Part 20 (2/2)
Maxwell of this he will suffer as he ought, and that's saying a great deal, for not coming with me to-day. To think of it's being _you_!”
”Ah, but to think of it's being _he_! You acquit me of the poor taste of putting up a job?”
”Oh, of anything you want to be acquitted of! What crime would you prefer? There are whole deluges of mercy for you. But now go on, and tell me everything you thought about the play.”
”I'd rather you'd tell me what you know about the playwright.”
”Everything, of course, and nothing.” She added the last words from a sudden, poignant conviction. ”Isn't that the way with the wives of you men of genius?”
”Am I a man of genius?”
”You're literary.”
”Oh, literary, yes. But I'm not married.”
”You're determined to get out of it, somehow. Tell me about Midland. It has filled such a s.p.a.ce in our imagination! You can't think what a comfort and stay you have been to us! But why in Midland? Is it a large place?”
”Would it take such a very big one to hold me? It's the place I brought myself up in, and it's very good to me, and so I live there. I don't think it has any vast intellectual or aesthetic interests, but there are very nice people there, very cultivated, some of them, and very well read. After all, you don't need a great many people; three or four will do.”
”And have you always lived there?”
”I lived a year or so in New York, and I manage to get on here some time every winter. The rest of the year Midland is quite enough for me. It's gay at times; there's a good deal going on; and I can write there as well as anywhere, and better than in New York. Then, you know, in a small way I'm a prophet in my own country, perhaps because I was away from it for awhile. It's very pretty. But it's very base of you to make me talk about myself when I'm so anxious to hear about Mr. Maxwell.”
”And do you spend all your time writing Ibsen criticisms of Ibsen plays?” Louise pursued against his protest.
”I do some other kind of writing.”
”As--”
”Oh, no! I'm not here to interview myself.”
”Oh, but you ought. I know you've written something--some novel. Your name was so familiar from the first.” Mr. Ray laughed and shook his head in mockery of her cheap device. ”You mustn't be vexed because I'm so vague about it. I'm very ignorant.”
”You said you were from Boston.”
”But there are Bostons and Bostons. The Boston that I belonged to never hears of American books till they are forgotten!”
”Ah, how famous I must be there!”
”I see you are determined to be bad. But I remember now; it was a play.
Haven't you written a play?” He held up three fingers. ”I knew it! What was it?”
”My plays,” said the young fellow, with a mock of superiority, ”have never been played. I've been told that they are above the heads of an audience. It's a great consolation. But now, really, about Mr.
Maxwell's. When is it to be given here? I hoped very much that I might happen on the very time.”
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