"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."