s able to escape the other,
and thus save herself for her work; for though she had grown to hate the
plays through which she reached the public, she believed in the power
and the dignity of her art. It was a means of livelihood, it gratified
her vanity; but it was more than this. In a dim way she felt herself in
league with a mighty force, and the desire to mark an epoch in the
American drama came to her. This, too, was a form of egotism, but a high
form.

"I do not care to return to the old," she said. "There are plenty of
women to do _Beatrice_ and _Viola_ and _Lady Macbeth_. I am modern. I
believe in the modern and I believe in America. I don't care to start a
fad for Ibsen or Shaw. I would like to develop our own drama."

"You will have to eliminate the tired business-man and his fat wife and
their late dinners," said a cynical friend.

"All business-men are not tired and all wives are not fat. I believe
there is a public ready to pay their money to see good American drama. I
have found a man who can write--"

"Beware of that man," said the cynic, with a twofold meaning in his
tone. "'He is a dreamer; let him pass.'"

"I do not fear him," she replied, with a gay smile.

XII

Douglass now set to work on his second play with teeth clinched. "I will
win out in spite of them," he said. "They think I am beaten, but I am
just beginning to fight." As the days wore on his self-absorption became
more and more marked. All his morning hours were spent at his writing,
and when he came to Helen he was cold and listless, and talked of
nothing but _Enid_ and her troubles. Even as they rode in the park his
mind seemed forever revolving lines and scenes. In the midst of her
attempt to amuse him, to divert him, he returned to his theme. He
invited her judgments and immediately forgot to listen, so morbidly
self-centred was he.

He made no further changes in the book of _Lillian's Duty_, but put
aside Westervelt's request with a wave of his hand. "I leave all that to
Miss Merival," he said. "I can't give it any thought now."

From one point of view Helen could not but admire this power of
concentration, but when she perceived that her playwright's work had
filled his mind to the exclusion of herself she began to suffer. Her
pride resented his indifference, and she was saved from anger and
disgust only by the beauty of the writing he brought to her.

"The fury of the poet is on him. I must not complain," she thought