The Story of a Play Part 22

"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 G.o.dolphin is here."

"G.o.do--" 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 G.o.dolphin 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 G.o.dolphin?"

"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 G.o.dolphin's presence from Grayson, whom he met in the street, and who told him that G.o.dolphin 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. G.o.dolphin 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 G.o.dolphin 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 G.o.dolphin 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 G.o.dolphin 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 G.o.dolphin was in town."

"Well, that is true, of course. But if you get your play into G.o.dolphin'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! G.o.dolphin'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 G.o.dolphin 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. G.o.dolphin 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."

G.o.dolphin 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 n.o.body 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 n.o.ble 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 G.o.dolphin had written him when he renounced the play. Yet he felt that G.o.dolphin 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 G.o.dolphin 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!"