V
Some time after the last hexameter had rolled forth, and the curtainhad finally fallen on the immense and rapturous success of CarloTrent's play in three acts and in verse, Edward Henry, walking aboutthe crowded stage, where the reception was being held, encounteredElsie April, who was still in her gorgeous dress of green and silver.She was chatting with Marrier, who instantly left her, thus displayinga discretion such as an employer would naturally expect from afactotum to whom he was paying three pounds a week.
Edward Henry's heart began to beat in a manner which troubled himand made him wonder what could be happening at the back of thesoft-frilled shirt front that he had obtained in imitation of Mr.Seven Sachs.
"Not much elbow-room here!" he said lightly. He was very anxious to beequal to the occasion.
She gazed at him under her emphasized eyebrows. He noticed that therewere little touches of red on her delightful nostrils.
"No," she answered with direct simplicity. "Suppose we try somewhereelse?"
She turned her back on all the amiable and intellectual babble,descended three steps on the prompt side, and opened a door. The swishof her brocaded spreading skirt was loud and sensuous. He followed herinto an obscure chamber in which several figures were moving to andfro and talking.
"What's this place?" he asked. Involuntarily his voice was diminishedto a whisper.
"It's one of the discussion-rooms," said she. "It used to be aclassroom, I expect, before the Society took the buildings over. Yousee the theatre was the general schoolroom."
They sat down unobtrusively in an embrasure. None among the mysteriousmoving figures seemed to remark them.
"But why are they talking in the dark?" Edward Henry asked behind hishand.
"To begin with, it isn't quite dark," she said. "There's the light ofthe street-lamp through the window. But it has been found that seriousdiscussions can be carried on much better without too much light....I'm not joking." (It was as if in the gloom her ears had caught hisfaint sardonic smile.)
Said the voice of one of the figures:
"Can you tell me what is the origin of the decay of realism? Can youtell me that?"
Suddenly, in the ensuing silence, there was a click, and a tinyelectric lamp shot its beam. The hand which held the lamp was the handof Carlo Trent. He flashed it and flashed the trembling ray in theinquirer's face. Edward Henry recalled Carlo's objection to excessiveelectricity in the private drawing-room at Wilkins's.
"Why do you ask such a question?" Carlo Trent challenged the inquirer,brandishing the lamp. "I ask you why do you ask it?"
The other also drew forth a lamp and, as it were, cocked it and let itoff at the features of Carlo Trent. And thus the two stood, statuesqueand lit, surrounded by shadowy witnessers of the discussion.
The door creaked, and yet another figure, silhouetted for an instantagainst the illumination of the stage, descended into the discussionchamber.
Carlo Trent tripped towards the new-comer, bent with his lamp, lifteddelicately the hem of the new-comer's trousers, and gazed at thecolour of his sock, which was blue.
"All right!" said he.
"The champagne and sandwiches are served," said the new-comer.
"You've not answered me, sir," Carlo Trent faced once more hisopponent in the discussion. "You've not answered me."
Whereupon, the lamps being extinguished, they all filed forth, thedoor swung to of its own accord, shutting out the sound of babblefrom the stage, and Edward Henry and Elsie April were left silent andsolitary to the sole ray of the street-lamp.
All the Five Towns' shrewdness in Edward Henry's character, all thehusband in him, all the father in him, all the son in him, leapt tohis lips, and tried to say to Elsie:
"Shall _we_ go and inspect the champagne and sandwiches, too?"
And failed to say these incantatory words of salvation!
And the romantic, adventurous fool in him rejoiced at their failure.For he was adventurously happy in his propinquity to that simple andsincere creature. He was so happy, and his heart was so active,that he even made no caustic characteristic comment on the singularbehaviour of the beings who had just abandoned them to theirloneliness. He was also proud because he was sitting alone nearly inthe dark with a piquant and wealthy, albeit amateur actress, who hadjust participated in a triumph at which the spiritual aristocracy ofLondon had assisted.