Page:Lippincotts Monthly Magazine-70.djvu/697

Rh with money would crush this Trust! It is making a mere trade of dramatic art."

"Wait till we find a few more independent spirits like our Jack here," said Haughtly. "The Trust won't have a leg to stand on! But they're all afraid to lose the almighty dollar, that's where the trouble is. Look at the time the whole country should have mourned for McKinley; there wasn't another theatre but Jack's closed on Broadway, even the very night of the crime!"

"Well, there are many disadvantages in being one's own manager," said Manning quietly, "but there are also some advantages, and one is that a man is not forced to sacrifice not only art, but individual principles to the avariciousness of others. They have done everything under the sun to overthrow me, even to the meanness of duplicating my play; but, thank Heaven! the American people still have their independence. Why, even the critics are losing power over the public because they hold remuneration higher than justice. Look how they tried to down me! But they failed; the whole lot put together failed!"

"Yes, and it is the grandest tribute the public has ever paid art," said Haughtly feelingly. "It gives one an incentive to do good work."

"Jack, don't get into trouble with Herman," pleaded Constance, who followed them into the hall with an ornament taken from the dining-room to be placed, as she thought, with better effect on a table in the hall. "You know he will do anything he can to injure you."

"No, dear; don't worry" returned Manning; "there is nothing he can do. I shall meet him at his own game."

Monday Helen said good-by to the Goldstein household forever, and, after installing herself in a small boarding-house room on Thirty-first Street, she went to Mrs. Manning's, as she had been invited to do. She was asked to go straight up to the front bedroom, where she found Constance, with the help of her maid, hurriedly getting into a walking-suit.

"I am so glad you came," she said, smiling at her over her shoulder. "I've had so many people here this afternoon that I have scarcely time to dine and run to the theatre. Eugenie, is that right?" she added to the maid. "Should this thing hook crookedly like that?"

As Eugenie arranged the matter, Constance pinned her hat on nobbily, with a backward tilt of her head and a glance in the mirror, then turned to the door.

"Have you dined?" she asked, pressing Helen's hand, and added, as Helen replied that she had, "Well, you won't mind sitting with me while I have a bit, will you? I'm afraid I am going to be jolly late!"

Her dinner was laid at one end of the big dining-table. It was