"But, my poor child, that's your splendid art. You are a--an angel-woman, but you can play a she-devil like an inspired creature. You don't mean that you seriously contemplate ruining _my_ reputation and your own--by--"

"I mean," said the angel-woman, sipping her sauterne, "that I don't care a flip for your reputation or mine--the weather's too hot--but I'm not going to trail through another slimy play! No; I'll go into the movies first!"

Camden twisted his collar; he felt as if he were choking. "Heaven forbid!" was all he could manage.

"I want woods and the open! I want a character with a little, twisted, unawakened soul to be unsnarled and made to behave itself. I don't mind being a bit naughty--if I can be spanked into decorum. But when the curtain goes down on my next play, Camden, the women are going out of the theatre with a kind thought of me, not throbbing with disapproval--good women, I mean!"

And then, because Camden was a bit of a sentimentalist with a good deal of superst.i.tion tangled in his make-up, he took Truedale's play out of his pocket--it had been spoiling the set of his coat all the evening--and spread it out on the table that was cleared now of all but the coffee and the cigarettes which the angel-woman--Camden did not smoke--was puffing luxuriously.

"Here's some rot that a fellow managed to drop on me to-day. I didn't mean to undo it, but if it has an out-of-door setting, I'll give it a glance!"

"Has it?" asked the angel, watching the perspiring face of Camden.

"It has! Big open. Hills--expensive open."

"Is it rot?"

"Umph--listen to this!" Camden's sharp eye lighted on a vivid sentence or two. "Not the usual type of villain--and the girl is rather unique.

Up to tricks with her eyes shut. I wonder how she'll pan out?" Camden turned the pages rapidly, overlooking some of Con's best work, but getting what he, himself, was after.

"By Jove! she doesn't do it!"

"What--push those matches this way--what doesn't she do?" asked the angel.

"Eternally d.a.m.n the man and claim her s.e.x privilege of unwarranted righteousness!"

"Does she d.a.m.n herself--like an idiot?" The angel was interested.

"She does not! She plays her own little role by the music of the experience she lived through. It's not bad, by the lord Harry! It's got to be tinkered--and painted up--but it's original. Just look it over."

Truedale's play was pushed across the table and the angel-woman seized upon it. The taste Camden had given her--like caviar--sharpened her appet.i.te. She read on in the swift, skipping fashion that would have crushed an author's hopes, but which grasped the high lights and caught the deep tones. Then the woman looked up and there were genuine tears in her eyes.

"The little brick!" said the voice of loveliness and thrills, "the splendid little trump! Why, Camden, she had her ideals--real, fresh, woman-ideals--not the ideals plastered on us women by men, who would loathe them for themselves! She just picked up the sc.r.a.ps of her damaged little affairs and went, without a whimper, to the doing of the only job she could ever hope to succeed in. And she let the man-who-learned go!

Gee! but that was a big decision. She might so easily have muddled the whole scheme of things, but she didn't! The dear, little, scrimpy, patched darling.

"Oh! Camden, I want to be that girl for as long a run as you can force.

After the first few weeks you won't have to bribe folks to come--it'll take hold, after they have got rid of bad tastes in their mouths and have found out what we're up to! Don't count the cost, Camden. This is a chance for civic virtue."

"Do you want more cigarettes, my dear?"

"No. I've smoked enough."

Camden drew the ma.n.u.script toward him. "It's a d.a.m.ned rough diamond," he murmured.

"But you and I know it is a diamond, don't we, Camby?"

"Well, it sparkles--here and there."

"And it mustn't be ruined in the cutting and setting, must it?" The angel was wearing her most devout and flattering expression. She was handling her man with inspired touch.

"Umph! Well, no. The thing needs a master hand; no doubt of that. But good Lord! think of the cost. This out-of-door stuff costs like all creation. Your gowns will let you out easy--you can economize on _this_ engagement--but have a heart and think of me!"

"I--I do think of you, Camby. You know as well as I that New York is at your beck and call. What you say--goes! Call them now to see something that will make them sure the world isn't going to the devil, Camden. In this scene"--and here the woman pulled the ma.n.u.script back--"when that little queen totes her heavy but sanctified heart up the trail, men and women will shed tears that will do them good--tears that will make them see plain duty clearer. Men and--yes, women, too, Camby--_want_ to be decent, only they've lost the way. This will help them to find it!"

"We've got to have two strong men." Camden dared not look at the pleading face opposite. But something was already making him agree with it.

"And, by heavens, I don't know of but one who isn't taken."

"There's a boy--he's only had minor parts so far--but I want him for the man-who-learned-his-lesson. You can give the big wood-giant to John Harrington--I heard to-day that he was drifting, up to date--but I want Timmy Nichols for the other part."

"Nichols? Thunder! He's only done--what in the d.i.c.kens has he done? I remember him, but I can't recall his parts."

"That's it! That's it! Now I want him to drive his part home--with himself!"

Camden looked across at the vivid young face that a brief but brilliant career had not ruined.

"I begin to understand," he muttered.

"Do you, Camden? Well, I'm only beginning to understand myself!"

"Together, you'll be corking!" Camden suddenly grew enthusiastic.

"Won't we? And he did so hate to have me slimy. No one but Timmy and my mother ever cared!"

"We'll have this--this fellow who wrote the play--what's his name?"

"Truedale." The woman referred to the ma.n.u.script.

"Yes. Truedale. We'll have him to dinner to-morrow. I'll get Harrington and Nichols. Where shall we go?"

"There's a love of a place over on the East Side. They give you such good things to eat--and leave you alone."

"We'll go there!"

It was November before the rush and hurry of preparation were over and Truedale's play announced. His name did not appear on it so his people were not nerve-torn and desperate. Truedale often was, but he managed to hide the worst and suffer in silence. He had outlived the anguish of seeing his offspring amputated, ripped open, and stuffed. He had come to the point where he could hear his sacredest expressions denounced as rot and supplanted by others that made him mentally ill. But in the end he acknowledged, nerve-racked as he was, that the thing of which he had dreamed--the thing he had tried to do--remained intact. His eyes were moist when the curtain fell upon his "Interpretation" at the final rehearsal.

Then he turned his attention to his personal drama. He chose his box; there were to be Lynda and Ann, Brace and Betty, McPherson and himself in it. Betty, Brace, and the doctor were to have the three front chairs--not because of undue humility on the author's part, but because there would, of course, be a big moment of revelation--a moment when Lynda would know! When that came it would be better to be where curious eyes could not behold them. Perhaps--Truedale was a bit anxious over this--perhaps he might have to take Lynda away after the first act, and before the second began, in order to give her time and opportunity to rally her splendid serenity.

And after the play was over--after he knew how the audience had taken it--there was to be a small supper--just the six of them--and during that he would confess, for better or worse. He would revel in their joy, if success were his, or lean upon their sympathy if Fate proved unkind.

Truedale selected the restaurant, arranged for the flowers, and then grew so rigidly quiet and pale that Lynda declared that the summer in town had all but killed him and insisted that he take a vacation.

"We haven't had our annual honeymoon trip, Con," she pleaded; "let's take it now."

"We'll--we'll go, Lyn, just before Christmas."

"Not much!" Lynda tossed her head. "It will take our united efforts from December first until after Christmas to meet the demands of Billy and Ann."