ellow, hollow laugh, which was a fine work
of art in itself, and said: "Mrs. Maxwell, you must let me present the
other _dramatis personae_ to you," and he introduced the whole cast of
the play, one after another. Each said something of the Salome, how
grand it was, how impassioned, how powerful. Maxwell stood by,
listening, with his eyes on his wife's face, trying to read her thought.

They were silent most of the way home, and she only talked of
indifferent things. When the door of their apartment shut them in with
themselves alone, she broke out: "Horrible, horrible, horrible! Well,
the play is ruined, ruined! We might as well die; or _I_ might! I
suppose _you_ really liked it!"

Maxwell turned white with anger. "I didn't try to make her _think_ I
did, anyway. But I knew how you really felt, and I don't believe you
deceived her very much, either. All the same I was ashamed to see you
try."

"Don't talk to me--don't speak! She knew from every syllable I uttered
that I perfectly loathed it, and I know that she tried to make it as
hateful to me all the way through as she could. She played it _at_ me,
and she knew it _was_ me. It was as if she kept saying all the time,
'How do you like my translation of your Boston girl into Alabama, or
Mississippi, or Arkansas, or wherever I came from? This is the way you
would have acted, if you were _me_!' Yes, that is the hideous part of
it. Her nature has _come off_ on the character, and I shall never see,
or hear, or think, or dream Salome, after this, without having Yolande
Havisham before me. She's spoiled the sweetest thing in my life. She's
made me hate myself; she's made me hate _you_! Will you go out somewhere
and get your lunch? I don't want anything myself, and just now I can't
bear to look at you. Oh, you're not to blame, that I know of, if that's
what you mean. Only go!"

"I can go out for lunch, certainly," said Maxwell "Perhaps you would
rather I stayed out for dinner, too?"

"Don't be cruel, dearest. I am trying to control myself--"

"I shouldn't have thought it. You're not succeeding."

"No, not so well as you, if you hated this woman's Salome as much as I
did. If it's always been as bad as it was to-day you've controlled
yourself wonderfully well never to give me any hint of it, or prepare me
for it in the least."

"How could I prepare you? You would have come to it with your own
prepossessions, no matter what I said."

"Was that why you said nothing?"