"Well, don't tell me so," he returned, "or it might spoil me. Now I wouldn't tell you how good you were, on any account." "Oh yes, do, dearest!" she entreated, and a mist came into her eyes. "I don't think you praise me enough." "How much ought I to praise you?" "You ought to say that you think I'll never be a hinderance to you." "Let me see," he said, and he pretended to reflect. "How would it do to say that if I ever come to anything worth while, it'll be because you made me?" "Oh, Brice! But would it be true?" She dropped on her knees at his side. "Well, I don't know. Let's hope it would," and with these words he laughed again and put his arms round her. Presently she felt his arm relax, and she knew that he had ceased to think about her and was thinking about his play again. She pulled away, and "Well?" she asked. He laughed at being found out so instantly. "That was a mighty good thing your father said when you went to tell him of our engagement." "It was _very_ good. But if you think I'm going to let you use _that_ you're very much mistaken. No, Brice! Don't you touch papa. He wouldn't like it; he wouldn't understand it. Why, what a perfect cormorant you are!" They laughed over his voracity, and he promised it should be held in check as to the point which he had thought for a moment might be worked so effectively into the play. The next morning Louise said to her husband: "I can see, Brice, that you are full of the notion of changing that love business, and if I stay round I shall simply bother. I'm going down to lunch with papa and mamma, and get back here in the afternoon, just in time to madden Godolphin with my meddling." She caught the first train after breakfast, and in fifteen minutes she was at Beverly Farms. She walked over to her father's cottage, where she found him smoking his cigar on the veranda. He was alone; he said her mother had gone to Boston for the day; and he asked: "Did you walk from the station? Why didn't you come back in the carriage? It had just been there with your mother." "I didn't see it. Besides, I might not have taken it if I had. As the wife of a struggling young playwright, I should have probably thought it unbecoming to drive. But the struggle is practically over, you'll be happy to know." "What? Has he given it up?" asked her father. "Given it up! He's just got a new light on his love business!" "I thought his love business had gone pretty well with him," said Hilary, with a lingering grudge in his humor. "This is another love business!" Louise exclaimed. "The love business in the play. Brice has always been so disgusted with it that he hasn't known what to do. But last night we thought it out together, and I've left him this morning getting his hero and heroine to stand on their legs without being held up. Do you want to know about it?" "I think I can get on without," said Hilary.