The Story of a Play. William Dean Howells

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СКАЧАТЬ was what I was thinking," he answered. "It would be confoundedly romantic."

      "Well, I'll tell you," said Louise; "you could have them squabbling all the way through, and doing hateful things to one another."

      "That would give it the cast of comedy."

      "Well?"

      "And that wouldn't do either."

      "Not if it led up to the pathos and prettiness of their reconciliation in the end? Shakespeare mixes the comic and the tragic all through!"

      "Oh yes, I know that—"

      "And it would be very effective to leave the impression of their happiness with the audience, so that they might have strength to get on their rubbers and wraps after the tremendous ordeal of your Haxard death-scene."

      "Godolphin wouldn't stand that. He wants the gloom of Haxard's death to remain in unrelieved inkiness at the end. He wants the people to go away thinking of Godolphin, and how well he did the last gasp. He wouldn't stand any love business there. He would rather not have any in the play."

      "Very well, if you're going to be a slave to Godolphin—"

      "I'm not going to be a slave to Godolphin, and if I can see my way to make the right use of such a passage at the close I'll do it even if it kills the play or Godolphin."

      "Now you're shouting," said Louise. She liked to use a bit of slang when it was perfectly safe—as in very good company, or among those she loved; at other times she scrupulously shunned it.

      "But I can do it somehow," Maxwell mused aloud. "Now I have the right idea, I can make it take any shape or color I want. It's magnificent!"

      "And who thought of it?" she demanded.

      "Who? Why, I thought of it myself."

      "Oh, you little wretch!" she cried, in utter fondness, and she ran at him and drove him into a corner. "Now, say that again and I'll tickle you."

      "No, no, no!" he laughed, and he fought away the pokes and thrusts she was aiming at him. "We both thought of it together. It was mind transference!"

      She dropped her hands with an instant interest in the psychological phenomena. "Wasn't it strange? Or, no, it wasn't, either! If our lives are so united in everything, the wonder is that we don't think more things and say more things together. But now I want you to own, Brice, that I was the first to speak about your using our situation!"

      "Yes, you were, and I was the first to think of it. But that's perfectly natural. You always speak of things before you think, and I always think of things before I speak."

      "Well, I don't care," said Louise, by no means displeased with the formulation. "I shall always say it was perfectly miraculous. And I want you to give me credit for letting you have the idea after you had thought of it."

      "Yes, there's nothing mean about you, Louise, as Pinney would say. By Jove, I'll bring Pinney in! I'll have Pinney interview Haxard concerning Greenshaw's disappearance."

      "Very well, then, if you bring Pinney in, you will leave me out," said Louise. "I won't be in the same play with Pinney."

      "Well, I won't bring Pinney in, then," said Maxwell. "I prefer you to Pinney—in a play. But I have got to have in an interviewer. It will be splendid on the stage, and I'll be the first to have him." He went and sat down at his table.

      "You're not going to work any more to-night!" his wife protested.

      "No, just jot down a note or two, to clinch that idea of ours in the right shape." He dashed off a few lines with pencil in his play at several points, and then he said: "There! I guess I shall get some bones into those two flabby idiots to-morrow. I see just how I can do it." He looked up and met his wife's adoring eyes.

      "You're wonderful, Brice!" she said.

      "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.

      Louise laughed joyously. "Well, you wouldn't understand what a triumph it was if I told you. I suppose, papa, you've СКАЧАТЬ