success. She did them all, and equally well and
gracefully, whether it was the rejection of a too ambitious devotee
who dared to want to have her all to himself, or the planning of a
woman's luncheon, or the pushing of a bill to provide kindergartens in
the public schools. But it was rather a relief when the man opened the
curtains and said, "Mr. Wainwright," and Wainwright walked quickly
towards her, tugging at his glove.

"You are very good to see me so late," he said, speaking as he
entered, "but I had to see you to-night, and I wasn't asked to that
dance. I'm going away," he went on, taking his place by the fire, with
his arm resting on the mantel. He had a trick of standing there when
he had something of interest to say, and he was tall and well-looking
enough to appear best in that position, and she was used to it. He was
the most frequent of her visitors.

"Going away," she repeated, smiling up at him; "not for long, I hope.
Where are you going now?"

"I'm going to London," he said. "They cabled me this morning. It
seems they've taken the play, and are going to put it on at once." He
smiled, and blushed slightly at her exclamation of pleasure. "Yes, it
is rather nice. It seems 'Jilted' was a failure, and they've taken it
off, and are going to put on 'School,' with the old cast, until they
can get my play rehearsed, and they want me to come over and suggest
things."

She stopped him with another little cry of delight that was very sweet
to him, and full of moment.

"Oh, how glad I am!" she said. "How proud you must be! Now, why do you
pretend you are not? And I suppose Tree and the rest of them will be
in the cast, and all that dreadful American colony in the stalls, and
you will make a speech--and I won't be there to hear it." She rose
suddenly with a quick, graceful movement, and held out her hand to
him, which he took, laughing and conscious-looking with pleasure.

She sank back on the divan, and shook her head doubtfully at him.
"When will you stop?" she said. "Don't tell me you mean to be an
Admirable Crichton. You are too fine for that."

He looked down at the fire, and said, slowly, "It is not as if I were
trying my hand at an entirely different kind of work. No, I don't
think I did wrong in dramatizing it. The papers all said, when the
book first came out, that it would make a good play; and then so many
men wrote to me for permission to dramatize it that I thought I might
as well try to do it my