Marion's face hardened.
"It's not a sympathetic part," she said, "but an artist ought not to think of that."
"No, it's not sympathetic," acquiesced Lenore, turning up her fur collar. "It seems as if the principal man's part never is sympathetic in a woman's play. If the central figure is a woman, the men grouped round her are generally prize specimens of worms. I wonder why. In your play, now, Maggie's everything! George does not count for much, as far as I can see. Even Maggie had not much use for him."
"She loved him," said the author, with asperity.
"Did she? Sometimes when I'm playing Maggie to Montgomery's George I wonder if she did. And I just wonder now and then if I would have thrown him over as she did. I mean for good and all. It seems to me—if she'd cared for him, cared really, you know——"
"She did," interposed Marion harshly.
"Wouldn't she have quarrelled and made it up again? Would she have been quite so hard on him?"
"Yes, she would. Think, just think what she must have suffered in the third act, the scene at the Savoy, when, loving him as she did, trusting him as she did, she saw him come in with——"
"Well, I expect you know best," said Lenore, whose interest seemed to flag suddenly; "anyhow, she suffered, poor thing. Women like her always do, I think." She rose slowly. "I may as well go and dress. I suppose we shall be here till midnight."
The orchestra struck up.