The Story of a Play | Page 4

recurrence to a distinctive feature. It's like going back to an
effective strain in music."
"Yes," Maxwell resumed, "slightly varied. I might have a private
dinner this time; perhaps a dinner that Haxard himself is giving.
Towards the end the talk might turn on the case of the unknown man,
and the guests might discuss it philosophically together; Haxard would
combat the notion of a murder, and even of a suicide; he would contend
for an accident, pure and simple. All the fellows would take a turn at
the theory, but the summing-up opinion I shall leave to a legal mind,
perhaps the man who had made the great complimentary speech at the
public dinner to Haxard in the first act. I should have him warm to his
work, and lay it down to Haxard in good round fashion, against his
theory of accident. He could prove to the satisfaction of everybody that
the man who was last seen with the drowned man--or was supposed to
have been seen with him--according to some very sketchy evidence at
the inquest, which never amounted to anything--was the man who
pushed him off the bridge. He could gradually work up his case, and
end the argument with a semi-jocular, semi-serious appeal to Haxard
himself, like, 'Why, suppose it was your own case,' and so forth, and so
forth, and so forth, and then suddenly stop at something he notices
queer in Haxard, who is trying to get to his feet. The rest applaud:
'That's right! Haxard has the floor,' and so on, and then Haxard slips

back into his chair, and his head falls forward---- I don't like
death-scenes on the stage. They're usually failures. But if this was
managed simply, I think it would be effective."
The actor left the table and began to walk about the room. "I shall want
that play. I can see my part in Haxard. I know just how I could make up
for him. And the play is so native, so American, that it will go like
wildfire."
The author heard these words with a swelling heart. He did not speak,
for he could not. He sat still, watching the actor as he paced to and fro,
histrionically rapt in his representation of an actor who had just taken a
piece from a young dramatist. "If you can realize that part as you've
sketched it to me," he said, finally, "I will play it exclusively, as
Jefferson does Rip Van Winkle. There are immense capabilities in the
piece. Yes, sir; that thing will run for years!"
"Of course," Maxwell found voice to say, "there is one great defect in it,
from the conventional point of view." The actor stopped and looked at
him. "There's no love-business."
"We must have that. But you can easily bring it in."
"By the head and shoulders, yes. But I hate love-making on the stage,
almost as much as I do dying. I never see a pair of lovers beyond the
footlights without wanting to kill them." The actor remained looking at
him over his folded arms, and Maxwell continued, with something like
a personal rancor against love-making, while he gave a little, bitter
laugh, "I might have it somehow that Haxard had killed a pair of
stage-lovers, and this was what Greenshaw had seen him do. But that
would have been justifiable homicide."
The actor's gaze darkened into a frowning stare, as if he did not quite
make out this kind of fooling. "All the world loves a lover," he said,
tentatively.
"I don't believe it does," said Maxwell, "except as it's stupid, and loves
anything that makes it laugh. It loves a comic lover, and in the same

way it loves a droll drunkard or an amusing madman."
"We shall have to have some sort of love-business," the actor returned,
with an effect of leaving the right interpretation of Maxwell's peculiar
humor for some other time. "The public wants it. No play would go
without it. You can have it subordinate if you like, but you have got to
have it. How old did you say Haxard was?"
"About fifty. Too old for a lover, unless you could make him in love
with some one else's wife, as he has one of his own already. But that
wouldn't do."
The actor looked as if he did not know why it would not do, but he said,
"He could have a daughter."
"Yes, and his daughter could have a lover. I had thought of something
of that kind, and of bringing in their ill-fated passion as an element of
the tragedy. We could have his disgrace break their hearts, and kill two
birds with one stone, and avenge a long-suffering race of playwrights
upon stage-lovers."
The actor laughed like a man of