“It would not,” said he stiffly. “Who—?”
“Oh, well, if you won’t be frank!” Mrs. Ilkington’s manner implied that he was a bold, bad butterfly, but that she had his entomological number, none the less. “Tell me,” she changed the subject abruptly, “how goes the great play?”
“Three acts are written,” he said in weariness of spirit, “the fourth—”
“But I thought you weren’t to return to America until it was quite finished?”
“Who told you that, please?”
“Never mind, sir! How about the fourth act?”
“I mean to write it en voyage,” said he, perplexed. From whom could this woman possibly have learned so much that was intimate to himself?
“You have it all mapped out, then?” she persisted.
“Oh, yes; it only needs to be put on paper.”
“R’ally, then, it’s true—isn’t it—that the writing is the least part of play construction?”