It was after eleven o'clock when he threw down the manuscript, and, white with emotion, awaited her verdict. She was tense with the strain, and her lashes were wet with tears, but her eyes were bright and her mind alert. She had already entered upon a new part, having been swept up into a region of resolution as far away from the pleasant hostess as from the heartless adventuress whose garments she had worn but the night before. With hands clasped between her knees, and shoulders laxly drooping, she brooded on the sorrows of his mimic world.
"I will do your play," she said at last. "I will do it because I believe in its method and because I think it worthy of my highest powers."
The blood rushed to the playwright's throat and a smarting heat dimmed his eyes. He spoke with difficulty. "I thank you," he said, hoarsely. "It is more than I expected; and now that you have promised to do it, I feel you ought not to take the risk." He could say no more, overcome by the cordial emphasis of her decision.
"There is a risk, I will be frank with you; but your play is worth it. I have not been so powerfully moved in years. You have thrilled me. Really I cannot tell you how deeply your theme has sunk into my heart. You have the Northern conscience—so have I; that is why I rebel at being merely the plaything of a careless public. Yes, I will do your play. It is a work of genius. I hope you wrote it in a garret. It's the kind of thing to come from a diet of black bread and water."
He smiled. "I live in a sort of garret, and my meals are frequently beans and brown bread. I hope that will do."
"I am glad the bread is at least brown.... But you are tired. Leave the manuscript with me." He rose and she moved towards him with a gesture of confidence which made words impossible to him. "When we meet again I want you to tell me something of yourself.... Good-night. You will hear from me soon." She was regal as she said this—regal in her own proper person, and he went away rapt with wonder and admiration of the real Helen Merival as she now stood revealed to him.
"She is greater than my dreams of her," he said, in a sort of rapture as he walked the street. "She is greater than she herself can know; for her genius is of the subtle, unspeakable deeps—below her own consciousness, beyond her own analysis. How much greater her art seems, now that I have seen her. It is marvellous! She will do my play, and she will succeed—her power as an actress would carry it to a success if it were a bad play, which it is not. My day has dawned at last."
Helen went to bed that night with a consciousness that something new and powerful had come into her life. Not merely the play and her determination to do it moved her—the man himself profoundly impressed her. His seriousness, his decision and directness of utterance, and the idealism which shone from his rugged, boyish face remained with her to the verge of sleep. He was very handsome, and his voice singularly beautiful, but his power to charm lay over and beyond these. His sincere eyes, his freedom from flippant slang, these impressed her with a sense of his reliability, his moral worth.
"He is stern and harsh, but he is fine," she said to her mother next morning, "and his play is very strong. I am going to do it. You will like the part of Lillian. It has the Scotch sense of moral responsibility in it."