"You won't give me the part?" "Certainly not. You shouldn't ask it." "Doesn't Léontine Murat mean more to the public than Norma Berwynd?" she demanded. "Until last night, yes. To-day--well, no. She has created this rôle. Besides--you--couldn't play the part." "And why not, if you please?" "I don't want to hurt your feelings, Léontine." "Go on!" she commanded, in a voice roughened by passion. "In the first place you're not--young enough." The woman quivered. "In the second place, you've grown heavy. Then, too, your accent--" She broke out at him furiously. "So! I'm old and fat and foreign. I've lost my beauty. You think so, eh? Well, other men don't. I'll show you what men think of me--" "This is no time for threats," he interrupted, coldly. "Bah! I don't threaten." Seizing him by the arm, she swung him about, for she was a large woman and still in the fullest vigor of her womanhood. "Listen! You can't fool me. I know why you wrote this play. I know why you took that girl and made a star of her. I've known the truth all along." "You have no cause to--" "Don't lie!" she stormed at him. "I can read you like a book. But I won't stand for it." She flung his arm violently from her and turned away. "I think you'd better go home," he told her. "You'll have the stage hands talking in a minute." She laughed disagreeably, ignoring his words. "I watched you write this play! I have eyes, even if Irving Francis is blind. It's time he knew what is going on." "There is nothing going on," Phillips cried, heatedly; but his wife merely shrugged her splendid shoulders and, opening her gold vanity case, gave her face a deft going over with a tiny powder puff. After a time the man continued: "I could understand your attitude if you--cared for me, but some years ago you took pains to undeceive me on that point." Léontine's lip curled, and she made no answer. "This play is a fine piece of property; it will bring us a great deal of money; it is the thing for which I have worked years." "I am going to tell Francis the truth about you and his wife!" she said. "But there's nothing to tell," the man insisted, with an effort to restrain himself. "Besides, you must know the result if you start a thing like that. He'll walk out and take his wife with him. That would ruin--" "Give me her part." "I won't be coerced," he flared up, angrily. "You are willing to ruin me, out of pique, I suppose, but I won't permit it. This is the biggest thing I ever did, or ever will do, perhaps; it means honor and recognition, and--you're selfish enough to spoil it all. I've never spoken to Norma Berwynd in any way to which her husband or you could object. Therefore I resent your attitude." "My attitude! I'm your wife."