but he was still obscure, undeveloped, a failure as an architect, unambitious as a critic, though that was his best point. His articles in The Blazon possessed unusual insight and candor. Beyond this she knew as little of him as of any other of the young newspaper men who sought her acquaintance, and yet he had somehow changed her world for her in these two meetings.

She let the letter fall on her breast, and lay with her eyes fastened upon a big rose in a pot on the window-sill—the gift of another admirer. "I do know more of him. I know that he is strong, sincere. He does not flatter me—not even to win me to his play. He does not hasten to send me flowers, and I like him for that. If I were to take his point of view, all my rôles and half my triumphs would drop from me. But is there not a subtle letting-down, a disintegration? May he not be right, after all?"

She went over once more the talk of the few moments they had spent together, finding each time in all his words less to criticise and more to admire. "He does not conceal his hate," she said; and she might have added, "Or his love," for she was aware of her dominion, and divined, though she did not whisper it even to herself, that his change of attitude with regard to her rôles came from his change of feeling towards her. "He has a great career. I will not allow him to spoil his own future," she decided, at length, in her own large-minded way. And there were sweet, girlish lines about her mouth when her mother came in to inquire how she felt.

"Very much like work, mamma, and I'm going to catch up on my correspondence. Mr. Douglass is coming to take breakfast with us, to talk about his play. I wish you would see that there is something that a big man can eat."

The note she sent in answer to his was like herself—firm, assured, but gentle:

"Mr. Douglass,—'What came you out for to see—a reed shaken with the wind?' I know my own mind, and I am not afraid of my future. I should be sorry to fail, of course, especially on your account, but a succès d'estime is certain in your case, and my own personal following is large enough—joined with the actual lovers of good drama—to make the play pay for itself. Please come to my combination breakfast and luncheon, as you promised, and we can arrange dates and other details of the production, for my mind is made up. I am going to do your play, come what will. I thank you for having started all my dormant resolutions into life again. I shall expect you at twelve-thirty."

Mr. 

 Prev. P 17/103 next