Part 10 (2/2)

Louise read the criticism aloud, and then she and Maxwell looked at each other. It took their breath away; but Louise got her breath first. ”Who in the world would have dreamed that there was any one who could write such a criticism, _out there_?”

Maxwell took the paper, and ran the article over again. Then he said, ”If the thing did nothing more than get itself appreciated in that way, I should feel that it had done enough. I wonder who the fellow is! Could it be a woman?”

There was, in fact, a feminine fineness in the touch, here and there, that might well suggest a woman, but they finally decided against the theory: Louise said that a woman writer would not have the honesty to own that the part Salome played in getting back her lover was true to life, though every woman who saw it would know that it was. She examined the wrapper of the newspaper, and made sure that it was addressed in G.o.dolphin's hand, and she said that if he did not speak of the article in his letter, Maxwell must write out to the newspaper and ask who had done it.

G.o.dolphin's letter came at last, with many excuses for his delay. He said he had expected the newspaper notices to speak for him, and he seemed to think that they had all been altogether favorable to the play.

It was not very consoling to have him add that he now believed the piece would have run the whole week in Midland, if he had kept it on; but he had arranged merely to give it a trial, and Maxwell would understand how impossible it was to vary a programme which had once been made out.

One thing was certain, however: the piece was an a.s.sured success, and a success of the most flattering and brilliant kind, and G.o.dolphin would give it a permanent place in his _repertoire_. There was no talk of his playing nothing else, and there was no talk of putting the piece on for a run, when he opened in New York. He said he had sent Maxwell a paper containing a criticism in the editorial columns, which would serve to show him how great an interest the piece had excited in Midland, though he believed the article was not written by one of the regular force, but was contributed from the outside by a young fellow who had been described to G.o.dolphin as a sort of Ibsen crank. At the close, he spoke of certain weaknesses which the piece had developed in the performance, and casually mentioned that he would revise it at these points as he found the time; it appeared to him that it needed overhauling, particularly in the love episode; there was too much of that, and the interest during an entire act centred so entirely upon Salome that, as he had foreseen, the role of Haxard suffered.

IX.

The Maxwells stared at each other in dismay when they had finished this letter, which Louise had opened, but which they had read together, she looking over his shoulder. All interest in the authors.h.i.+p of the article of the Ibsen crank, all interest in G.o.dolphin's apparent forgetfulness of his solemn promises to give the rest of his natural life to the performance of the piece, was lost in amaze at the fact that he was going to revise it to please himself, and to fas.h.i.+on Maxwell's careful work over in his own ideal of the figure he should make in it to the public. The thought of this was so petrifying that even Louise could not at once find words for it, and they were both silent, as people sometimes are, when a calamity has befallen them, in the hope that if they do not speak it will turn out a miserable dream.

”Well, Brice,” she said at last, ”you certainly never expected _this_!”

”No,” he answered with a ghastly laugh; ”this pa.s.ses my most sanguine expectations, even of G.o.dolphin. Good Heaven! Fancy the botch he will make of it!”

”You mustn't let him touch it. You must demand it back, peremptorily.

You must telegraph!”

”What a mania you have for telegraphing,” he retorted. ”A special delivery postage-stamp will serve every purpose. He isn't likely to do the piece again for a week, at the earliest.” He thought for awhile, and then he said: ”In a week he'll have a chance to change his mind so often, that perhaps he won't revise and overhaul it, after all.”

”But he mustn't think that you would suffer it for an instant,” his wife insisted. ”It's an indignity that you should not submit to; it's an outrage!”

”Very likely,” Maxwell admitted, and he began to walk the floor, with his head fallen, and his fingers clutched together behind him. The sight of his mute anguish wrought upon his wife and goaded her to more and more utterance.

”It's an insult to your genius, Brice, dear, and you must resent it. I am sure I have been as humble about the whole affair as any one could be, and I should be the last person to wish you to do anything rash. I bore with G.o.dolphin's suggestions, and I let him worry you to death with his plans for spoiling your play, but I certainly didn't dream of anything so high-handed as his undertaking to work it over himself, or I should have insisted on your breaking with him long ago. How patient you have been through it all! You've shown so much forbearance, and so much wisdom, and so much delicacy in dealing with his preposterous ideas, and then, to have it all thrown away! It's too bad!”

Maxwell kept walking hack and forth, and Louise began again at a new point.

”I was willing to have it remain simply a _succes d'estime_, as far as Midland was concerned, though I think you were treated abominably in that, for he certainly gave you reason to suppose that he would do it every night there. He says himself that it would have run the whole week; and you can see from that article how it was growing in public favor all the time. What has become of his promise to play nothing else, I should like to know? And he's only played it once, and now he proposes to revise it himself!”

Still Maxwell walked on and she continued:

”I don't know what I shall say to my family. They can never understand such a thing, never! Papa couldn't conceive of giving a promise and not keeping it, much less giving a promise just for the _pleasure_ of breaking it. What shall I tell them, Brice? I can't bear to say that G.o.dolphin is going to make your play over, unless I can say at the same time that you've absolutely forbidden him to do so. That's why I wanted you to telegraph. I wanted to say you had telegraphed.”

Maxwell stopped in his walk and gazed at her, but she could feel that he did not see her, and she said:

”I don't know that it's actually necessary for me to say anything at present. I can show them the notices, or that article alone. It's worth all the rest put together, and then we can wait, and see if we hear anything more from G.o.dolphin. But now I don't want you to lose any more time. You must write to him at once, and absolutely forbid him to touch your play. Will you?”

Her husband returned from his wanderings of mind and body, and as he dropped upon the lounge at her side, he said, gently, ”No, I don't think I'll write at all, Louise.”

”Not write at all! Then you're going to let him tamper with that beautiful work of yours?”

”I'm going to wait till I hear from him again. G.o.dolphin is a good fellow--”

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