +one, and of finding the object of his search in Godolphin. He said he +was glad to see Maxwell, too, and they went on talking of the play. From +the talk of the other two Maxwell perceived that the purpose of doing +his play had already gone far with them; but they still spoke of it as +something that would be very good if the interest could be unified in +it. Suddenly the manager broke out: "Look here, Godolphin! I have an +idea! Why not frankly accept the inevitable! I don't believe Mr. Maxwell +can make the play different from what it is, structurally, and I don't +believe the character of Salome can be subdued or subordinated. Then why +not play Salome as strongly as possible, and trust to her strength to +enhance Haxard's effect, instead of weakening it?" + +Godolphin smiled towards Maxwell: "That was your idea." + +"Yes," said Maxwell, and he kept himself from falling on Grayson's neck +for joy. + +"It might do," the actor assented with smiling eagerness and tolerant +superiority. "But whom could you get for such a Salome as that?" + +"Well, there's only one woman for it," said Grayson. + +"Yolande Havisham?" + +The name made Maxwell's heart stop. He started forward to say that Mrs. +Harley could not have the part, when the manager said: "And we couldn't +get her. Sterne has engaged her to star in his combination. By the way, +he was looking for you to-day, Mr. Maxwell." + +"I missed him," answered Maxwell, with immense relief. "But I should not +have let him have the piece while I had the slightest hope of your +taking it." + +Neither the manager nor the actor was perhaps greatly moved by his +generous preference, though they both politely professed to be so. They +went on to canvass the qualities and reputations of all the other +actresses attainable, and always came back to Yolande Havisham, who was +unattainable; Sterne would never give her up in the world, even if she +were willing to give up the chance he was offering her. But she was the +one woman who could do Salome. + +They decided that they must try to get Miss Pettrell, who had played the +part with Godolphin, and who had done it with refinement, if not with +any great force. When they had talked to this conclusion, Grayson +proposed getting something to eat, and the others refused, but they went +into the dining-room with him, where he showed Maxwell the tankards of +the members hanging on the walls over their tables--Booth's tankard, +Salvini's, Irving's, Jefferson's. He was surprised that Maxwell was not +a member of the Players, and said that he must be; it was the only club +for him, if he was going to write for the stage. He came out with them +and pointed out several artists whose fame Maxwell knew, and half a +dozen literary men, among them certain playwrights; they were all +smoking, and the place was blue with the fumes of their cigars. The +actors were coming in from the theatres for supper, and Maxwell found +himself with his friends in a group with a charming old comedian who was +telling brief, vivid little stories, and sketching character, with +illustrations from his delightful art. He was not swagger, like some of +the younger men who stood about with their bell-crowned hats on, before +they went into supper; and two or three other elderly actors who sat +round him and took their turn in the anecdote and mimicry looked, with +their smooth-shaven faces, like old-fashioned ministers. Godolphin, who +was like a youthful priest, began to tell stories, too; and he told very +good ones admirably, but without appearing to feel their quality, though +he laughed loudly at them with the rest. + +When Maxwell refused every one's wish to have him eat or drink +something, and said good-night, Grayson had already gone in to his +supper, and Godolphin rose and smiled so fondly upon him that Maxwell +felt as if the actor had blessed him. But he was less sure than in the +beginning of the evening that the play was again in Godolphin's hands; +and he had to confirm himself from his wife's acceptance of the facts in +the belief that it was really so. + + + + +XXI. + + +Louise asked Maxwell, as soon as they had established their joint faith, +whom Godolphin was going to get to play Salome, and he said that Grayson +would like to re-engage Miss Pettrell, though he had a theory that the +piece would be strengthened, and the effect of Haxard enhanced, if they +could have a more powerful Salome. + +"Mr. Ray told me at lunch," said Louise, impartially but with an air of +relief, "that in all the love-making she was delightful; but when it +came to the tragedy, she wasn't there." + +"Grayson seemed to think that if she could be properly rehearsed, she +could be brought up to it," Maxwell interposed. + +"Mr. Ray said she was certainly very refined, and her Salome was always +a lady. And that is the essential thing," Louise added, decisively. "I +don't at all agree with Mr. Grayson about having Salome played so +powerfully. I think Mr. Godolphin is right." + +"For Heaven's sake don't tell him so!" said Maxwell. "We have had +trouble enough to get him under." + +"Indeed, I shall tell him so! I think he ought to know how we feel." + +"_We?_" repeated Maxwell. + +"Yes. What we want for Salome is sweetness and delicacy and refinement; +for she has to do rather a bold thing, and yet keep herself a lady." + +"Well, it may be too late to talk of Miss Pettrell now," said Maxwell. +"Your favorite Godolphin parted enemies with her." + +"Oh, stage enemies! Mr. Grayson can get her, and he must." + +"I'll tell him what your orders are," said Maxwell. + +The next day he saw the manager, but nothing had been done, and the +affair seemed to be hanging fire again. In the evening, while he was +talking it over with his wife in a discouragement which they could not +shake off, a messenger came to him with a letter from the Argosy +Theatre, which he tore nervously open. + +"What is it, dear?" asked his wife, tenderly. "Another disappointment?" + +"Not exactly," he returned, with a husky voice, and after a moment of +faltering he gave her the letter. It was from Grayson, and it was to the +effect that he had seen Sterne, and that Sterne had agreed to a +proposition he had made him, to take Maxwell's play on the road, if it +succeeded, and in view of this had agreed to let Yolande Havisham take +the part of Salome. + +Godolphin was going to get all his old company together as far as +possible, with the exception of Miss Pettrell, and there was to be +little or no delay, because the actors had mostly got back to New York, +and were ready to renew their engagements. That no time might be lost, +Grayson asked Maxwell to come the next morning and read the piece to +such of them as he could get together in the Argosy greenroom, and give +them his sense of it. + +Louise handed him back the letter, and said, with dangerous calm: "You +might save still more time by going down to Mrs. Harley's apartment and +reading it to her at once." Maxwell was miserably silent, and she +pursued: "May I ask whether you knew they were going to try to get her?" + +"No," said Maxwell. + +"Was there anything said about her?" + +"Yes, there was, last night. But both Grayson and Godolphin regarded it +as impossible to get her." + +"Why didn't you tell me that they would like to get her?" + +"You knew it, already. And I thought, as they both had given up the hope +of getting her, I wouldn't mention the subject. It's always been a very +disagreeable one." + +"Yes." Louise sat quiet, and then she said: "What a long misery your +play has been to me!" + +"You haven't helped make it any great joy to me," said Maxwell, +bitterly. + +She began to weep, silently, and he stood looking down at her in utter +wretchedness. "Well," he said at last, "what shall I do about it?" + +Louise wiped her tears, and cleared up cold, as we say of the weather. +She rose, as if to leave the room, and said, haughtily: "You shall do as +you think best for yourself. You must let them have the play, and let +them choose whom they think best for the part. But you can't expect me +to come to see it." + +"Then that unsays all the rest. If you don't come to see it, I sha'n't, +and I shall not let them have the piece. That is all. Louise," he +entreated, after these first desperate words, "_can't_ we grapple with +this infernal nightmare, so as to get it into the light, somehow, and +see what it really is? How can it matter to you who plays the part? Why +do you care whether Miss Pettrell or Mrs. Harley does it?" + +"Why do you ask such a thing as that?" she returned, in the same hard +frost. "You know where the idea of the character came from, and why it +was sacred to me. Or perhaps you forget!" + +"No, I don't forget. But try--can't you try?--to specify just why you +object to Mrs. Harley?" + +"You have your theory. You said I was jealous of her." + +"I didn't mean it. I never believed that." + +"Then I can't explain. If you don't understand, after all that's been +said, what is the use of talking? I'm tired of it!" + +She went into her room, and he sank into the chair before his desk and +sat there, thinking. When she came back, after a while, he did not look +round at her, and she spoke to the back of his head. "Should you have +any objection to my going home for a few days?" + +"No," he returned. + +"I know papa would like to have me, and I think you would be less +hampered in what you will have to do now if I'm not here." + +"You're very considerate. But if that's what you are going for, you +might as well stay. I'm not going to do anything whatever." + +"Now, you mustn't talk foolishly, Brice," she said, with an air of +superior virtue mixed with a hint of martyrdom. "I won't have you doing +anything rash or boyish. You will go on and let them have your play just +the same as if I didn't exist." She somewhat marred the effect of her +self-devotion by adding: "And I shall go on just as if _it_ didn't +exist." He said nothing, and she continued: "You couldn't expect me to +take any interest in it after this, could you? Because, though I am +ready to make any sort of sacrifice for you, I think any one, I don't +care who it was, would say that was a little _too_ much. Don't you think +so yourself?" + +"You are always right. I think that." + +"Don't be silly. I am trying to do the best I can, and you have no right +to make it hard for me." + +Maxwell wheeled round in his chair: "Then I wish you wouldn't make your +best so confoundedly disagreeable." + +"Oh!" she twitted. "I see that you have made up your mind to let them +have the play, after all." + +"Yes, I have," he answered, savagely. + +"Perhaps you meant to do it all along?" + +"Perhaps I did." + +"Very well, then," said Louise. "Would you mind coming to the train with +me on your way down town to-morrow?" + +"Not at all." + + + + +XXII. + + +In the morning neither of them recurred to what Louise had said of her +going home for a few days. She had apparently made no preparation for +the journey; but if she was better than her words in this, he was quite +as bad as his in going down town after breakfast to let Grayson have the +play, no matter whom he should get to do Salome. He did not reiterate +his purpose, but she knew from the sullen leave, or no-leave, which he +took of her, that it was fixed. + +When he was gone she had what seemed to her the very worst quarter of an +hour she had ever known; but when he came back in the afternoon, looking +haggard but savage, her ordeal had long been over. She asked him quietly +if they had come to any definite conclusion about the play, and he +answered, with harsh aggression, yes, that Mrs. Harley had agreed to +take the part of Salome; Godolphin's old company had been mostly got +together, and they were to have the first rehearsal the next morning. + +"Should you like me to come some time?" asked Louise. + +"I should like you very much to come," said Maxwell, soberly, but with a +latent doubt of her meaning, which she perceived. + +"I have been thinking," she said, "whether you would like me to call on +Mrs. Harley this evening with you?" + +"What for?" he demanded, suspiciously. + +"Well, I don't know. I thought it might be appropriate." + +Maxwell thought a moment. "I don't think it would be expected. After +all, it isn't a personal thing," he said, with a relenting in his +defiance. + +"No," said Louise. + +They got through the evening without further question. + +They had always had some sort of explicit making-up before, even when +they had only had a tacit falling out, but this time Louise thought +there had better be none of that. They were to rehearse the play every +day that week, and Maxwell said he must be at the theatre the next +morning at eleven. He could not make out to his wife's satisfaction +that he was of much use, but he did not try to convince her. He only +said that they referred things to him now and then, and that generally +he did not seem to know much about them. She saw that his aesthetic +honesty kept him from pretending to more than this, and she believed he +ought to have greater credit than he claimed. + +Four or five days later she went with him to a rehearsal. By this time +they had got so well forward with their work at the theatre that Maxwell +said it would now be in appreciable shape; but still he warned her not +to expect too much. He never could tell her just what she wanted to know +about Mrs. Harley; all he could say was that her Salome was not ideal, +though it had strong qualities; and he did not try to keep her from +thinking it offensive; that would only have made bad worse. + +It had been snowing overnight, and there was a bright glare of sunshine +on the drifts, which rendered the theatre doubly dark when they stepped +into it from the street. It was a dramatic event for Louise to enter by +the stage-door, and to find Maxwell recognized by the old man in charge +as having authority to do so; and she made as much of the strange +interior as the obscurity and her preoccupation would allow. There was +that immediate bareness and roughness which seems the first +characteristic of the theatre behind the scenes, where the theatre is +one of the simplest and frankest of workshops, in which certain effects +are prepared to be felt before the footlights. Nothing of the glamour of +the front is possible; there is a hard air of business in everything; +and the work that goes to the making of a play shows itself the severest +toil. Figures now came and went in the twilight beyond the reach of the +gas in the door-keeper's booth, but rapidly as if bent upon definite +errands, and with nothing of that loitering gayety which is the imagined +temperament of the stage. + +Louise and Maxwell were to see Grayson first in his private office, and +while their names were taken in, the old door-keeper gave them seats on +the Mourners' Bench, a hard wooden settee in the corridor, which he said +was the place where actors wanting an engagement waited till the manager +sent word that he could see them. The manager did not make the author +and his wife wait, but came for them himself, and led the way back to +his room. When he gave them seats there, Maxwell had the pleasure of +seeing that Louise made an excellent impression with the magnate, of +whom he had never quite lost the awe we feel for the master of our +fortunes, whoever he is. He perceived that her inalienable worldly +splendor added to his own consequence, and that his wife's air of +_grande dame_ was not lost upon a man who could at least enjoy it +artistically. Grayson was very polite to her, and said hopefuller things +about the play than he had yet said to Maxwell, though he had always +been civil about its merits. He had a number of papers before him, and +he asked Louise if she had noticed their friendliness. She said, yes, +she had seen some of those things, but she had supposed they were +authorized, and she did not know how much to value them. + +Grayson laughed and confessed that he did not practice any concealments +with the press when it was a question of getting something to the public +notice. "Of course," he said, "we don't want the piece to come in on +rubbers." + +"What do you mean?" she demanded, with an ignorant joy in the phrase. + +"That's what we call it when a thing hasn't been sufficiently heralded, +or heralded at all. We have got to look after that part of it, you +know." + +"Of course, I am not complaining, though I think all that's dreadful." + +The manager assented partly. Then he said: "There's something curious +about it. You may put up the whole affair yourself, and yet in what's +said you can tell whether there's a real good will that comes from the +writers themselves or not." + +"And you mean that there is this mystical kindness for Mr. Maxwell's +play in the prophecies that all read so much alike to me?" + +"Yes, I do," said the manager, laughing. "They like him because he's new +and young, and is making his way single-handed." + +"Well," said Louise, "those seem good grounds for preference to me, +too;" and she thought how nearly they had been her own grounds for +liking Maxwell. + +Grayson went with them to the stage and found her the best place to sit +and see the rehearsal. He made some one get chairs, and he sat with her +chatting while men in high hats and overcoats and women in bonnets and +fur-edged butterfly-capes came in one after another. Godolphin arrived +among the first, with an ulster which came down to where his pantaloons +were turned up above his overshoes. He caught sight of Louise, and +approached her with outstretched hand, and Grayson gave up his chair to +the actor. Godolphin was very cordial, deferentially cordial, with a +delicate vein of reminiscent comradery running through his manner. She +spoke to him of having at last got his ideal for Salome, and he said, +with a slight sigh and a sort of melancholy absence: "Yes, Miss Havisham +will do it magnificently." Then he asked, with a look of latent +significance: + +"Have you ever seen her?" + +Louise laughed for as darkling a reason. "Only in real life. You know we +live just over and under each other." + +"Ah, true. But I meant, on the stage. She's a great artist. You know +she's the one I wanted for Salome from the start." + +"Then you ought to be very happy in getting her at last." + +"She will do everything for the play," sighed Godolphin. "She'll make up +for all my shortcomings." + +"You won't persuade us that you have any shortcomings, Mr. Godolphin," +said Louise. "You are Haxard, and Haxard is the play. You can't think, +Mr. Godolphin, how deeply grateful we both are to you for your +confidence in my husband's work, your sacrifices--" + +"You overpay me a thousand times for everything, Mrs. Maxwell," said +the actor. "Any one might have been proud and happy to do all I've done, +and more, for such a play. I've never changed my opinion for a moment +that it was _the_ American drama. And now if Miss Havisham only turns +out to be the Salome we want!" + +"If?" returned Louise, and she felt a wild joy in the word. "Why, I +thought there could be no earthly doubt about it." + +"Oh, there isn't. We are all united on that point, I believe, Maxwell?" + +Maxwell shrugged. "I confide in you and Mr. Grayson." + +Godolphin looked at his watch. "It's eleven now, and she isn't here yet. +I would rather not have begun without her, but I think we had better not +delay any longer." He excused himself to Louise, and went and sat down +with his hat on at a small table, lit with a single electric bulb, +dropping like a luminous spider by a thread from the dark above. Other +electric bulbs were grouped before reflectors on either side of the +stage, and these shone on the actors before Godolphin. Back in the +depths of the stage, some scene-painters and carpenters were at work on +large strips of canvas lying unrolled upon the floor or stretched upon +light wooden frames. Across Godolphin's head the dim hollow of the +auditorium showed, pierced by long bars of sunlight full of dancing +motes, which slanted across its gloom from the gallery windows. Women in +long aprons were sweeping the floors and pounding the seats, and a smell +of dust from their labors mixed with the smell of paint and glue and +escaping gas which pervaded the atmosphere of the stage. + +Godolphin made Maxwell come and sit with him at the table; he opened his +prompt-book and directed the rehearsal to begin. The people were mostly +well up in their parts, and the work went smoothly, except for now and +then an impatience in Godolphin which did not seem to come from what was +going forward. + +He showed himself a thorough master of his trade in its more mechanical +details, and there were signal instances of his intelligence in the +higher things of it which might well have put Mrs. Maxwell to shame for +her many hasty judgments of the actor. He was altogether more of a man, +more of a mind, than she had supposed, even when she supposed the best +of him. She perceived that Godolphin grasped the whole meaning of her +husband's work, and interpreted its intentions with perfect accuracy, +not only in his own part of Haxard, but in all the other persons, and +he corrected the playing of each of the roles as the rehearsal went on. +She saw how he had really formed the other actors upon himself. They +repeated his tones, his attitudes, his mannerisms, in their several +ways. His touch could be felt all through the performance, and his +limitations characterized it. He was very gentle and forbearing with +their mistakes, but he was absolute master all the same. If some one +erred, Godolphin left his place and went and showed how the thing should +be said and done. He carefully addressed the men by their surnames, with +the Mr. always; the women were all Dear to him, according to a +convention of the theatre. He said, "No, dear," and "Yes, dear," and he +was as caressingly deferential to each of them as he was formally +deferential to the men; he required the same final obedience of them, +and it was not always so easy to make them obey. In non-essentials he +yielded at times, as when one of the ladies had overdone a point, and he +demurred. "But I always got a laugh on that, Mr. Godolphin," she +protested. "Oh, well, my dear, hang on to your laugh, then." However he +meant to do Haxard himself, his voice was for simplicity and reality in +others. "Is that the way you would do it, is that the way you would say +it, if it were _you_?" he stopped one of the men in a bit of rant. + +Even of Maxwell he exacted as clear a vision of his own work as he +exacted of its interpreters. He asked the author his notion of points in +dress and person among the different characters, which he had hitherto +only generalized in his mind, and which he was gladly willing, when they +were brought home to him, to leave altogether to Godolphin's judgment. + +The rehearsal had gone well on towards the end of the first act, and +Godolphin was beginning to fidget. From where she sat Louise saw him +take out his watch and lean towards her husband to say something. An +actor who was going through a piece of business perceived that he had +not Godolphin's attention, and stopped. Just then Mrs. Harley came in. + +Godolphin rose and advanced towards her with the prompt-book shut on his +thumb. "You are late, Miss Havisham." + +"Yes," she answered, haughtily, as if in resentment of his tone. She +added in concession, "Unavoidably. But Salome doesn't come on till the +end of the act." + +"I think it best for the whole company to be present from the +beginning," said Godolphin. + +"I quite agree with you," said Mrs. Harley. "Where are we?" she asked, +and then she caught sight of Louise, and came up to her. "How do you do, +Mrs. Maxwell? I don't know whether I'm glad to see you or not. I believe +I'm rather afraid to have you see my Salome; I've an idea you are going +to be very severe with her." + +"I am sure no severity will be needed. You'll see me nodding approval +all the way through," Louise returned. + +"I have always thought, somehow, that you had the part especially under +your protection. I feel that I'm a very bold woman to attempt it." + +In spite of her will to say "Yes, a very bold woman indeed!" Louise +answered: "Then I shall admire your courage, as well as your art." + +She was aware of Godolphin fretting at the colloquy he could not +interrupt, and of Mrs. Harley prolonging it wilfully. "I know you are +sincere, and I am going to make you tell me everything you object to in +me when it's over. Will you?" + +"Of course," Louise answered, gayly; and now Mrs. Harley turned to +Godolphin again: "_Where_ were you?" + + + + +XXIII. + + +Twice during the rehearsal Maxwell came to Louise and asked her if she +were not tired and would not like to go home; he offered to go out and +put her on a car. But both times she made him the same answer: she was +not tired, and would not go away on any account; the second time she +said, with a certain meaning in her look and voice, that she thought she +could stand it if he could. At the end she went up and made her +compliments to Mrs. Harley. "You must enjoy realizing your ideal of a +character so perfectly," she began. + +"Yes? Did you feel that about it?" the actress returned. "It _is_ a +satisfaction. But if one has a strong conception of a part, I don't see +how one can help rendering it strongly. And this Salome, she takes hold +of me so powerfully. Her passion and her will, that won't stop at +anything, seem to pierce through and through me. You can feel that she +wouldn't mind killing a man or two to carry her point." + +"That is certainly what _you_ make one feel about her. And you make her +very living, very actual." + +"You are very good," said Mrs. Harley. "I am so glad you liked it. I was +dreadfully afraid you wouldn't like it." + +"Oh, I couldn't imagine your being afraid of anything," said Louise, +lightly. Her smile was one which the other woman might have known how to +interpret rightly, but her husband alone among men could feel its +peculiar quality. Godolphin beamed with apparent satisfaction in it. + +"Wasn't Salome magnificent?" he said; and he magnanimously turned to the +actress. "You will make everybody forget Haxard. You made _me_ forget +him." + +"_I_ didn't forget him though," said Mrs. Harley. "I was trying all the +time to play up to him--and to Mrs. Maxwell." + +The actor laughed his deep, mellow, hollow laugh, which was a fine work +of art in itself, and said: "Mrs. Maxwell, you must let me present the +other _dramatis personae_ to you," and he introduced the whole cast of +the play, one after another. Each said something of the Salome, how +grand it was, how impassioned, how powerful. Maxwell stood by, +listening, with his eyes on his wife's face, trying to read her thought. + +They were silent most of the way home, and she only talked of +indifferent things. When the door of their apartment shut them in with +themselves alone, she broke out: "Horrible, horrible, horrible! Well, +the play is ruined, ruined! We might as well die; or _I_ might! I +suppose _you_ really liked it!" + +Maxwell turned white with anger. "I didn't try to make her _think_ I +did, anyway. But I knew how you really felt, and I don't believe you +deceived her very much, either. All the same I was ashamed to see you +try." + +"Don't talk to me--don't speak! She knew from every syllable I uttered +that I perfectly loathed it, and I know that she tried to make it as +hateful to me all the way through as she could. She played it _at_ me, +and she knew it _was_ me. It was as if she kept saying all the time, +'How do you like my translation of your Boston girl into Alabama, or +Mississippi, or Arkansas, or wherever I came from? This is the way you +would have acted, if you were _me_!' Yes, that is the hideous part of +it. Her nature has _come off_ on the character, and I shall never see, +or hear, or think, or dream Salome, after this, without having Yolande +Havisham before me. She's spoiled the sweetest thing in my life. She's +made me hate myself; she's made me hate _you_! Will you go out somewhere +and get your lunch? I don't want anything myself, and just now I can't +bear to look at you. Oh, you're not to blame, that I know of, if that's +what you mean. Only go!" + +"I can go out for lunch, certainly," said Maxwell "Perhaps you would +rather I stayed out for dinner, too?" + +"Don't be cruel, dearest. I am trying to control myself--" + +"I shouldn't have thought it. You're not succeeding." + +"No, not so well as you, if you hated this woman's Salome as much as I +did. If it's always been as bad as it was to-day you've controlled +yourself wonderfully well never to give me any hint of it, or prepare me +for it in the least." + +"How could I prepare you? You would have come to it with your own +prepossessions, no matter what I said." + +"Was that why you said nothing?" + +"You would have hated it if she had played it with angelic perfection, +because you hated her." + +"Perhaps you think she really did play it with angelic perfection! Well, +you needn't come back to dinner." + +Louise passed into their room, to lay off her hat and sack. + +"I will not come back at all, if you prefer," Maxwell called after her. + +"I have no preferences in the matter," she mocked back. + + + + +XXIV. + + +Maxwell and Louise had torn at each other's hearts till they were +bleeding, and he wished to come back at once and she wished him to come, +that they might hurt themselves still more savagely; but when this +desire passed, they longed to meet and bind up one another's wounds. +This better feeling brought them together before night-fall, when +Maxwell returned, and Louise, at the sound of his latch-key in the door, +ran to let him in. + +"Mr. Godolphin is here," she said, in a loud, cheery voice, and he +divined that he owed something of his eager welcome to her wish to keep +him from resuming the quarrel unwittingly. "He has just come to talk +over the rehearsal with you, and I wouldn't let him go. I was sure you +would be back soon." + +She put her finger to her lip, with whatever warning intention, and +followed her husband into the presence of the actor, and almost into +his arms, so rapturous was the meeting between them. + +"Well," cried Godolphin, "I couldn't help looking in a moment to talk +with you and Mrs. Maxwell about our Salome. I feel that she will make +the fortune of the piece--of any piece. Doesn't Miss Havisham's +rendition grow upon you? It's magnificent. It's on the grand scale. It's +immense. The more I think about it, the more I'm impressed with it. +She'll carry the house by storm. I've never seen anything like it; and +I'm glad to find that Mrs. Maxwell feels just as I do about it." Maxwell +looked at his wife, who returned his glance with a guiltless eye. "I was +afraid she might feel the loss of things that certainly _are_ lost in +it. I don't say that Miss Havisham's Salome, superb as it is, is _your_ +Salome--or Mrs. Maxwell's. I've always fancied that Mrs. Maxwell had a +great deal to do with that character, and--I don't know why--I've always +thought of her when I've thought of _it_; but at the same time it's a +splendid Salome. She makes it Southern, almost tropical. It isn't the +Boston Salome. You may say that it is wanting in delicacy and the nice +shades; but it's full of passion; there's nothing caviare to the general +in it. The average audience will understand just what the girl that +Miss Havisham gives is after, and she gives her so abundantly that +there's no more doubt of the why than there is of the how. Sometimes I +used to think the house couldn't follow Miss Pettrell in her subtle +touches, but the house, to the topmost tier of the gallery, will get +Miss Havisham's intention." + +Godolphin was standing while he said all this, and Maxwell now asked: +"Won't you sit down?" + +The actor had his overcoat on his arm, and his hat in one hand. He +tapped at his boot with the umbrella he held in the other. "No, I don't +believe I will, thank you. The fact is, I just dropped in a moment to +reassure you if you had misgivings about the Salome, and to give you my +point of view." + +Maxwell did not say anything; he looked at Louise again, and it seemed +to her that he meant her to speak. She said, "Oh, we understood that we +couldn't have all kinds of a Salome in one creation of the part; and I'm +sure no one can see Mrs. Harley in it without feeling her intensity." + +"She's a force," said Godolphin. "And if, as we all decided," he +continued, to Maxwell, "when we talked it over with Grayson, that a +powerful Salome would heighten the effect of Haxard, she is going to +make the success of the piece." + +"_You_ are going to make the success of the piece!" cried Louise. + +"Ah, I sha'n't care if they forget me altogether," said the actor; "I +shall forget myself." He laughed his mellow, hollow laugh, and gave his +hand to Louise and then to Maxwell. "I'm so glad you feel as you do +about it, and I don't wish you to lose your faith in our Salome for a +moment. You've quite confirmed mine." He wrung the hands of each with a +fervor of gratitude that left them with a disquiet which their eyes +expressed to each other when he was gone. + +"What does it mean?" asked Louise. + +Maxwell shook his head. "It's beyond me." + +"Brice," she appealed, after a moment, "do you think I had been saying +anything to set him against her?" + +"No," he returned, instantly. "Why should I suspect you of anything so +base?" + +Her throat was full, but she made out to say, "No, you are too generous, +too good for such a thing;" and now she went on to eat humble-pie with a +self-devotion which few women could practise. "I know that if I don't +like having her I have no one but myself to thank for it. If I had never +written to that miserable Mr. Sterne, or answered his advertisement, he +would never have heard of your play, and nothing that has happened +would have happened." + +"No, you don't know that at all," said Maxwell; and it seemed to her +that she must sink to her knees under his magnanimity. "The thing might +have happened in a dozen different ways." + +"No matter. I am to blame for it when it did happen; and now you will +never hear another word from me. Would you like me to swear it?" + +"That would be rather unpleasant," said Maxwell. + +They both felt a great physical fatigue, and they neither had the wish +to prolong the evening after dinner. Maxwell was going to lock the door +of the apartment at nine o'clock, and then go to bed, when there came a +ring at it. He opened it, and stood confronted with Grayson, looking +very hot and excited. + +"Can I come in a moment?" the manager asked. "Are you alone? Can I speak +with you?" + +"There's no one here but Mrs. Maxwell," said her husband, and he led the +way into the parlor. + +"And if you don't like," Louise confessed to have overheard him, "you +needn't speak before her even." + +"No, no," said the manager, "don't go! We may want your wisdom. We +certainly want all the wisdom we can get on the question. It's about +Godolphin." + +"Godolphin?" they both echoed. + +"Yes. He's given up the piece." + +The manager drew out a letter, which he handed to Maxwell, and which +Louise read with her husband, over his shoulder. It was addressed to +Grayson, and began very formally. + + "DEAR SIR: + + "I wish to resign to you all claim I may have to a joint interest + in Mr. Maxwell's piece, and to withdraw from the company formed for + its representation. I feel that my part in it has been made + secondary to another, and I have finally decided to relinquish it + altogether. I trust that you will be able to supply my place, and I + offer you my best wishes for the success of your enterprise. + + "Yours very truly, + "L. GODOLPHIN." + +The Maxwells did not look at each other; they both looked at the +manager, and neither spoke. + +"You see," said the manager, putting the letter back in its envelope, +"it's Miss Havisham. I saw some signs of what was coming at the +rehearsals, but I didn't think it would take such peremptory shape." + +"Why, but he was here only a few hours ago, praising her to the skies," +said Louise; and she hoped that she was keeping secret the guilty joy +she felt; but probably it was not unknown to her husband. + +"Oh, of course," said Grayson, with a laugh, "that was Godolphin's way. +He may have felt all that he said; or he may have been trying to find +out what Mr. Maxwell thought, and whether he could count upon him in a +move against her." + +"We said nothing," cried Louise, and she blessed heaven that she could +truly say so, "which could possibly be distorted into that." + +"I didn't suppose you had," said the manager. "But now we have got to +act. We have got to do one of two things, and Godolphin knows it; we +have got to let Miss Havisham go, or we have got to let him go. For my +part I would much rather let him go. She is a finer artist every way, +and she is more important to the success of the piece. But it would be +more difficult to replace him than it would be to replace her, and he +knows it. We could get Miss Pettrell at once for Salome, and we should +have to look about for a Haxard. Still, I am disposed to drop Godolphin, +if Mr. Maxwell feels as I do." + +He looked at Maxwell; but Louise lowered her eyes, and would not +influence her husband by so much as a glance. It seemed to her that he +was a long time answering. + +"I am satisfied with Godolphin's Haxard much better than I am with Miss +Havisham's Salome, strong as it is. On the artistic side alone, I +should prefer to keep Godolphin and let her go, if it could be done +justly. Then, I know that Godolphin has made sacrifices and borne losses +on account of the play, and I think that he has a right to a share in +its success, if it has a chance of succeeding. He's jealous of Miss +Havisham, of course; I could see that from the first minute; but he's +earned the first place, and I'm not surprised he wants to keep it. I +shouldn't like to lose it if I were he. I should say that we ought to +make any concession he asks in that way." + +"Very well," said Grayson. "He will ask to have our agreement with Mrs. +Harley broken; and we can say that we were compelled to break it. I feel +as you do, that he has some right on his side. She's a devilish +provoking woman--excuse me, Mrs. Maxwell!--and I've seen her trying to +take the centre from Godolphin ever since the rehearsals began; but I +don't like to be driven by him; still, there are worse things than being +driven. In any case we have to accept the inevitable, and it's only a +question of which inevitable we accept. Good-night. I will see Godolphin +at once. Good-night, Mrs. Maxwell. We shall expect you to do what you +can in consoling your fair neighbor and reconciling _her_ to the +inevitable." Louise did not know whether this was ironical or not, and +she did not at all like the laugh from Maxwell which greeted the +suggestion. + +"_I_ shall have to reconcile Sterne, and I don't believe that will be +half so easy." + +The manager's words were gloomy, but there was an imaginable relief in +his tone and a final cheerfulness in his manner. He left the Maxwells to +a certain embarrassment in each other's presence. Louise was the first +to break the silence that weighed upon them both. + +"Brice, did you decide that way to please me?" + +"I am not such a fool," said Maxwell. + +"Because," she said, "if you did, you did very wrong, and I don't +believe any good could come of it." + +Yet she did not seem altogether averse to the risks involved; and in +fact she could not justly accuse herself of what had happened, however +devoutly she had wished for such a consummation. + + + + +XXV. + + +It was Miss Havisham and not Godolphin who appeared to the public as +having ended the combination their managers had formed. The interviewing +on both sides continued until the interest of the quarrel was lost in +that of the first presentation of the play, when the impression that +Miss Havisham had been ill-used was effaced by the impression made by +Miss Pettrell in the part of Salome. Her performance was not only +successful in the delicacy and refinement which her friends expected of +her, but she brought to the work a vivid yet purely feminine force which +took them by surprise and made the public her own. No one in the house +could have felt, as the Maxwells felt, a certain quality in it which it +would be extremely difficult to characterize without overstating it. +Perhaps Louise felt this more even than her husband, for when she +appealed to him, he would scarcely confess to a sense of it; but from +time to time in the stronger passages she was aware of an echo, to the +ear and to the eye, of a more passionate personality than Miss +Pettrell's. Had Godolphin profited by his knowledge of Miss Havisham's +creation, and had he imparted to Miss Pettrell, who never saw it, hints +of it which she used in her own creation of the part? If he had, just +what was the measure and the nature of his sin? Louise tormented herself +with this question, while a sense of the fact went as often as it came, +and left her in a final doubt of it. What was certain was that if +Godolphin had really committed this crime, of which he might have been +quite unconsciously guilty, Miss Pettrell was wholly innocent of it; +and, indeed, the effect she made might very well have been imagined by +herself, and only have borne this teasing resemblance by pure accident. +Godolphin was justly punished if he were culpable, and he suffered an +eclipse in any case which could not have been greater from Miss +Havisham. There were recalls for the chief actors at every fall of the +curtain, and at the end of the third act, in which Godolphin had really +been magnificent, there began to be cries of "Author! Author!" and a +messenger appeared in the box where the Maxwells sat and begged the +author, in Godolphin's name, to come behind at once. The next thing that +Louise knew the actor was leading her husband on the stage and they +were both bowing to the house, which shouted at them and had them back +once and twice and still shouted, but now with a certain confusion of +voices in its demand, which continued till the author came on a fourth +time, led by the actor as before, and himself leading the heroine of his +piece. Then the storm of applause left no doubt that the will of the +house had been rightly interpreted. + +Louise sat still, with the tears blurring the sight before her. They +were not only proud and happy tears, but they were tears of humble +gratitude that it was Miss Pettrell, and not Mrs. Harley, whom her +husband was leading on to share his triumph. She did not think her own +desert was great; but she could not tax herself with any wrong that she +had not at least tried to repair; she felt that what she had escaped she +could not have suffered, and that Heaven was merciful to her weakness, +if not just to her merit. Perhaps this was why she was so humble and so +grateful. + +There arose in her a vague fear as to what Godolphin might do in the +case of a Salome who was certainly no more subordinated to his Haxard +than Miss Havisham's, or what new demands he might not make upon the +author; but Maxwell came back to her with a message from the actor, +which he wished conveyed with his congratulations upon the success of +the piece. This was to tell her of his engagement to Miss Pettrell, +which had suddenly taken place that day, and which he thought there +could be no moment so fit to impart to her as that of their common +triumph. + +Louise herself went behind at the end of the piece, and made herself +acceptable to both the artists in her cordial good wishes. Neither of +them resented the arch intention with which she said to Godolphin, "I +suppose you won't mind such a beautiful Salome as Miss Pettrell has +given us, now that it's to be all in the family." + +Miss Pettrell answered for him with as complete an intelligence: "Oh, I +shall know how to subdue her to his Haxard, if she ever threatens the +peace of the domestic hearth." + +That Salome has never done so in any serious measure Maxwell argues from +the fact that, though the Godolphins have now been playing his piece +together for a whole year since their marriage, they have not yet been +divorced. + +THE END. + + + * * * * * + + + AN OPEN-EYED CONSPIRACY. $1 00. + + THE LANDLORD AT LION'S HEAD. $1 15. + + STOPS OF VARIOUS QUILLS. Illustrated by HOWARD PYLE. $2 50. + + IMPRESSIONS AND EXPERIENCES. $1 50. + + A PARTING AND A MEETING. llustrated. $1 00. + + THE DAY OF THEIR WEDDING. Illustrated. $1 25. + + MY LITERARY PASSIONS. $1 50. + + A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. $1 50. + + THE COAST OF BOHEMIA. Illustrated. $1 50. + + THE WORLD OF CHANCE. $1 50. + + THE QUALITY OF MERCY. $1 50. + + AN IMPERATIVE DUTY. $1 00. + + THE SHADOW OF A DREAM. $1 00. + + ANNIE KILBURN. $1 50. + + APRIL HOPES. $1 50. + + CRITICISM AND FICTION. With Portrait. $1 00. + + A BOY'S TOWN. Ill'd. $1 25. + + A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 2 Vols., $2 00. + + MODERN ITALIAN POETS. With Portraits. $2 00. + + CHRISTMAS EVERY DAY, and Other Stories. Illustrated. $1 25. + + THE MOUSE-TRAP, and Other Farces. Illustrated. $1 00. + + MY YEAR IN A LOG-CABIN. Illustrated. 50 cents. + + A LITTLE SWISS SOJOURN. Illustrated. 50 cents. + + FARCES: Five o'Clock Tea.--The Mouse-Trap.--A Likely Story.--The + Unexpected Guests.--Evening Dress.--A Letter of Introduction.--The + Albany Depot.--The Garroters. Ill'd. 50 cents each. + + + NEW YORK AND LONDON: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Story of a Play, by W. D. Howells + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF A PLAY *** + +***** This file should be named 20225.txt or 20225.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/2/2/20225/ + +Produced by David Edwards, Janet Blenkinship and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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