"Oh, I'm so glad!" said Mr. Ray. "I never thought he appreciated it. He was so anxious to make his part all in all that he would have been willing to damage the rest of it irretrievably. I could see, from the way he talked of it, that he was mortally jealous of Salome; and the girl who did that did it very sweetly and prettily. Who has got the play now?" "Well," said Louise, with rather a painful smile, "nobody has it at present. We're trying to stir up strife for it among managers." "What play is that?" asked her friend, the hostess, and all that end of the table became attentive, as any fashionable company will at the mention of a play; books may be more or less out of the range of society, but plays never at all. "My husband's," said Louise, meekly. "Why, does _your_ husband write _plays_?" cried the lady. "What did you think he did?" returned Louise, resentfully; she did not in the least know what her friend's husband did, and he was no more there to speak for himself than her own. "He's written a very _great_ play," Mr. Ray spoke up with generous courage; "the very greatest American play I have seen. I don't say ever written, for I've written some myself that I haven't seen yet," he added, and every one laughed at his bit of self-sacrifice. "But Mr. Maxwell's play is just such a play as I would have written if I could--large, and serious, and charming." He went on about it finely, and Louise's heart swelled with pride. She wished Maxwell could have been there, but if he had been, of course Mr. Ray would not have spoken so freely. The hostess asked him where he had seen it, and he said in Midland. Then she said, "We must all go," and she had the effect of rising to do so, but it was only to leave the men to their tobacco. Louise laid hold of her in the drawing-room: "Who is he? What is he?" "A little dear, isn't he?" "Yes, of course. But what has he done?" "Why, he wrote a novel--I forget the name, but I have it somewhere. It made a great sensation. But surely _you_ must know what it was?" "No, no," Louise lamented. "I am ashamed to say I don't." When the men joined the ladies, she lingered long enough to thank Mr. Ray, and try to make him tell her the name of his novel. She at least made him promise to let them know the next time he was in New York, and she believed all he said of his regret that he was going home that night. He sent many sweet messages to Maxwell, whom he wanted to talk with about his play, and tell him all he had thought about it. He felt sure that some manager would take it and bring it out in New York, and again he exulted that it was out of the actor's hands. A manager might not have an artistic interest in it; an actor could only have a personal interest in it. XIX.