Graillot glanced behind him and promptly abandoned his dangerous position.
"It is you, ladies and gentlemen," he declared, shaking his manuscript vigorously at the handful of people upon the stage, "who drive me into forgetfulness and place me in the danger from which our friend here has just rescued me. Do I not best know the words and the phrases which will carry the messages of my play across the footlights? Who is to judge, ladies and gentlemen—you or I?"
He banged the palm of his left hand with the rolled-up manuscript and looked at them all furiously. A slight, middle-aged man, clean-shaven, with a single eyeglass, and features very well known to the theatergoing world, detached himself a little from the others.
"No one indeed, dear M. Graillot," he admitted, "could possibly know these things so well as you; but, on the other hand, when you write in your study at Fontainebleau you write for a quicker-minded public than ours. The phrase which would find its way at once to the brain of the French audience needs, shall I say, just a little amplification to carry equal weight across the footlights of my theater. I will admit that we are dealing with a translation which is, in its way, not sufficiently literal, but our friend Shamus here has pointed out to me the difficulties. The fact is, M. Graillot, that some of the finest phrases in your work are untranslatable."
"There are times," the dramatist asserted, moistening his lips vigorously with his tongue, "when I regret that I ever suffered Mr. Shamus or anybody else to attempt to translate my inimitable play into a language wholly inadequate to express its charm and subtlety!"
"Quite so," the actor remarked sympathetically; "but still, since the deed has been done, M. Graillot, and since we are going to produce the result in the course of a fortnight or so, or lose a great deal of money, don't you think that we had all better try our utmost to insure the success of the production?"
"The only success I care for," Graillot thundered, "is an artistic success!"
"With Miss Maurel playing your leading part, M. Graillot," the actor-manager declared, "not to speak of a company carefully selected to the best of my judgment, I think you may venture to anticipate even that."
The dramatist bowed hurriedly to Louise.
"You recall to me a fact," he said gallantly, "which almost reconciles me to this diabolical travesty of some of my lines. Proceed, then—proceed! I will be as patient as possible."