I
thought she could make any piece go. To play to fifty dollars was out of
my reckoning. It is slaughter."

Once his disgust topped all restraint, and he burst forth to Helen:
"Look at this man Douglass. He bamboozles us into producing his play,
then runs off and leaves us to sink or swim. He won't even change the
lines--says he's working on a new one that will make us all 'barrels of
money.' That's the way of these dramatists--always full of some new
pipe-dream. Meanwhile we're going into the hole every night. I can't
stand it. We were making all kinds of money with _The Baroness_. Come,
let's go back to it!" His voice filled with love, for she was his ideal.
"Sis, I hate to see you doing this. It cuts me to the heart. Why, some
of these newspaper shads actually pretend to pity you--you, the greatest
romantic actress in America! This man Douglass has got you hypnotized.
Honestly, there's something uncanny about the way he has queered you.
Brace up. Send him whirling. He isn't worth a minute of your time,
Nellie--now, that's the fact. He's a crazy freak. Say the word and I'll
fire him and his misbegotten plays to-night."

To this Helen made simple reply. "No, Hugh; I intend to stand to my
promise. We will keep _Lillian_ on till the new play is ready. It would
be unfair to Mr. Douglass--"

"But he has lost all interest in it himself. He never shows up in front,
never makes a suggestion."

"He is saving all his energy for the new play."

Hugh's lips twisted in scorn. "The new play! Yes, he's filled with a lot
of pale-blue moonshine now. He's got another 'idea.' That's the trouble
with these literary chaps, they're so swelled by their own notions they
can't write what the common audience wants. His new play will be a worse
'frost' than this. You'll ruin us all if you don't drop him. We stand to
lose forty thousand dollars on _Lillian_ already."

"Nevertheless, I shall give the new play a production," she replied, and
Hugh turned away in speechless dismay and disgust.

The papers were filled with stinging allusions to her failure. A shrewd
friend from Boston met her with commiseration in her face. "It's a good
play and a fine part," she said, "but they don't want you in such work.
They like you when you look wicked."

"I know that, but I'm tired of playing the wanton adventuress for such
people. I want to appeal to a more thoughtful public for the rest of my
stage career."

"Why not organize a church like Mrs. A