day as you've begun, but there's no
telling what exceptions you might be going to make later. Where did you
see my husband's play?"

"In Midland--"

"What! You are not--you can't be--Mr. Ray?"

"I am--I can," he returned, gleefully, and now Louise impulsively gave
him her hand under the table-cloth.

The man[oe]uvre caught the eye of the hostess. "A bet?" she asked.

"Better," cried Louise, not knowing her pun, "a thousand times," and she
turned without further explanation to the gentleman: "When I tell Mr.
Maxwell of this he will suffer as he ought, and that's saying a great
deal, for not coming with me to-day. To think of it's being _you_!"

"Ah, but to think of it's being _he_! You acquit me of the poor taste of
putting up a job?"

"Oh, of anything you want to be acquitted of! What crime would you
prefer? There are whole deluges of mercy for you. But now go on, and
tell me everything you thought about the play."

"I'd rather you'd tell me what you know about the playwright."

"Everything, of course, and nothing." She added the last words from a
sudden, poignant conviction. "Isn't that the way with the wives of you
men of genius?"

"Am I a man of genius?"

"You're literary."

"Oh, literary, yes. But I'm not married."

"You're determined to get out of it, somehow. Tell me about Midland. It
has filled such a space in our imagination! You can't think what a
comfort and stay you have been to us! But why in Midland? Is it a large
place?"

"Would it take such a very big one to hold me? It's the place I brought
myself up in, and it's very good to me, and so I live there. I don't
think it has any vast intellectual or aesthetic interests, but there are
very nice people there, very cultivated, some of them, and very well
read. After all, you don't need a great many people; three or four will
do."

"And have you always lived there?"

"I lived a year or so in New York, and I manage to get on here some time
every winter. The rest of the year Midland is quite enough for me. It's
gay at times; there's a good deal going on; and I can write there as
well as anywhere, and better than in New York. Then, you know, in a
small way I'm a prophet in my own country, perhaps because I was away
from it for awhile. It's very pretty. But it's very base of you to make
me talk about myself when I'm so anxious to hear about Mr. Maxwell."

"And do you spend all your time writing Ibsen criticisms of Ibsen
plays?" Louise pursued