"I am speaking as the actress to the playwright." She pointed tragically to the door. "Go! Your poor old, lonely mother awaits you." "There are six in the family; she's my stepmother, and we don't get on smoothly." "Your father is waiting to congratulate you." "On the contrary. He thinks actresses and playwrights akin to 'popery.'" She laughed. "Well, then, go on my account--on your account. You are tired, and so am I--" "That is why I should remain, to relieve you, to help you. Or, do you mean you're tired of me?" "I won't say that; but I must not see you. I must not see any one. If I do this big part right, I must rest. I intend to sleep a good part of the time. I have sent for Henry Olquest, and I intend to put the whole of the stage end of this play in his hands. Our ideals are not concerned in this _Alessandra_, you remember." His face clouded. "That is true. I wish it were otherwise. But can you get Olquest?" "Yes; his new play has failed. 'Too good,' Westervelt said." "Oh, what blasphemy! To think Harry Olquest's plays are rejected, and on such grounds! You are right--as always. I will go." "Thank you!" "I am a little frazled, I admit, and a breath of mountain-air will do me good. I will visit my brother Walt in Darien. It's hard to go. My heart begins to ache already with prospective hunger. You have been my world, my one ambition for three months--my incessant care and thought." "All the more reason why you should forget me and things dramatic for a while. There is nothing so destructive to peace and tranquillity as the stage." "Don't I know that? When I was a youth in a Western village I became in some way the possessor of two small photographs of Elsie Melville. She was my ideal till I saw her, fifteen years later." Helen laughed. "Poor Elsie, she took on flesh dreadfully in her later years." "Nevertheless, those photographs started me on the road to the stage. I used to fancy myself as Macbeth, but I soon got switched into the belief that I could write plays. Now that I have demonstrated that"--his tone was a little bitter again--"I think I would better return to architecture." She silenced him. "All that we will discuss when you come back reinvigorated from the mountains." She turned to her desk. "I have something here for you. Here is a small check from Westervelt on account. Don't hesitate to take it. He was glad to give it." "It is the price of my intellectual honesty." "By no means!" She laughed, but her heart sickened with a sense of the truth of his phrase. "It's only a very small part payment. You can at least know that the bribe they offer is large." "Yes"--he looked at her meaningly--"the prize was too great for my poor resolution. All they can give will remain _part_ payment. I wonder if you will be compassionate enough to complete the purchase--"