Part 8 (2/2)
”No; but of course you can't have two characters of equal importance in your play. Some one has to be first, and G.o.dolphin doesn't want an actress taking all the honors away from him.”
”Then why did you pretend to like the way I had done it,” Maxwell demanded, angrily, ”if you think she will take the honors from him?”
”I didn't say that I did. All that I want is that you should ask yourself whether she would or not.”
”Are _you_ jealous of her?”
”Now, my dear, if you are going to be unreasonable, I will not talk with you.”
Nothing maddened Maxwell so much as to have his wife take this tone with him, when he had followed her up through the sinuosities that always began with her after a certain point. Short of that she was as frank and candid as a man, and he understood her, but beyond that the eternal womanly began, and he could make nothing of her. She evaded, and came and went, and returned upon her course, and all with as good a conscience, apparently, as if she were meeting him fairly and squarely on the question they started with. Sometimes he doubted if she really knew that she was behaving insincerely, or whether, if she knew it, she could help doing it. He believed her to be a more truthful nature than himself, and it was insufferable for her to be less so, and then accuse him of illogicality.
”I have no wish to talk,” he said, smothering his rage, and taking up a page of ma.n.u.script.
”Of course,” she went on, as if there had been no break in their good feeling, ”I know what a goose G.o.dolphin is, and I don't wonder you're vexed with him, but you know very well that I have nothing but the good of the play in view as a work of art, and I should say that if you couldn't keep Salome from rivalling Haxard in the interest of the spectator, you had better go back to the idea of making two plays of it.
I think that the 'Second Chapter' would be a very good thing to begin with.”
”Why, good heavens! you said just the contrary when we decided to drop it.”
”Yes, but that was when I thought you would be able to subdue Salome.”
”There never was any question of subduing Salome; it was a question of subduing Atland!”
”It's the same thing; keeping the love-business in the background.”
”I give it up!” Maxwell flung down his ma.n.u.script in sign of doing so.
”The whole thing is a mess, and you seem to delight in tormenting me about it. How am I to give the love-business charm, and yet keep it in the background?”
”I should think you could.”
”How?”
”Well, I was afraid you would give Salome too much prominence.”
”Didn't you know whether I had done so or not? You knew what I had done before G.o.dolphin came!”
”If G.o.dolphin thinks she is too prominent, you ought to trust his instinct.”
Maxwell would not answer her. He went out, and she saw him strolling down the path to the rocks. She took the ma.n.u.script and began to read it over.
He did not come back, and when she was ready to go to supper she had to go down to the rocks for him. His angry fit seemed to have pa.s.sed, but he looked abjectly sad, and her heart ached at sight of him. She said, cheerfully, ”I have been reading that love-business over again, Brice, and I don't find it so far out as I was afraid it was. Salome is a little too _p.r.o.noncee_, but you can easily mend that. She is a delightful character, and you have given her charm--too much charm. I don't believe there's a truer woman in the whole range of the drama. She is perfect, and that is why I think you can afford to keep her back a little in the pa.s.sages with Haxard. Of course, G.o.dolphin wants to s.h.i.+ne there. You needn't give him her speeches, but you can put them somewhere else, in some of the scenes with Atland; it won't make any difference how much she outs.h.i.+nes _him_, poor fellow.”
He would not be entreated at once, but after letting her talk on to much the same effect for awhile, he said, ”I will see what can be done with it. At present I am sick of the whole thing.”
”Yes, just drop it for the present,” she said. ”I'm hungry, aren't you?”
”I didn't know it was time.”
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