"Hate, I wager," he laughed softly, as he drew away from her and seated himself on the railing of the veranda which hung out over the old ocean so that its hungry waves seemed to be leaping up to engulf him. The gray peaks and gable of the Hawtry cottage massed themselves back of him and in the silvering moonlight he looked like a white eagle perched on an eyrie. "Don't make me play that play; give me over to Weiner," the star of many such an encounter as well of "Dear Geraldine" coaxed, as she followed him and put bare, white, glistening arms around his neck and attempted to draw his head down against a bosom that still tossed with the storm of anger that she had put out of voice and face. "You know how last year nobody could get a theatre for love or money, and the producers who owned theatres put on all the plays and coined money. It will be worse next year. You have no theatre and Weiner has three. He offers to let us open the New Carnival. It'll be a sure thing; while your play will have to take its chance for a New York theatre and maybe get none. Please, Godfrey!" "Well, you see I had agreed to let Dennis Farraday in on this play, and it would sell him out to Weiner too," answered Mr. Vandeford, as he very gently but determinedly took the white arms from around his neck and refused the pillow of the storming breast. "Dennis Farraday?" Violet asked, and Mr. Vandeford shot a quick glance of question at her as he felt the tautening of the muscles in the white arms that he had in his grasp of untangling. "You are not going to trim him, are you?" "No, not if you make a hit in 'The Purple Slipper,' answered Mr. Vandeford, as he gave her another appraising glance while he lit a cigarette. "Has he read the play?" "He's putting his money on Hawtry in a play of Vandeford's selecting and producing," was the slap administered with the soft drawl. And as he slapped he watched the reaction. "What did you do with that copy of the play that fellow Dolph sent out this morning?" was what he got with an entire change of purpose in the beautiful, stormy face that had calmed in an instant. "It's in your room on the table by your bed," answered Mr. Vandeford, as he rose, stretched, yawned and in other ways indicated his desire for sleep in the primitive manner that a man uses in the bosom of his family. "I'm going to read it if you don't mind," the Violet said with a smile of pleasure instead of the frown of anger which had so lately rested on her fair face. Mr. Vandeford laughed inwardly; she was about as transparent as a very young kitten in its eagerness for a saucer of cream. "Good girl," answered Godfrey, as together they entered the dark house. Together they climbed the steps, and with a kiss executed by the Violet he left her to turn into the door of her room while he went on to his just beyond.