that it was really so.

XXI.

Louise asked Maxwell, as soon as they had established their joint faith,
whom Godolphin was going to get to play Salome, and he said that Grayson
would like to re-engage Miss Pettrell, though he had a theory that the
piece would be strengthened, and the effect of Haxard enhanced, if they
could have a more powerful Salome.

"Mr. Ray told me at lunch," said Louise, impartially but with an air of
relief, "that in all the love-making she was delightful; but when it
came to the tragedy, she wasn't there."

"Grayson seemed to think that if she could be properly rehearsed, she
could be brought up to it," Maxwell interposed.

"Mr. Ray said she was certainly very refined, and her Salome was always
a lady. And that is the essential thing," Louise added, decisively. "I
don't at all agree with Mr. Grayson about having Salome played so
powerfully. I think Mr. Godolphin is right."

"For Heaven's sake don't tell him so!" said Maxwell. "We have had
trouble enough to get him under."

"Indeed, I shall tell him so! I think he ought to know how we feel."

"_We?_" repeated Maxwell.

"Yes. What we want for Salome is sweetness and delicacy and refinement;
for she has to do rather a bold thing, and yet keep herself a lady."

"Well, it may be too late to talk of Miss Pettrell now," said Maxwell.
"Your favorite Godolphin parted enemies with her."

"Oh, stage enemies! Mr. Grayson can get her, and he must."

"I'll tell him what your orders are," said Maxwell.

The next day he saw the manager, but nothing had been done, and the
affair seemed to be hanging fire again. In the evening, while he was
talking it over with his wife in a discouragement which they could not
shake off, a messenger came to him with a letter from the Argosy
Theatre, which he tore nervously open.

"What is it, dear?" asked his wife, tenderly. "Another disappointment?"

"Not exactly," he returned, with a husky voice, and after a moment of
faltering he gave her the letter. It was from Grayson, and it was to the
effect that he had seen Sterne, and that Sterne had agreed to a
proposition he had made him, to take Maxwell's play on the road, if it
succeeded, and in view of this had agreed to let Yolande Havisham take
the part of Salome.

Godolphin was going to get all his old company together as far as
possible, with the exception of Miss Pettrell, and there was to be
little or no delay, because the actors had mostly got back