"You should have retired before sinking your good money in these Douglass plays," Hugh bitterly rejoined. "It looks now as though we might end in the police station."
"I have no fear of that, Hugh; I am perfectly certain that Enid is to regain all our losses."
"I wish I had your beautiful faith," he made answer, and walked away.
Westervelt said little to her during these days; he only looked, and his doleful gestures, his lugubrious grimaces, were comic. He stood to lose nothing, except possible profits for Helen. She was paying him full rental, but he claimed that his house was being ruined. "It will get the reputation of doing nothing but failures," he said to her once, in a last despairing appeal, and to this she replied:
"Very well. If at the end of four weeks Enid does not pull up to paying business I will release you from your contract. I will free your house of Helen Merival."
"No, no! I don't want that. I want you, but I do not want this crazy man Douglass. You must not leave me!" His voice grew husky with appeal. "Return to the old plays, sign a five-year contract, and I will make you again rich."
"There will be time to consider that four weeks hence."
"Yes, but the season is passing."
"Courage, mein Herr!" she said, with a smile, and left him almost in tears.