Royleston excused himself and went away, and only Hugh, Miss Collins, Miss Carmichael, and the old mother drank with the star to celebrate the first performance of _Lillian's Duty_.

"I have had a letter from Mr. Dougla.s.s," Helen said, softly, when they were alone. "Poor fellow, he is absolutely prostrate in the dust, and asks me to throw him overboard as our Jonah. Put yourself in his place, Hugh, before speaking harshly of him."

"I don't like a coward," he replied, contemptuously. "Why didn't he face the music to-night? I never so much as set eyes on him after he came in.

He must have been hiding in the gallery. He leads you into this crazy venture and then deserts you. A man who does that is a puppy."

A spark of amus.e.m.e.nt lit Helen's eyes. "You might call him that when you meet him next."

Hugh, with a sudden remembrance of the playwright's powerful frame, replied, a little less truculently: "I'll call him something more fit than that when I see him. But we won't see him again. He's out of the running."

Helen laid her cheek on her folded hands, and, with a smile which cleared the air like a burst of sunshine, said, laughingly: "Hugh, you're a big, bad boy. You should be out on the ice skating instead of managing a theatre. You have no more idea of George Dougla.s.s than a bear has of a lion. This mood of depression is only a cloud; it will pa.s.s and you will be glad to beg his pardon. My faith in him and in _Lillian's Duty_ is unshaken. He has the artistic temperament, but he has also the pertinacity of genius. Come, let's all go to bed and forget our hurts."

And with this she rose and kissed her mother good-night.

Hugh, still moody, replied, with sudden tenderness: "It hurt me to see them go out on your last scene. I can't forgive Dougla.s.s for that."

She patted his cheek. "Never mind that, Hughie. 'This, too, shall pa.s.s away.'"

X

At two o'clock, when Dougla.s.s returned to his hotel, tired and reckless of any man's scorn, the night clerk smiled and said, as he handed him a handful of letters, "I hear you had a great audience, Mr. Dougla.s.s."

The playwright did not discover Helen's note among his letters till he had reached his room, and then, without removing his overcoat, he stood beneath the gas-jet and read:

"MY DEAR AUTHOR,--My heart bleeds for you. I know how you must suffer, but you must not despair. A first night is not conclusive.

Do not blame yourself. I took up your play with my eyes open to consequences. You are wrong if you think even the failure of this play (which I do not grant) can make any difference in my feeling towards you. The power of the lines, your high purpose, remain.

Suppose it does fail? You are young and fertile of imagination. You can write another and better play in a month, and I will produce it. My faith in you is not weakened, for I know your work is good.

I have turned my back on the old art and the old roles; I need you to supply me with new ones. This is no light thing with me. I confess to surprise and dismay to-night, but I should not have been depressed had you been there beside me. I was deeply hurt and puzzled by your absence, but I think I understand how sore and wounded you were. Come in to see me to-morrow, as usual, and we will consider what can be done with this play and plan for a new one. Come! You are too strong and too proud to let a single unfriendly audience dishearten you. We will read the papers together at luncheon and laugh at the critics. Don't let your enemies think they have driven you into retirement. Forget them in some new work, and remember my faith in you is not shaken."

This letter, so brave, so gravely tender and so generous, filled him with love, choked him with grateful admiration. "You are the n.o.blest woman in the world, the bravest, the most forgiving. I will not disappoint you."

His bitterness and shame vanished, his fists clinched in new resolution.

"You are right. I can write another play, and I will. My critics shall laugh from the other side of their mouths. They shall not have the satisfaction of knowing that they have even wounded me. I will justify your faith in my powers. I will set to work to-morrow--this very night--on a new play. I will make you proud of me yet, Helen, my queen, my love." With that word all his doubts vanished. "Yes, I love her, and I will win her."

In the glow of his love-born resolution he began to search among his papers for an unfinished scenario called _Enid's Choice_. When he had found it he set to work upon it with a concentration that seemed uncanny in the light of his day's distraction and dismay. _Lillian's Duty_ and the evening's bitter failure had already grown dim in his mind.

Helen's understanding of him was precise. He was of those who never really capitulate to the storm, no matter how deeply they may sink at times in the trough of the sea. As everything had been against him up to that moment, he was not really taken by surprise. All his life he had gone directly against the advice and wishes of his family. He had studied architecture rather than medicine, and had set his face towards the East rather than the West. Every dollar he had spent he had earned by toil, and the things he loved had always seemed the wasteful and dangerous things. He wrote plays in secret when he should have been soliciting commissions for warehouses, and read novels when he should have been intent upon his business.

"It was impossible that I should succeed so quickly, so easily, even with the help of one so powerful as Helen Merival. It is my fate to work for what I get." And with this return of his belief that to himself alone he must look for victory, his self-poise and self-confidence came back.

He looked strong, happy, and very handsome next morning as he greeted the clerk of the Embric, who had no guile in his voice as he said:

"Good-morning, Mr. Dougla.s.s. I hear that your play made a big hit last night."

"I reckon it hit something," he replied, with easy evasion.

The clerk continued: "My wife's sister was there. She liked it very much."

"I am very glad she did," replied Dougla.s.s, heartily. As he walked over towards the elevator a couple of young men accosted him.

"Good-morning, Mr. Dougla.s.s. We are from _The Blazon_. We would like to get a little talk out of you about last night's performance. How do you feel about the verdict."

"It was a 'frost,'" replied Dougla.s.s, with engaging candor, "but I don't consider the verdict final. I am not at all discouraged. You see, it's all in getting a hearing. Miss Merival gave my play a superb production, and her impersonation ought to fill the theatre, even if _Lillian's Duty_ were an indifferent play, which it is not. Miss Merival, in changing the entire tone and character of her work, must necessarily disappoint a certain type of admirer. Last night's audience was very largely made up of those who hate serious drama, and naturally they did not like my text. All that is a detail. We will create our own audience."

The reporters carried away a vivid impression of the author's youth, strength, and confidence, and one of them sat down to convey to the public his admiration in these words:

"Mr. Dougla.s.s is a Western man, and boldly shies his buckskin into the arena and invites the keenest of his critics to take it up. If any one thinks the 'roast' of his play has even singed the author's wings, he is mistaken. He is very much pleased with himself. As he says, a hearing is a great thing. He may be a chopping-block, but he don't look it."

Helen met her playwright with an anxious, tired look upon her face, but when he touched her fingers to his lips and said, "At your service, my lady," she laughed in radiant, sudden relief.

"Oh, but I'm glad to see you looking so gay and strong. I was heart-sore for you last night. I fancied you in all kinds of torture."

His face darkened. "I was. My blue devils a.s.sailed me, but I vanquished them, thanks to your note," he added, with a burning glance deep-sent, and his voice fell to a tenderness which betrayed his heart. "I think you are the most tolerant star that ever put out a hand to a poor author. What a beast I was to run away! But I couldn't help it then. I wanted to see you, but I couldn't face Westervelt and Royleston. I couldn't endure to hear them say, 'I told you so.' You understood, I'm sure of it."

She studied him with admiring eyes. "Yes, I understood--later. At first I was crushed. It shook my faith in you for a little while." She put off this mood (whose recollected shadows translated into her face filled Dougla.s.s's throat with remorse) and a smile disclosed her returning sense of humor. "Oh, Hugh and Westervelt are angry--perfectly purple with indignation against you for leading me into a trap--"

"I feared that. That is why I begged you to throw my play--"

She laid a finger on her lips, for Mrs. MacDavitt came in. "Mother, here is Mr. Dougla.s.s. I told you he would come. I hope you are hungry. Let us take our places. Hugh is fairly used up this morning. Do you see that bunch of papers?" she asked, pointing at a ragged pile. "After breakfast we take our medicine."

"No," he said, firmly. "I have determined not to read a line of them. To every word you speak I will listen, but I will not be harrowed up by a hodgepodge of personal prejudices written by my enemies before the play was produced or in a hurried hour between the fall of the curtain and going to press. I know too much about how these judgments are cooked up.

I saw the faults of the play a good deal clearer than did any of those sleepy gentlemen who came to the theatre surfeited and weary and resentful of your change of programme."

She looked thoughtful. "Perhaps you are right," she said, at last. "I will not read them. I know what they will say--"

"I thought the play was very beautiful," said Mrs. MacDavitt. "And my Nellie was grand."

Helen patted her mother's hand. "We have one loyal supporter, Mr.

Dougla.s.s."

"Ye've many more, if the truth were known," said the old mother, stoutly, for she liked young Dougla.s.s.

"I believe that," cried Helen. "Did you consider that as I change my roles and plays I must also, to a large extent, change my audience? The people who like me as _Baroness Telka_ are amazed and angered by your play. They will not come to see me. But there are others," she added, with a smile at the slang phrase.

"I thought of that, but not till last night."

"It will take longer to inform and interest our new public than any of us realized. I am determined to keep _Lillian_ on for at least four weeks. Meanwhile you can prune it and set to work on a new one. Have you a theme?"

"I have a scenario," he triumphantly answered. "I worked it out this morning between two o'clock and four."

She reached her hand to him impulsively, and as he took it a warm flush came into her face and her eyes were suffused with happy tears.

"That's brave," she said. "I told them you could not be crushed. I knew you were of those who fight hardest when closest pressed. You must tell me about it at once--not this minute, of course, but when we are alone."

When Hugh came in a few minutes later he found them discussing a new automobile which had just made a successful trial run. The play became the topic of conversation again, but on a different plane.