odolphin, and if she did not live a lie concerning the
status of his play, she did not scruple to tell one, now and then.

That is, she would say it was going beyond their expectations, and this
was not so fabulous as it might seem, for their expectations were not so
high as they had been, and Godolphin was really playing the piece once
or twice a week. They heard no more from him by letter, for Maxwell had
decided that it would be better not to answer his missive from Midland;
but he was pretty faithful in sending the newspaper notices whenever he
played, and so they knew that he had not abandoned it. They did not know
whether he had carried out his threat of overhauling it; and Maxwell
chose to remain in ignorance of the fact till Godolphin himself should
speak again. Unless he demanded the play back he was really helpless,
and he was not ready to do that, for he hoped that when the actor
brought it on to New York he could talk with him about it, and come to
some understanding. He had not his wife's belief in the perfection of
the piece; it might very well have proved weak in places, and after his
first indignation at the notion of Godolphin's revising it, he was
willing to do what he could to meet his wishes. He did not so much care
what shape it had in these remote theatres of the West; the real test
was New York, and there it should appear only as he wished.

It was a comfort to his wife when he took this stand, and she vowed him
to keep it; she would have made him go down on his knees and hold up his
right hand, which was her notion of the way an oath was taken in court,
but she did not think he would do it, and he might refuse to seal any
vow at all if she urged it.

In the meanwhile she was not without other consolations. At her
insistence he wrote to the newspaper which had printed the Ibsen crank's
article on the play, and said how much pleasure it had given him, and
begged his thanks to the author. They got a very pretty letter back from
him, adding some praises of the piece which he said he had kept out of
print because he did not want to seem too gushing about it; and he
ventured some wary censures of the acting, which he said he had
preferred not to criticise openly, since the drama was far more
important to him than the theatre. He believed that Mr. Godolphin had a
perfect conception of the part of Haxard, and a thorough respect for the
piece, but his training had been altogether in the romantic school;