ow that felt; besides, it would be a
pleasure to keep it and let it burst upon him, if that L. Sterne,
whoever he was, asked to see the play. In any case, it would not be a
great while that she need keep from him what she had done, but at sight
of him when he came in she could hardly be silent. He was gloomy and
dispirited, and he confessed that his pleasant experience with Grayson
had not been repeated with the other managers. They had all been civil
enough, and he had seen three or four of them, but only one had
consented to let him even leave his play with him; the others said that
it would be useless for them to look at it.

She could not forbear showing him the advertisement she had answered as
they sat at lunch; but he glanced at it with disdain, and said there
must be some sort of fake in it; if it was some irresponsible fellow
getting up a combination he would not scruple to use the ideas of any
manuscript submitted to him and work them over to suit himself. Louise
could not speak. All heart went out of her; she wanted to cry, and she
did not tell what she had done.

Neither of them ate much. He asked her if she was ready to begin on the
story with him; she said, "Oh yes;" and she hobbled off into the other
room. Then he seemed to remember her hurt for the first time; he had
been so full of his failure with the play before. He asked her how she
was, and she said much better; and then he stretched himself on the
lounge and tried to dictate, and she took her place at his desk and
tried to write. But she either ran ahead of him and prompted him, which
vexed him, or she lagged so far behind that he lost the thread of what
he was saying and became angry. At last she put her head down on the
paper and blotted it with her tears.

At that he said, "Oh, you'd better go back to bed," and then, though he
spoke harshly, he lifted her tenderly and half carried her to her room.

XVII.

They did not try working the play into a story again together. Maxwell
kept doggedly at it, though he said it was of no use; the thing had
taken the dramatic form with inexorable fixity as it first came from his
mind; it could be changed, of course, but it could only be changed for
the worse, artistically. If he could sell it as a story, the work would
not be lost; he would gain the skill that came from doing, in any event,
and it would keep him alive under the ill-luck that now seemed to have
set in.

None of the managers wanted