"Oh, you did the white thing: I'm not disputing that. But what I'm worried about now is whether you're as good a sport as you seem." "Meaning--?" Marbridge nodded significantly toward the sidewalk, where he had put his late companion into the cab. "About today: you won't find it necessary to--?" "By God!" Matthias's indignation brimmed over. "If you're so solicitous of the woman's good name, why the devil do you allow her to be seen in your company?" "It isn't that," Marbridge persisted, keeping himself well in hand. "After all, what's a lunch at the Knick?" "Well--?" "The trouble is, she's supposed to be at Newport. Majendie doesn't know--" "You just can't help being a blackguard, can you, Marbridge?" Matthias enquired curiously. "You ought to have bitten off your tongue before you named a name in a public place like this." He rose, meeting with steady eyes the vicious glare of the other. "One word more: if I hear of your accepting another invitation to Tanglewood, I'll forget to be what you call 'a good sport'." Marbridge jumped up hotly. "Look here!" he said in accents that, though guarded, trembled, "I've been mighty patient with your insolence, and I'm certainly not going to forget myself here. But if you want to make a book on it, I'll lay you any odds you like that I'll be received at Tanglewood within the year, and you won't say one single damn' word. Do you make me?" Matthias looked him up and down, smiled quietly, swung on his heel, and moved across the lobby to greet Rideout and Wilbrow. His instinctive inclination to dismiss altogether from his mind a subject so distasteful was helped out by a conference which outlasted luncheon, involved dinner with the two men of the theatre, and was only concluded in Matthias's rooms shortly after midnight. Wilbrow, considering the play from the point of view of him upon whom devolved all responsibility for the manner of its presentation (the scene painting alone excepted) and gifted with that intuitive sense _du théâtre_ singular to men of his vocation, who very nearly monopolize the intelligence concerned with the American stage today--Wilbrow had uncovered a slight, by no means damning, flaw in the construction of the third act, and had a remedy to suggest. This, adopted without opposition from the playwright, suggested further alterations which Matthias could not deny were calculated to strengthen the piece. In consequence, when at length they left him, he found himself committed to a virtual rewriting of the last two acts entire.