to the general
in it. The average audience will understand just what the girl that
Miss Havisham gives is after, and she gives her so abundantly that
there's no more doubt of the why than there is of the how. Sometimes I
used to think the house couldn't follow Miss Pettrell in her subtle
touches, but the house, to the topmost tier of the gallery, will get
Miss Havisham's intention."

Godolphin was standing while he said all this, and Maxwell now asked:
"Won't you sit down?"

The actor had his overcoat on his arm, and his hat in one hand. He
tapped at his boot with the umbrella he held in the other. "No, I don't
believe I will, thank you. The fact is, I just dropped in a moment to
reassure you if you had misgivings about the Salome, and to give you my
point of view."

Maxwell did not say anything; he looked at Louise again, and it seemed
to her that he meant her to speak. She said, "Oh, we understood that we
couldn't have all kinds of a Salome in one creation of the part; and I'm
sure no one can see Mrs. Harley in it without feeling her intensity."

"She's a force," said Godolphin. "And if, as we all decided," he
continued, to Maxwell, "when we talked it over with Grayson, that a
powerful Salome would heighten the effect of Haxard, she is going to
make the success of the piece."

"_You_ are going to make the success of the piece!" cried Louise.

"Ah, I sha'n't care if they forget me altogether," said the actor; "I
shall forget myself." He laughed his mellow, hollow laugh, and gave his
hand to Louise and then to Maxwell. "I'm so glad you feel as you do
about it, and I don't wish you to lose your faith in our Salome for a
moment. You've quite confirmed mine." He wrung the hands of each with a
fervor of gratitude that left them with a disquiet which their eyes
expressed to each other when he was gone.

"What does it mean?" asked Louise.

Maxwell shook his head. "It's beyond me."

"Brice," she appealed, after a moment, "do you think I had been saying
anything to set him against her?"

"No," he returned, instantly. "Why should I suspect you of anything so
base?"

Her throat was full, but she made out to say, "No, you are too generous,
too good for such a thing;" and now she went on to eat humble-pie with a
self-devotion which few women could practise. "I know that if I don't
like having her I have no one but myself to thank for it. If I had never
written to that miserable Mr. Sterne, or answered his advertisemen