ly
if they had come to any definite conclusion about the play, and he
answered, with harsh aggression, yes, that Mrs. Harley had agreed to
take the part of Salome; Godolphin's old company had been mostly got
together, and they were to have the first rehearsal the next morning.

"Should you like me to come some time?" asked Louise.

"I should like you very much to come," said Maxwell, soberly, but with a
latent doubt of her meaning, which she perceived.

"I have been thinking," she said, "whether you would like me to call on
Mrs. Harley this evening with you?"

"What for?" he demanded, suspiciously.

"Well, I don't know. I thought it might be appropriate."

Maxwell thought a moment. "I don't think it would be expected. After
all, it isn't a personal thing," he said, with a relenting in his
defiance.

"No," said Louise.

They got through the evening without further question.

They had always had some sort of explicit making-up before, even when
they had only had a tacit falling out, but this time Louise thought
there had better be none of that. They were to rehearse the play every
day that week, and Maxwell said he must be at the theatre the next
morning at eleven. He could not make out to his wife's satisfaction
that he was of much use, but he did not try to convince her. He only
said that they referred things to him now and then, and that generally
he did not seem to know much about them. She saw that his aesthetic
honesty kept him from pretending to more than this, and she believed he
ought to have greater credit than he claimed.

Four or five days later she went with him to a rehearsal. By this time
they had got so well forward with their work at the theatre that Maxwell
said it would now be in appreciable shape; but still he warned her not
to expect too much. He never could tell her just what she wanted to know
about Mrs. Harley; all he could say was that her Salome was not ideal,
though it had strong qualities; and he did not try to keep her from
thinking it offensive; that would only have made bad worse.

It had been snowing overnight, and there was a bright glare of sunshine
on the drifts, which rendered the theatre doubly dark when they stepped
into it from the street. It was a dramatic event for Louise to enter by
the stage-door, and to find Maxwell recognized by the old man in charge
as having authority to do so; and she made as much of the strange
interior as the obscurity and her preoccupation wo