"Ah, yes."
"And Godolphin, I've got it on my conscience, if you do take the play, to tell you that I offered it to Grayson, and he refused it. I think you ought to know that; it's only fair; and for the matter of that, it's been kicking round all the theatres in New York."
"Dear boy!" said Godolphin, caressingly, and with a smile that was like a benediction, "that doesn't make the least difference."
"Well, I wished you to know," said Maxwell, with a great load off his mind.
"Yes, I understand that. Will you drink anything, or smoke anything? Or—I forgot! I hate all that, too. But you'll join me in a cup of tea downstairs?" They descended to the smoking-room below, and Godolphin ordered the tea, and went on talking with a gay irrelevance till it came. Then he said, as he poured out the two cups of it: "The fact is, Grayson is going in with me, if I do your piece." This was news to Maxwell, and yet he was somehow not surprised at it. "I dare say he told you?"
"No, he didn't give me any hint of it. He simply told me that you were in town, and where you were."
"Ah, that was like Grayson. Queer fish."
"But I'm mighty glad to know it. You can make it go, together, if any power on earth can do it; and if it fails," Maxwell added, "I shall have the satisfaction of ruining some one else this time."
"Well, Grayson has made nearly as bad a mess of it as I have, this season," said Godolphin. "He's got to take off that thing he has going now, and it's a question of what he shall put on. It will be an experiment with Haxard, but I believe it will be a successful experiment. I have every confidence in that play." Godolphin looked up, his lips set convincingly, and with the air of a man who had stood unfalteringly by his opinion from the first. "Now, if you will excuse me, I will tell you what I think ought to be done to it."
"By all means," said Maxwell; "I shall be glad to do anything you wish, or that I can."