hold his own," said Hilary, but not
so much proudly as dolefully.

She knew he was braving it out about the theatre, and that secretly he
thought it undignified, and even disreputable, to be connected with it,
or to be in such close relations with an actor as Maxwell seemed to be
with this fellow who talked of taking his play. Hilary could go back
very easily to the time in Boston when the theatres were not allowed
open on Saturday night, lest they should profane the approaching
Sabbath, and when you would no more have seen an actor in society than
an elephant. He had not yet got used to meeting them, and he always felt
his difference, though he considered himself a very liberal man, and was
fond of the theatre--from the front.

He asked now, "What sort of chap is he, really?" meaning Godolphin, and
Louise did her best to reassure him. She told him Godolphin was young
and enthusiastic; and he had an ideal of the drama; and he believed in
Brice; and he had been two seasons with Booth and Barrett; and now he
had made his way on the Pacific Coast, and wanted a play that he could
take the road with. She parroted those phrases, which made her father's
flesh creep, and she laughed when she saw it creeping, for sympathy; her
own had crept first.

"Well," he said, at last, "he won't expect you and Maxwell to take the
road too with it?"

"Oh no, we shall only be with him in New York. He won't put the play on
there first; they usually try a new play in the country."

"Oh, do they?" said Hilary, with a sense that his daughter's knowledge
of the fact was disgraceful to her.

"Yes. Shall I tell you what they call that? Trying it on a dog!" she
shrieked, and Hilary had to laugh, too. "It's dreadful," she went on.
"Then, if it doesn't kill the dog, Godolphin will bring it to New York,
and put it on for a run--a week or a month--as long as his money holds
out. If he believes in it, he'll fight it." Her father looked at her for
explanation, and she said, with a gleeful perception of his suffering,
"He'll keep it on if he has to play to paper every night. That is, to
free tickets."

"Oh!" said Hilary. "And are you to be there the whole time with him?"

"Why, not necessarily. But Brice will have to be there for the
rehearsals; and if we are going to live in New York--"

Hilary sighed. "I wish Maxwell was going on with his newspaper work; I
might be of use to him in that line, if he were looking forward to an
interest in a news