There was an instant in which she felt that on her answer depended the justification of her soul. She said afterwards that she could have "fallen round an epigram's neck." "I should think the poor playwright must be very dull," she replied. This was adequate, however, and better than his own response, which was of necessity conventional. "I have seen your new comedy," she continued. "I hope it pleased you?" "I admired it immensely--like every one else. It is a great success, isn't it?" "The theatre is very full every night," he said deprecatingly. "Then it _is_ a success!" "Does that follow?" "You are not satisfied with it--it falls short of what you meant? I shouldn't have supposed that; it seemed to me entirely clear!" "That I had a theory? Really? Perhaps I have not failed so badly as I thought." He did not think he had failed at all, but this sort of thing was his innocent weakness. "Miss Millington is almost perfect as 'Daisy,' isn't she?" "'Almost'? Where do you find her weak?" She blushed. "She struck me--of course I am no authority--as not quite fulfilling your idea in the first act--when she accepted the Captain. I thought perhaps she was too responsible there--too grown up." "There isn't a woman in London who could play 'Daisy,'" said Field savagely. "In other words, you think she wrecked the piece?" "Oh no, indeed!" "If 'Daisy' isn't a child when she marries, the play has no meaning, no sense. That is why the character was so difficult to cast--in the first act she must be a school-girl, and in the others an emotional woman." "Perhaps I said too much." "You are a critic, Mrs. Heriot." "Oh, merely----" "Merely?" "Merely very interested in the stage." "To be interested in the stage is very ordinary; to be a judge of it is rather rare. No, you didn't say too much: Miss Millington _doesn't_ fulfil my idea when she accepts 'Captain Arminger.' And to be frank, _I_ haven't fulfilled Miss Millington's idea of a consistent part." "I can understand," said Mamie, "that the great drawback to writing for the stage is that one depends so largely on one's interpreters. A novelist succeeds or fails by himself, but a dramatist----" "A dramatist is the most miserable of created beings," said Field, "if he happens to be an artist." "I can hardly credit that. I can't credit anybody being miserable who is an artist." (He laughed. It was not polite, but he couldn't help it.) "Though I can understand his having moods of the most frightful depression!" she added. "Oh, you can understand that?" "Quite. Would he be an artist if he didn't have them!" "May I ask if you write yourself?" "N--no," she murmured. "Does that mean 'yes'?" "It means 'only for my own amusement.'" "The writer who only writes for his own amusement is mythical, I'm afraid," said Field. "One often hears of him, but he doesn't bear investigation. You don't write plays?" "No--I try to!" He regarded her a little cynically.