"What a heaven opened," he went on, turning to me, "when I had a piece taken at last! As long as I live I shall think of the morning that letter came, of our reading it together, half dressed, and crying with joy. She was making the coffee for breakfast. And yet, even when the contract was signed, it sometimes seemed incredible. I used to dream that it had happened, and dream that I was dreaming--that I was to wake and find it wasn't true. And the eternity of delay, the postponements, one after another! And then, when we felt worn out with waiting, the night that we jolted to the show in an omnibus, and sat breathless in the fauteuils de balcon! I remember the first laugh of approval that the audience gave, her clutching my hand; and how she clung to me, sobbing and comforting, when we got home and knew that the piece had failed. "I had a short run the next autumn with _Successeur de Son Père_, but my first hit, of course, was _Les Huit Jours de Léonie_. When that was produced, the fees came tumbling in. "Weren't we dazed at the beginning! And how important we felt to be taking a flat and going to a bureau de placement to engage a servant! We were like children playing with a doll's-house. The change was marvellous. And when I received an invitation from somebody or other who had been unapproachable only a year before--her exultance to see me go! The invitations to the author, you understand, did not always include his wife; and, unfortunately, those that ignored her were often those that it would have been unwise for me to decline. I found that rather pathetic; we had hoped together for so long, and now that success had come she wasn't getting her fair half of the fun. An elaborate evening gown that we had hurried expectantly to order for her was not needed, after all--it was out of fashion before she wore it. Still, as I say, she exulted to see me go--at first. And later Well, when I insisted on a refusal because she had not been asked, it grieved her that I neglected opportunities for her sake; and when I consented to go without her she was, not unnaturally, dull. "It was not very lively for her in the daytime, either. When my duties as a clerk had taken me from her, she, too, had had employment, but now, of course, her berth had been resigned, and while I wrote all day upstairs, she was alone. She was not used to leisure--all her life she had worked. We had no child to claim her time, to occupy her thoughts and yield the interests of maternity. Though she endeavoured to create distractions for herself, the flat that we had been so proud of was rather dreary for her, after its novelty faded. She sighed in it oftener than she laughed.