Part 16 (1/2)

”Well, I can't promise all that, quite.”

”I mean, when the play is at stake.”

”Oh, in that case, yes.”

”What in the world did you say to Mr. Grayson?”

”Very much what I have said to you: that I hated to leave you to lunch alone here.”

”Oh, didn't he think it very silly?” she entreated, fondly. ”Don't you think he'll laugh at you for it!”

”Very likely. But he won't like me the less for it. Men are glad of marital devotion in other men; they feel that it acts as a sort of dispensation for them.”

”You oughtn't to waste those things on me,” she said, humbly. ”You ought to keep them for your plays.”

”Oh, they're not wasted, exactly. I can use them over again. I can say much better things than that with a pen in my hand.”

She hardly heard him. She felt a keen remorse for something she had meant to do and to say when he came home. Now she put it far from her; she thought she ought not to keep even an extinct suspicion in her heart against him, and she asked, ”Brice, did you know that woman was living in this house?”

”What woman?”

Louise was ashamed to say anything about the smouldering eyes. ”That woman on the bathing-beach at Magnolia--the one I met the other day.”

He said, dryly: ”She seems to be pursuing us. How did you find it out?”

She told him, and she added, ”I think she _must_ be an actress of some sort.”

”Very likely, but I hope she won't feel obliged to call because we're connected with the profession.”

Some time afterwards Louise was st.i.tching at a centre-piece she was embroidering for the dining-table, and Maxwell was writing a letter for the _Abstract_, which he was going to send to the editor with a note telling him that if it were the sort of thing he wanted he would do the letters for them.

”After all,” she breathed, ”that look of the eyes may be purely physical.”

”What look?” Maxwell asked, from the depths of his work.

She laughed in perfect content, and said: ”Oh, nothing.” But when he finished his letter, and was putting it into the envelope, she asked: ”Did you tell Mr. Grayson that G.o.dolphin had returned the play?”

”No, I didn't. That wasn't necessary at this stage of the proceedings.”

”No.”

XIV.

During the week that pa.s.sed before Maxwell heard from the manager concerning his play, he did another letter for the _Abstract_, and, with a journalistic acquaintance enlarged through certain Boston men who had found places on New York papers, familiarized himself with New York ways and means of getting news. He visited what is called the Coast, a series of points where the latest intelligence grows in hotel bars and lobbies of a favorable exposure, and is nurtured by clerks and barkeepers skilled in its culture, and by inveterate gossips of their acquaintance; but he found this sort of stuff generally telegraphed on by the a.s.sociated Press before he reached it, and he preferred to make his letter a lively comment on events, rather than a report of them. The editor of the _Abstract_ seemed to prefer this, too. He wrote Maxwell some excellent criticism, and invited him to appeal to the better rather than the worse curiosity of his readers, to remember that this was the principle of the _Abstract_ in its home conduct. Maxwell showed the letter to his wife, and she approved of it all so heartily that she would have liked to answer it herself. ”Of course, Brice,” she said, ”it's _you_ he wants, more than your news. Any wretched reporter could give him that, but you are the one man in the world who can give him your mind about it.”

”Why not say universe?” returned Maxwell, but though he mocked her he was glad to believe she was right, and he was proud of her faith in him.

In another way this was put to proof more than once during the week, for Louise seemed fated to meet Mrs. Harley on the common stairs now when she went out or came in. It was very strange that after living with her a whole month in the house and not seeing her, she should now be seeing her so much. Mostly she was alone, but sometimes she was with an elderly woman, whom Louise decided at one time to be her mother, and at another time to be a professional companion. The first time she met them together she was sure that Mrs. Harley indicated her to the chaperon, and that she remembered her from Magnolia, but she never looked at Louise, any more than Louise looked at her, after that.