"About his infatuation."
Her eyes grew steady and penetrating, but a slow, faint flush showed her self-consciousness. "Who are talking?"
"Westervelt—the whole company." He knew his sister and wished he had not spoken, but he added: "The fellows on the street have noticed it. How could they help it when you walk with him and eat with him and ride with him?"
"Well?" she asked, with defiant inflection. "What is to follow? Am I to govern my life to suit Westervelt or the street? I admire and respect Mr. Douglass very much. He has more than one side to him. I am sick of the slang of the Rialto and the greenroom. I'm tired of cheap witticisms and of gossip. With Mr. Douglass I can discuss calmly and rationally many questions which trouble me. He helps me. To talk with him enables me to take a deep breath and try again. He enables me to forget the stage for a few hours."
Hugh remained firm. "But there's your own question—what's to be the end of it? You can't do this without getting talked about."
She smiled, and the glow of her humor disarmed him. "Sufficient unto the end is the evil thereof. I don't think you need to worry—"
Hugh was indeed greatly troubled. He began to dislike and suspect Douglass. They had been antipathetic from the start, and no advance on the author's part could bring the manager nearer. It was indeed true that the young playwright was becoming a marked figure on the street, and the paragrapher of The Saucy Swells spoke of him not too obscurely as the lucky winner of "our modern Helen," which was considered a smart allusion. This paragraph was copied by the leading paper of his native city, and his father wrote to know if it were really true that he was about to marry a play-actress.
This gave a distinct shock to Douglass, for it made definite and very moving the vague dreams which had possessed him in his hours of reflection. His hands clinched, and while his heart beat fast and his breath shortened he said: "Yes, I will win her if I can"; but he was not elated. The success of his play was still in the future, and till he had won his wreath he had no right to address her in any terms but those of friendship.
In spite of the flood of advance notices and personal paragraphs, in spite of envious gossip, he lived on quietly in his attic-room at the Roanoke. He had few friends and no intimates in the city, and cared little for the social opportunities which came to him. Confident of success, he gave up his connection with The Blazon, whose editor valued his special articles on the drama so much as to pay him handsomely for them. The editor of this paper, Mr. Anderson, his most intimate acquaintance, was of the Middle West, and from the first strongly admired the robust thought of the young architect whose "notions" concerning the American drama made him trouble among his fellow-craftsmen.
"You're not an architect, you're a critic," he said to him early in their accidental acquaintance. "Now, I want to experiment on you. I want you to see Irving to-night and write your impressions of it. I have a notion you'll startle my readers."