As they parted at the door of his hotel he said: "If you do not succeed this time I will utterly despair of the public. I know how sweet you will be as Enid. They must bow down before you as I do."
"I will give my best powers to this—be sure nothing will be neglected at rehearsal."
"I know you will," he answered, feelingly.
She was better than her promise, laboring tirelessly in the effort to embody through her company the poetry, the charm, which lay even in the smaller rôles of the play. That one so big and brusque as Douglass should be able to define so many and such fugitive feminine emotions was a constant source of wonder and delight to her. The discovery gave her trust and confidence in him, and to her admiration of his power was added something which stole into her mind like music, causing foolish dreams and moments of reckless exaltation wherein she asked herself whether to be a great actress was not, after all, a thing of less profit than to be a wife and mother.
She saw much less of him than she wished, for Hugh remained coldly unresponsive in his presence, and threw over their meetings a restraint which prevented the joyous companionship of their first acquaintanceship.
More than this, Helen was conscious of being watched and commented upon, not merely by Hugh and Westervelt, but by guests of the hotel and representatives of the society press. Douglass, in order to shield her, and also because his position in the world was less secure than ever, returned to his self-absorbed, impersonal manner of speech. He took no part in the rehearsals, except to rush in at the close with some changes which he wished embodied at once, regardless of the vexation and confusion resulting. His brain was still perilously active, and not only cut and refined the dialogue, but made most radical modifications of the "business."
Helen began to show the effects of the strain upon her; for she was not merely carrying the burden of Lillian's Duty, and directing rehearsals of the new piece—she was deeply involved in the greatest problem than can come to a woman. She loved Douglass; but did she love him strongly enough to warrant her in saying so—when he should ask her?
His present poverty she put aside as of no serious account. A man so physically powerful, so mentally alert, was rich in possibilities. The work which he had already done entitled him to rank above millionaires, but that his very forcefulness, his strong will, his dominating idealism would make him her master—would inevitably change her relation to the world—had already changed it, in fact—she was not ready to acknowledge.
Up to this time her love for the stage had been single-minded. No man had touched her heart with sufficient fire to disturb her serenity, but now she was not merely following where he led, she was questioning the value and morality of her avocation.
"If I cannot play high rôles, if the public will not have me in work like this I am now rehearsing, then I will retire to private life. I will no longer be a plaything for the man-headed monster," she said one day.