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."