"She did?" he cried, grinning. "And what did you say to that?"
"I said it was quite true," she said flatly.
"Well, it won't hurt her to think that they'd all be angels if they had their way about it. Now, let's get back to facts, dear. I've told Mr. Bingle that the play can be finished in a month or six weeks. He is for putting it on at once, but I don't believe it's good business to risk trying it out at the tail end of a very bad season. Things are bound to be better in the fall. My idea is to begin rehearsals late in the summer, play a couple of weeks in the tank towns to whip the thing into shape, and then go into New York some time in September. I'll begin getting a cast together this spring—none but the best, you understand—and that will give us a fair chance to go into Broadway with a corking production. Who do you consider to be the best leading man in the business to-day?"
Now, Mr. Bingle WAS having quite a time of it with the mistress of the house. In his new-found enthusiasm, he went to her at once with the word that he had decided to make a subrosa invasion of the mimic world to help out poor Flanders and to lay his hand against the prejudice and ignorance that seemed to be throttling the theatre.
She listened to him in speechless amazement, not quite sure of her ears.
"Of course, I sha'n't permit my name to be mentioned in the matter," he explained hastily. "That would be foolish, my dear. I shall have it clearly understood that Dick is backing the thing himself—on borrowed money, if needs be. Now, you see, Miss Colgate is a very clever young leading woman and—"
"Leading woman?" queried Mrs. Bingle, blinking. She had laid down her embroidery.
"Stage expression," said he loftily. "It means one who plays—er—plays leads. Ahem! That is to say, one who takes a principal part in the show. Miss Colgate is regarded as—"
It was then that Mrs. Bingle found her voice. After ten minutes, he succeeded in changing the subject. In all his acquaintance with his wife, he had never known her to be so scathing in the matter of words. She succeeded in causing him to feel extremely small and sheepish, for after all there was a world of justice and common sense in what she had to say concerning his inspired offer to engage in an enterprise that was as far from his understanding as the North Pole is from the South.
"But," he managed to insert, weakly, "it's only to help Dick out, to encourage genius, to—"