enthusiasm of The
Public, had read it act by act and given him the practical advice he
needed. A dramatic critic always believes he knows more about plays
than any one else until he attempts to write one, but Clavering, at
least, if not unduly modest, was too anxious to succeed not to welcome
all the help he could get.

They even "sat in" with him during the final revision, and the dispute
was hot over the last act, an act so daring in technique they were
loath to believe that even Clavering, whose striking gifts they had
always recognized, could "put it over." Moreover, there was only one
woman on the American stage who could act it and that was Margaret
Anglin. If it didn't appeal to her he might as well dock it. The
younger actresses, clever as some of them were, had so far given no
evidence of sustained emotional power. During the entire act no one
was on the stage but the woman and she sat at a telephone talking with
the man who controlled her destiny. Not only must that one-sided
dialogue give as sharp and clear an idea of what the man was saying as
if he had been present, with the vivid personality, the gestures and
the mobile face he must have for the part, but the conversation,
beginning in happy confidence, ran the gamut of the emotions,
portraying a war of wills and souls, and rising to inexorable spiritual
tragedy. It was a scene whose like had never before been attempted
without both protagonists on the stage, and it lasted twenty-five
minutes; a scene as difficult to write as to act; but the two
playwrights admitted that in the deft use of words which, without
repetitions by the woman, left the audience in no doubt what the man
was saying, made it almost possible to see him, and in the rising scale
of emotion, the act was a surpassingly brilliant piece of work.
Clavering rewrote it fourteen times, and Hogarth and Scores were
finally almost as excited as himself, although it was the last sort of
thing either would have "tackled." Whatever the originality of their
own ideas they were careful to stick to the orthodox in treatment,
knowing the striking lack of originality in audiences.

Gora Dwight was more enthusiastic than he had ever known her to be over
anything, and one night he read the play to a select few at her house.
Abbott was there and two other critics, as well as Suzan Forbes and her
distinguished consort, De Witt Turner.

The critics preserved their ferocious and frozen demeanor comm