Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Don-a-dreams.djvu/345

 dinner was to remain in his history of himself as wonderful as a royal fête, as one of the gala occasions of his life, as an incident for poets, like a wedding day.

  came to the evening's performance of "The Rajah's Ruby" full of blissful and quiet thoughts; and he replied to Miss Morris's silent scrutiny with the bare announcement that Miss Richardson was to join the company on Monday night. He was unmoved by her stubborn insistence that he was "making a mistake." He asked cheerfully: "How? Why am I?"

She answered by asking whether he had done any writing on his play; and he had to explain that his quarrel with Conroy had upset him, but that now—in his own room, alone with his manuscript—he would be able to give all his time to his ambitions. The explanation did not seem to satisfy her, though she did not voice any criticism of it. She asked: "Does her mother know what she's doing?"

"No," he said. "She's not doing it as a permanent thing. She's only coming here until she finds an opening for her music."

"You know, as well as I do, that she'll never find an opening for her music in New York."

He replied calmly: "I know that she can do this extra work until she has time to find something better. That's all she expects."

Miss Morris said nothing more, and he left her to 