o!"

"No; but of course you can't have two characters of equal importance in
your play. Some one has to be first, and Godolphin doesn't want an
actress taking all the honors away from him."

"Then why did you pretend to like the way I had done it," Maxwell
demanded, angrily, "if you think she will take the honors from him?"

"I didn't say that I did. All that I want is that you should ask
yourself whether she would or not."

"Are _you_ jealous of her?"

"Now, my dear, if you are going to be unreasonable, I will not talk with
you."

Nothing maddened Maxwell so much as to have his wife take this tone with
him, when he had followed her up through the sinuosities that always
began with her after a certain point. Short of that she was as frank and
candid as a man, and he understood her, but beyond that the eternal
womanly began, and he could make nothing of her. She evaded, and came
and went, and returned upon her course, and all with as good a
conscience, apparently, as if she were meeting him fairly and squarely
on the question they started with. Sometimes he doubted if she really
knew that she was behaving insincerely, or whether, if she knew it, she
could help doing it. He believed her to be a more truthful nature than
himself, and it was insufferable for her to be less so, and then accuse
him of illogicality.

"I have no wish to talk," he said, smothering his rage, and taking up a
page of manuscript.

"Of course," she went on, as if there had been no break in their good
feeling, "I know what a goose Godolphin is, and I don't wonder you're
vexed with him, but you know very well that I have nothing but the good
of the play in view as a work of art, and I should say that if you
couldn't keep Salome from rivalling Haxard in the interest of the
spectator, you had better go back to the idea of making two plays of it.
I think that the 'Second Chapter' would be a very good thing to begin
with."

"Why, good heavens! you said just the contrary when we decided to drop
it."

"Yes, but that was when I thought you would be able to subdue Salome."

"There never was any question of subduing Salome; it was a question of
subduing Atland!"

"It's the same thing; keeping the love-business in the background."

"I give it up!" Maxwell flung down his manuscript in sign of doing so.
"The whole thing is a mess, and you seem to delight in tormenting me
about it. How am I to give the love-business charm, and yet keep it in
the b