"Well, I tried to explain the commercial aspect of the case to her. I told her that, for one thing, the managers would see my plays in Jericho before they agreed to entrust the leading part to a novice. And I told her that, supposing for an instant I did find a manager reckless enough to consent, I should be ruining my own property.
"'Ah,' she said, 'you make up your mind in advance that I have no dramatic instinct?'
"I said: 'It is not even a question whether you have any dramatic instinct; it is enough that you haven't any renown. You have heard too much of the business by this time not to know that everybody tries to secure the most popular artists that he can. For me to put up a play with an absolutely unknown name, instead of a star's, would be asking for a failure.'
"'If I were billed as "madame Aribaud" the name would not be unknown,'" she argued.
"'Whether you were billed as "madame Aribaud," or as anybody else,' I said, 'the point would be how good you were in the part. The public would not pay to see an indifferent performance because you were madame Aribaud.'
"'Ah, then you admit it—that is it, after all!' she cried; 'you declare beforehand that I have no ability. Why should you say such a thing? It isn't right of you.'
"I said: 'I declare beforehand that you have had no training! I declare beforehand that you could not master, in a few weeks or months, a technique that other women acquire only after years. And on top of all that, I declare that I don't want to see you in the profession. Why do you become dissatisfied after we have got on? Why can't you be as content as you used to be when we had nothing?'
"'The days are longer than they used to be; I want something to do,' she insisted.
"Oh, I understood! But I need hardly tell you that this fever of hers didn't make for bliss. The theatre became a bone of contention between us—the position that I had dreamed of and yearned for was dividing me from my wife. It got worse every year. I no longer dared to mention business in my home. We were on affectionate terms only in the hours when the theatre was forgotten. One day I would hold her in my arms, and on the next some chance allusion would estrange us. If I happened to come across a little actress who was suitable to a more conspicuous part than those that she had had hitherto, my casting her for it was a domestic tragedy—I 'made opportunities for every woman but one!' I have been told that strangers who pestered me for theatrical engagements complained that I was unsympathetic—they little guessed how I was pestered for engagements on my own hearth!
"The aunt at Sèvres also had something to say. She had managed to get on a semi-friendly footing with us when Les Huit Jours was running, and now she had the effrontery to take the tone of a mother-in-law with me. She 'knew I was devoted to her niece, but I was not being fair to her—I ought to realise that she had a right to a career, too.' What audacity!—a woman who had given nothing but phrases when her niece was penniless! I did not wrap up my answer in silver paper—and I fancy the aunt's influence was responsible for a good deal; I think she revenged herself by offering all the encouragement possible behind my back.