"A few have—a very few. A great play has been written round that very thing—La Vida Es Sueño—life is a dream. We'll read it together sometime.—Heavens, I never realized what it really meant till now! Do you know what this seems like to me? It seems like the kind of scene I have always wanted to write but never quite dared—simply letting myself go, without bothering about action or probability or motivation but just laying it on with a trowel, as thick as I could. All that, transmuted into terms of reality—or what we call reality! Heavens, it makes me dizzy!"
"See here, Harold Wimbourne," said Madge, suddenly jumping up again; "it seems to me you've been talking a great deal about love and very little about marriage. What I want to know is, when are you going to marry me?"
"Oh, the tiresome woman! Well, when should you say?"
"To-morrow morning, preferably. If that won't do, about next Tuesday. No, of course I've got heaps of things to do first. How about the middle of October?"
"I was just thinking," said Harry seriously. "You see, my dear, I'm at present working on a play. Technically speaking. Only, owing to the vaporous scruples of a certain young person I haven't been able to put in any work on it for several months. Bachmann has been very decent. He has practically promised to put it on in January, if it's any good at all. That means having it ready before Christmas, and I shall have to work like the very devil to do that. I work so confoundedly slowly, you see. Then there'll be all the bother of rehearsals, lasting up to the first night, which I suppose would be about the end of January. I should like to have up till then clear, but I should think by about the middle of February—say the fifteenth...."
"Oh, indeed," replied Miss Elliston, "you should say about the fifteenth, should you? I'm sorry, very sorry indeed, but as it happens I have another engagement for the fifteenth—several of them. Possibly I could arrange something for next June, though, or a year from next January; possibly not. Better let the matter drop, perhaps; sorry to have disturbed—"
"When will you marry me?" interrupted Harry, doing something that entirely destroyed the dignity of Miss Elliston's pose. "Next week—to-morrow—to-night? I daresay we could wake up a parson...."
"Sorry, dear, but I've arranged to be married on the fifteenth of February, and no other date will do. You're hurting my left shoulder-blade cruelly, but I suppose it's all right. That's better.... Oh, Harry, I do want you to work like the very devil on this play! Don't think about marriage, or me, or anything that will hinder you. Because, dearest, I have a feeling that it's going to be rather a good one. A perfect rip-snorter, to descend to the vulgar parlance."
"Yes," said Harry, "I have a feeling that it is, too."