"But didn't you once have a great deal of confidence in it?" "Every play is a valuable property until it's produced," he answered, smiling. "This one was killed by its production. Nothing was right: it needed scenery, and what they gave it had served a decade in stock; it needed actors, and what actors were accidentally permitted to get into the cast got the wrong rôles; finally, it needed intelligent stage direction, and that was supplied by the star, whose idea of a good play is one in which he speaks everybody's lines _and_ his own. Then they rewrote most of the best scenes and botched them horribly." "You couldn't stop them?" "When I attempted to interfere, I was told civilly to go to the devil. Under my contract, I could have stopped them: but that meant suing out an injunction, which in turn meant putting up a bond, and--I didn't have the money." "I'm so sorry, Jack!" "Oh, it's all in the game. I learned something, at least. But the greatest harm it did me was to sap the faith of managers here. One man--Wylie--who was under contract to produce my 'Tomorrow's People,' paid me on January first a forfeit of five hundred dollars rather than run the risk after 'The Jade God.'" "And so you lost both plays?" "Oh, no; I still have 'Tomorrow's People,' and only a short time ago signed up with a manager who isn't afraid of his shadow. We'll put it on next Autumn." "And you believe in that, too?" "I know it will go," Matthias asserted with level confidence. "It's only a question of intelligence at the producing end--and I've arranged to get that." "And meanwhile--you've been working?" "Oh"--he spread out his hands--"one doesn't stop, you know. It's too interesting!" And then he laughed again. "But, you see, you flatter a fellow into talking his head off about himself! Forgive me, and let me do a little cross-examining. How are you? And what have you been doing? You--you know, Venetia--you're looking more exquisitely pretty than ever!" And so she was--more strangely lovely than ever in all the long span of their friendship: with a deeper radiance in her face, a clearer, more translucent pallor, in her eyes a splendour that lent new dignity to their violet-shadowed mystery. "I'm glad of that," she said quietly. She folded listless hands in her lap, her eyes seeking distances. "I'm going to be very happy ... I think...." He looked up sharply.