She placed herself on the flowered silk sofa and talked. “I am immensely interested in that play,” she said. “It is quite unique. And you are so young, too—why, you seem just a boy. Really, you know I think you must be a genius yourself.”
Thyrsis murmured something, feeling uncomfortable.
“The only thing is,” Miss Lewis went on, “it will need a lot of revision to make it practical.”
“In what part?” he asked.
“The love-story, principally,” said the other. “You see, in that respect, you have simply thrown your chances away.”
“I don’t understand,” said he.
“You have made your hero act so queerly. Everyone feels that he is in love with Helena—you meant him to be, didn’t you? And yet he goes away from her and won’t see her! Everyone will be disappointed at that—it’s impossible, from every point of view. You’ll have to have them married in the last act.”
Thyrsis gasped for breath.
“You see,” continued Miss Lewis, “I am to play the part of Helena, and I am to be the star. And obviously, it would never do for me to be rejected, and left all up in the air like that. I must have some sort of a love-scene.”
“But”—protested the poet—“what you want me to change is what my play is about!”