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.