he
was working out of it, but he was not able at once to simplify himself.
This was in fact the fault of the whole company. The girl who did Salome
had moments of charming reality, but she too suffered from her
tradition, and the rest went from bad to worse. He thought that they
would all do better as they familiarized themselves with the piece, and
he deeply regretted that Mr. Godolphin had been able to give it only
once in Midland.

At this Mrs. Maxwell's wounds inwardly bled afresh, and she came little
short of bedewing the kind letter with her tears. She made Maxwell
answer it at once, and she would not let him deprecate the writer's
worship of him as the first American dramatist to attempt something in
the spirit of the great modern masters abroad. She contended that it
would be as false to refuse this tribute as to accept one that was not
due him, and there could be no doubt but it was fully and richly
merited. The critic wrote again in response to Maxwell, and they
exchanged three or four letters.

What was even more to Louise was the admirable behavior of her father
when she went to eat humble-pie before him. He laughed at the notion of
Godolphin's meddling with the play, and scolded her for not taking her
husband's view of the case, which he found entirely reasonable, and the
only reasonable view of it. He argued that Godolphin simply chose to
assert in that way a claim to joint authorship, which he had all along
probably believed he had, and he approved of Maxwell's letting him have
his head in the matter, so far as the West was concerned. If he
attempted to give it with any alterations of his own in the East, there
would be time enough to stop him. Louise seized the occasion to confirm
herself in her faith that her father admired Maxwell's genius as much as
she did herself; and she tried to remember just the words he used in
praising it, so that she could repeat them to Maxwell. She also
committed to memory his declaration that the very fact of Godolphin's
playing the piece every now and then was proof positive that he would be
very reluctant to part with it, if it came to that. This seemed to her
very important, and she could hardly put up with Maxwell's sardonic
doubt of it.

Before they left Magnolia there came a letter from Godolphin himself,
wholly different in tone from his earlier letter. He said nothing now of
overhauling the piece, which he felt was gradually making its way. He
was playing it at