The Story of a Play | Page 7

could have it," said Godolphin, "that he was married to a
Mexican during his Texas episode, and this girl was their daughter."
Maxwell still smiled, and Godolphin deferred to his wife: "But perhaps
Mrs. Maxwell would object to the skirt-dance?"
"Oh, no," she answered, ironically, "I shouldn't mind having it, with
Carmencita in society for a precedent. But," she added, "the incident
seems so out of keeping with the action and the temperament of the
play, and everything. If I were to see such a thing on the stage, merely
as an impartial spectator, I should feel insulted."
Godolphin flushed. "I don't see where the insult would come in. You
mightn't like it, but it would be like anything else in a play that you
were not personally concerned in."
"No, excuse me, Mr. Godolphin. I think the audience is as much
concerned in the play as the actor or the author, and if either of these
fails in the ideal, or does a bit of clap-trap when they have wrought the
audience up in expectation of something noble, then they insult the
audience--or all the better part of it."
"The better part of the audience never fills the house," said the actor.
"Very well. I hope my husband will never write for the worse part."
"And I hope I shall never play to it," Godolphin returned, and he looked

hurt at the insinuation of her words.
"It isn't a question of all that," Maxwell interposed, with a worried
glance at his wife. "Mr. Godolphin has merely suggested something
that can be taken into the general account; we needn't decide it now. By
the way," he said to the actor, "have you thought over that point about
changing Haxard's crime, or the quality of it? I think it had better not be
an intentional murder; that would kill the audience's sympathy with him
from the start, don't you think? We had better have it what they call a
rencontre down there, where two gentlemen propose to kill each other
on sight. Greenshaw's hold on him would be that he was the only
witness of the fight, and that he could testify to a wilful murder if he
chose. Haxard's real crime must be the killing of Greenshaw."
"Yes," said Godolphin, and he entered into the discussion of the effect
this point would have with the play. Mrs. Maxwell was too much vexed
to forgive him for making the suggestion which he had already dropped,
and she left the room for fear she should not be able to govern herself at
the sight of her husband condescending to temporize with him. She
thought that Maxwell's willingness to temporize, even when it involved
no insincerity, was a defect in his character; she had always thought
that, and it was one of the things that she meant to guard him against
with all the strength of her zeal for his better self. When Godolphin was
gone at last, she lost no time in coming back to Maxwell, where he sat
with the manuscript of his play before him, apparently lost in some
tangle of it. She told him abruptly that she did not understand how, if
he respected himself, if he respected his own genius, he could consider
such an idea as Godolphin's skirt-dance for an instant.
"Did I consider it?" he asked.
"You made him think so."
"Well," returned Maxwell, and at her reproachful look he added,
"Godolphin never thought I was considering it. He has too much sense,
and he would be astonished and disgusted if I took him in earnest and
did what he wanted. A lot of actors get round him over there, and they
fill him up with all sorts of stage notions, and what he wants of me is

that I shall empty him of them and yet not put him to shame about them.
But if you keep on in that way you took with him he'll throw me over."
"Well, let him!" cried Mrs. Maxwell. "There are twenty other actors
who would jump at the chance to get such a play."
"Don't you believe it, my dear. Actors don't jump at plays, and
Godolphin is the one man for me. He's young, and has the friendly
regard from the public that a young artist has, and yet he isn't identified
with any part in particular, and he will throw all his force into creating
this, as he calls it."
"I can't bear to have him use that word, Brice. You created it."
"The word doesn't matter. It's merely a technical phrase. I shouldn't
know where to turn if he gave it up."
"Pshaw! You could go to a manager."
"Thank you; I prefer an actor. Now, Louise, you must not be so abrupt
with Godolphin when he