"But I thought you made such a lot of money by writing?" asked Miss Cavendish.
"I do—that is, I could," answered Carroll, "if I wrote the things that sell; but I keep on writing plays that won't."
"And such plays!" exclaimed Marion, warmly; "and to think that they are going begging." She continued indignantly, "I can't imagine what the managers do want."
"I know what they don't want," said the American. Miss Cavendish drummed impatiently on the tea-tray.
"I wish you wouldn't be so abject about it," she said. "If I were a man I'd make them take those plays."
"How," asked the American, "with a gun?"
"Well, I'd keep at it until they read them," declared Marion. "I'd sit on their front steps all night and I'd follow them in cabs, and I'd lay in wait for them at the stage-door. I'd just make them take them."
Carroll sighed and stared at the ceiling. "I guess I'll give up and go home," he said.
"Oh, yes, do, run away before you are beaten," said Miss Cavendish, scornfully. "Why, you can't go now. Everybody will be back in town soon, and there are a lot of new plays coming on, and some of them are sure to be failures, and that's our chance. You rush in with your piece and somebody may take it sooner than close the theatre."
"I'm thinking of closing the theatre myself," said Carroll. "What's the use of my hanging on here?" he exclaimed. "It distresses Helen to know I am in London, feeling about her as I do—and the Lord only knows how it distresses me. And, maybe if I went away," he said, consciously, "she might miss me. She might see the difference."