"I don't know that it's actually necessary for me to say anything at present. I can show them the notices, or that article alone. It's worth all the rest put together, and then we can wait, and see if we hear anything more from Godolphin. But now I don't want you to lose any more time. You must write to him at once, and absolutely forbid him to touch your play. Will you?" Her husband returned from his wanderings of mind and body, and as he dropped upon the lounge at her side, he said, gently, "No, I don't think I'll write at all, Louise." "Not write at all! Then you're going to let him tamper with that beautiful work of yours?" "I'm going to wait till I hear from him again. Godolphin is a good fellow--" "Oh!" "And he won't be guilty of doing me injustice. Besides," and here Maxwell broke off with a laugh that had some gayety in it, "he couldn't. Godolphin is a fine actor, and he's going to be a great one, but his gifts are not in the line of literature." "I should think not!" "He couldn't change the piece any more than if he couldn't read or write. And if he could, when it came to touching it, I don't believe he would, because the fact would remind him that it wasn't fair. He has to realize things in the objective way before he can realize them at all. That's the stage. If they can have an operator climbing a real telegraph-pole to tap the wire and telegraph the girl he loves that he is dead, so that she can marry his rich rival and go to Europe and cultivate her gift for sculpture, they feel that they have got real life." Louise would not be amused, or laugh with her husband at this. "Then what in the world does Godolphin mean?" she demanded. "Why, being interpreted out of actor's parlance, he means that he wishes he could talk the play over with me again and be persuaded that he is wrong about it." "I must say," Louise remarked, after a moment for mastering the philosophy of this, "that you take it very strangely, Brice." "I've thought it out," said Maxwell. "And what are you going to do?" "I am going to wait the turn of events. My faith in Godolphin is unshaken--such as it is." "And what is going to be our attitude in regard to it?" "Attitude? With whom?" "With our friends. Suppose they ask us about the play, and how it is getting along. And my family?" "I don't think it will be necessary to take any attitude. They can think what they like. Let them wait the turn of events, too. If we can stand it, they can." "No, Brice," said his wife. "That won't do. We might be silently patient ourselves, but if we left them to believe that it was all going well, we should be living a lie." "What an extraordinary idea!" "I've told papa and mamma--we've both told them, though I did the talking, you can say--that the play was a splendid success, and Godolphin was going to give it seven or eight times a week; and now if it's a failure--" "It _isn't_ a failure!" Maxwell retorted, as if hurt by the notion.