l's genius as devoutly as she did herself. This did not prevent
him from coming every day with proposals for changes in the play, more
or less structural. At one time he wished the action laid in some other
country and epoch, so as to bring in more costume and give the carpenter
something to do; he feared that the severity of the _mise en scene_
would ruin the piece. At another time he wanted lines taken out of the
speeches of the inferior characters and put into his own, to fatten the
part, as he explained. At other times he wished to have paraphrases of
passages that he had brought down the house with in other plays written
into this; or scenes transposed, so that he would make a more effective
entrance here or there. There was no end to his inventions for spoiling
the simplicity and truthfulness of Maxwell's piece, which he yet
respected for the virtues in it, and hoped the greatest things from.

One afternoon he arrived with a scheme for a very up-to-date scene in
the last act; have it a supper instead of a dinner, and then have a
skirt-dancer introduced, as society people had been having Carmencita.
"When Haxard dies, you know," he explained, "it would be tremendously
effective to have the woman catch him in her arms, and she would be a
splendid piece of color in the picture, with Haxard's head lying in her
lap, as the curtain comes down with a run."

At this suggestion Mrs. Maxwell was too indignant to speak; her husband
merely said, with his cold smile, "Yes; but I don't see what it would
have to do with the rest of the play."

"You could have it," said Godolphin, "that he was married to a Mexican
during his Texas episode, and this girl was their daughter." Maxwell
still smiled, and Godolphin deferred to his wife: "But perhaps Mrs.
Maxwell would object to the skirt-dance?"

"Oh, no," she answered, ironically, "I shouldn't mind having it, with
Carmencita in society for a precedent. But," she added, "the incident
seems so out of keeping with the action and the temperament of the play,
and everything. If I were to see such a thing on the stage, merely as an
impartial spectator, I should feel insulted."

Godolphin flushed. "I don't see where the insult would come in. You
mightn't like it, but it would be like anything else in a play that you
were not personally concerned in."

"No, excuse me, Mr. Godolphin. I think the audience is as much concerned
in the play as the actor or the author, and if either of these f