Matthias shook his stubborn head. "Besides," he added quickly, "Algerson will probably try the show out in one of his stock houses before he goes to the expense of organizing a new and separate production. I mean, he'll use people already on his pay roll, and not engage outsiders until he knows pretty well whether he's got a success or a failure on his hands." "You think he will produce out West?" "Probably." "And will you have to go?" "I don't know. I shan't unless I get some guarantee of expenses. Although ... I don't know ... perhaps I ought to. Wilbrow and I are the only people who know how the thing ought to be done, and Algerson most certainly won't pay what Wilbrow asks for making a production--and his expenses to the Coast and back, besides.... It would be a shame to let a valuable property go smash for want of intelligent supervision." "Then you may go, after all?" "I can't say until something definite is arranged. I'll have to think it over." Joan sighed. A week elapsed before the subject came up again. Matthias had been out all day; Joan, with no typing to engage her, had sought surcease of ennui with a book and an easy chair in the back-parlour. But the story was badly chosen for her purpose. Its heroine, like herself, had in the beginning been merely a girl of the people, little if any better equipped for the struggle to the top: Joan could see no reason why she should not rise with a rapidity as wonderful, given but the chance denied her through the unreasonable prejudice of her lover. And presently the book lay open and neglected in her lap, while her thoughts engaged mutinously with this obstruction to her desires, seeking a way to circumvent it without imperilling her conquest. Joan was proud and sure of her power over Matthias, but she realized that in spite of it she didn't as yet fill his life; there existed in his nature reticences her imagination might not plumb; and until chance, or the confidence only to be engendered through long, slow processes of intimate association, should make these known to her, she hesitated to join issue with his will. And yet ... she was continually restless and discontented. Sometimes she felt that the old order of uncertainty and stifled longings had been better for her soul; that she couldn't much longer endure the tension of living up to the rigorous standards of Matthias and his kind; that she might even be happier as the object of a passion less honourable and honest than that which he offered her. But never before this day had she admitted so much to herself, even in her most secret hours of egoistic self-communion.... Matthias came in briskly, in a glow of high spirits, shortly before sunset; and immediately, as always, her every doubt and misgiving vanished like mists in the morning-glow of his love.