ome of his promise to play nothing else,
I should like to know? And he's only played it once, and now he proposes
to revise it himself!"

Still Maxwell walked on and she continued:

"I don't know what I shall say to my family. They can never understand
such a thing, never! Papa couldn't conceive of giving a promise and not
keeping it, much less giving a promise just for the _pleasure_ of
breaking it. What shall I tell them, Brice? I can't bear to say that
Godolphin is going to make your play over, unless I can say at the same
time that you've absolutely forbidden him to do so. That's why I wanted
you to telegraph. I wanted to say you had telegraphed."

Maxwell stopped in his walk and gazed at her, but she could feel that he
did not see her, and she said:

"I don't know that it's actually necessary for me to say anything at
present. I can show them the notices, or that article alone. It's worth
all the rest put together, and then we can wait, and see if we hear
anything more from Godolphin. But now I don't want you to lose any more
time. You must write to him at once, and absolutely forbid him to touch
your play. Will you?"

Her husband returned from his wanderings of mind and body, and as he
dropped upon the lounge at her side, he said, gently, "No, I don't think
I'll write at all, Louise."

"Not write at all! Then you're going to let him tamper with that
beautiful work of yours?"

"I'm going to wait till I hear from him again. Godolphin is a good
fellow--"

"Oh!"

"And he won't be guilty of doing me injustice. Besides," and here
Maxwell broke off with a laugh that had some gayety in it, "he couldn't.
Godolphin is a fine actor, and he's going to be a great one, but his
gifts are not in the line of literature."

"I should think not!"

"He couldn't change the piece any more than if he couldn't read or
write. And if he could, when it came to touching it, I don't believe he
would, because the fact would remind him that it wasn't fair. He has to
realize things in the objective way before he can realize them at all.
That's the stage. If they can have an operator climbing a real
telegraph-pole to tap the wire and telegraph the girl he loves that he
is dead, so that she can marry his rich rival and go to Europe and
cultivate her gift for sculpture, they feel that they have got real
life."

Louise would not be amused, or laugh with her husband at this. "Then
what in the world does Godolphin mean?" she demanded.