Mr. Jones went on to tell how many things he would do for the play. It would go into rehearsal at once, and would be seen on Broadway by the first of February. They would pay him four, six and eight per cent., and his profits could not be less than three hundred dollars a week. With Ethelynda Lewis in the leading role the play might well run until June--and there would be the road profits the next season, in addition.
Thyrsis’ brain reeled as he listened to this; it was in all respects identical with another famous temptation--“The devil taketh him upon a high mountain, and showeth him all the kingdoms of the earth!”
“And then there is England”--the man was saying.
“Well then, that’s easily arranged. Let me get some one to collaborate with you. There’s Richard Haberton--you know who he is?”
“He’s the author of ‘The Rajah’s Diamond’--it’s playing with five companions now, and its third season. And he dramatized ‘In Honor’s Cause’--you’ve seen that, no doubt. We have paid him some sixty thousand dollars in royalties so far. And he’ll take the play and fix it over--you wouldn’t have to stir a finger.”
Thyrsis sprang up in his agitation. “Please don’t ask me, Mr. Jones,” he cried. “I simply _could_ not do it!”
It seemed strange to Thyrsis, when he thought it over afterwards, that the great Robertson Jones should have taken the trouble to argue so long with the unknown author of a play in which he did not believe. Was it that opposition incited him to persist? Or had he told Ethelynda Lewis he would get her what she wanted, and was now reluctant to confess defeat? At any rate, so it was--he went on to drive Thyrsis into a corner, to tear open his very soul. Also, he manifested anger; it was a deliberate affront that the boy should stand out like this. And Thyrsis, in great distress of soul, explained that he did not mean it that way--he apologized abjectly for his obstinacy. It was the _ideas_ that he had tried to put into his play, and that he could not give up!
“But,” persisted the manager--“write other plays, and put your ideas into them. If you’ve once had a Broadway success, then you can write anything you please, and you can make your own terms for production.”
That thought had already occurred to Thyrsis; it was the one that nearly broke down his resistance. He would probably have surrendered, had the play not been so fresh from his mind, and so dear to him; if he had had time enough to become dissatisfied with it, as he had with his first novel--or discouraged about its prospects, as he had with “The Hearer of Truth”! But this child of his fancy was not yet weaned; and to tear it from his breast, and hand it to the butcher--no, it could not be thought of!