As for the play, Suzanne received a letter in March from the great manager informing her he had kept in touch with her affairs through Miss Murray, congratulating her on her mother's recovery and begging for an interview at her earliest convenience. His confidence in the Star's judgment had, it seemed, been justified. The play was as good as Suzanne had promised, so he admitted.
Accordingly, one day, when her mother was able to spare her, Suzanne went up to New York to sign contracts and discuss royalties with a glibness which scarcely betrayed her recent complete inexperience of such pleasing commodities. The play was to be tried out in early September and if it was successful would be given a chance on Broadway later.
"Of course, that is on the knees of the gods," the manager had warned. "You can't tell what the public will do. The public is a spoiled child. The thing may go. It may not. The whole thing's a devilish lottery, you understand."
Oh, yes, Suzanne understood. All life was pretty much of a devilish lottery she thought, but that made it more rather than less interesting. Long ago she had taken for her motto, "Believe and venture, as for pledges the gods give none." It was enough for her at the time that the play was to be given a trial. More would have slain her with joy she thought.
Of course she ran straight to Barb with this bucketful of delightful certainties and enchanting possibilities. And Barb was as happy as Suzanne over it all. She was an artist at rejoicing with those that rejoice as well as mourning with those that mourned. Sometimes she seemed to herself to be nothing at all but an agglomeration of sympathies for the rest of the world. Her own selfhood seemed drowned in the sea of humanity. She was not unhappy. Indeed she was quietly, humbly content. To some women to love itself is the main thing. In such the waters of affection returning back to their springs, fill them indeed full of refreshment. There was no bitterness in Barb. Gladly and freely she had broken her alabaster box of precious ointment not counting the cost, nor deeming the performance any sort of waste, rather a privilege.
As for the Cause, her dedication to it held no more scruples. Suzanne had been right in her prophecy. She was "white hot" in her faith, in her mission, the whiter-hot, perhaps, because she had managed to get "martyrized" along the way.
In March Lois Daly's book was accepted by the publishers, with hearty congratulations on her return to the field of literature after her sojourn elsewhere. The terms of her contract were generous and Lois smiled, well pleased. She took the letter at once to her husband, and when he had expressed his delight and pride in her success she had explained why she had done the thing.
"I didn't want to write a bit, Tom," she said. "I dreaded to go into it again. Of course when I once got in it I loved it just as I always have. It is exhilarating--soul-possessing. But I was happy without it, perfectly happy. I don't know whether you understand that, Tom. I was afraid sometimes it worried you that I had given it up. It needn't have. You and the home and the children were enough to fill every need."
"Then why did you do it?" He surveyed her, puzzled. It occurred to him as no doubt it occurs to many wise men at times how little he knew his wife. Do men ever really know their wives? Tom Daly thought of that little episode with Sylvia and wondered if it had had anything to do with sending Lois back to her writing.
"Why? Because I wanted to make some money--quite a lot of money--and that was the only way I knew of doing it--my only wage earning asset," she smiled.