IV
On the next night a male figure in evening dress and a pale overcoatmight have been seen standing at the corner of Piccadilly Circus andLower Regent Street, staring at an electric sign in the shape ofa shield which said, in its glittering, throbbing speech ofincandescence:
THE REGENT
ROSE EUCLID
IN
"THE ORIENT PEARL"
The figure crossed the Circus, and stared at the sign from a new pointof view. Then it passed along Coventry Street, and stared at the signfrom yet another point of view. Then it reached Shaftesbury Avenueand stared again. Then it returned to its original station. It was thefigure of Edward Henry Machin, savouring the glorious electric sign ofwhich he had dreamed. He lit a cigarette, and thought of Seven Sachsgazing at the name of Seven Sachs in fire on the facade of a BroadwayTheatre in New York. Was not this London phenomenon at least as fine?He considered it was. The Regent Theatre existed--there it stood!(What a name for a theatre!) Its windows were all illuminated. Itsentrance-lamps bathed the pavement in light, and in this radiancestood the commissionaires in their military pride and their newuniforms. A line of waiting automobiles began a couple of yards to thenorth of the main doors and continued round all sorts of dark cornersand up all manner of back streets towards Golden Square itself.Marrier had had the automobiles counted and had told him the number,but such was Edward Henry's condition that he had forgotten. A row ofboards reared on the pavement against the walls of the facade said:"Stalls Full," "Private Boxes Full," "Dress Circle Full," "UpperCircle Full," "Pit Full," "Gallery Full." And attached to the ironworkof the glazed entrance canopy was a long board which gave the sameinformation in terser form: "House Full." The Regent had indeed beenobliged to refuse quite a lot of money on its opening night. Afterall, the inauguration of a new theatre was something, even in London!Important personages had actually begged the privilege of buying seatsat normal prices, and had been refused. Unimportant personages--suchas those whose boast in the universe was that they had never misseda first night in the West End for twenty, thirty, or even fiftyyears--had tried to buy seats at abnormal prices, and had failed:which was in itself a tragedy. Edward Henry at the final moment hadyielded his wife's stall to the instances of a Minister of the Crown,and at Lady Woldo's urgent request had put her into Lady Woldo'sprivate landowner's-box, where also was Miss Elsie April, who "hadalready had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Machin." Edward Henry's firstnight was an event of magnitude. And he alone was responsible for it.His volition alone had brought into being that grand edifice whoselight yellow walls now gleamed in nocturnal mystery under the shimmerof countless electric bulbs.
"There goes pretty nigh forty thousand pounds of my money!" hereflected excitedly.
And he reflected:
"After all, I'm somebody."
Then he glanced down Lower Regent Street and saw Sir John Pilgrim'smuch larger theatre, now sub-let to a tenant who was also lavish withdisplays of radiance. And he reflected that on first nights Sir JohnPilgrim, in addition to doing all that he himself had done, would holdthe great _role_ on the stage throughout the evening. And he admiredthe astounding, dazzling energy of such a being, and admittedungrudgingly:
"He's somebody too! I wonder what part of the world he's illuminatingjust now!"
Edward Henry did not deny to his soul that he was extremely nervous.He would not and could not face even the bare possibility that thefirst play presented at the new theatre might be a failure. He hadmeant to witness the production incognito among the crowd in the pitor in the gallery. But, after visiting the pit a few moments beforethe curtain went up, he had been appalled by the hard-hearted levityof the pit's remarks on things in general. The pit did not seem tobe in any way chastened or softened by the fact that a fortune, thatreputations, that careers were at stake. He had fled from the packedpit. (As for the gallery, he decided that he had already had enough ofthe gallery.) He had wandered about corridors, and to and fro in hisown room and in the wings, and even in the basement, as nervous as alost cat or an author, and as self-conscious as a criminal who knowshimself to be on the edge of discovery. It was a fact that he couldnot look people in the eyes. The reception of the first act had beenfairly amiable, and he had suffered horribly as he listened for theapplause. Catching sight of Carlo Trent in the distance of a passage,he had positively run away from Carlo Trent. The first _entr'acte_had seemed to last for about three months. Its nightmarish length haddriven him almost to lunacy. The "feel" of the second act--so faras it mystically communicated itself to him in his place ofconcealment--had been better. And at the second fall of the curtainthe applause had been enthusiastic. Yes, enthusiastic! Curiously, itwas the revulsion caused by this new birth of hope that, while thethird act was being played, had driven him out of the theatre. Hiswild hope needed ozone. His breast had to expand in the boundlessprairie of Piccadilly Circus. His legs had to walk. His arms had toswing.
Now he crossed the Circus again to his own pavement and gazed likea stranger at his own posters. On several of them, encircled in ascarlet ring, was the sole name of Rose Euclid--impressive! (Andsmaller, but above it, the legend, "E.H. Machin, Sole Proprietor.")He asked himself impartially, as his eyes uneasily left the posterand slipped round the Circus--deserted save by a few sinister andidle figures at that hour--"Should I have sent that interview to thepapers, or shouldn't I?... I wonder. I expect some folks would saythat on the whole I've been rather hard on Rose since I first mether!... Anyhow, she's speaking up all right to-night!" He laughedshortly.
A newsboy floated up from the Circus bearing a poster with the name ofIsabel Joy on it in large letters.
He thought:
"Be blowed to Isabel Joy!"
He did not care a fig for Isabel Joy's competition now.
And then a small door opened in the wall close by, and an elegantcloaked woman came out on to the pavement. The door was the privatedoor leading to the private box of Lord Woldo, owner of the groundupon which the Regent Theatre was built. The woman he recognized withconfusion as Elsie April, whom he had not seen alone since the AzureSociety's night.
"What are you doing out here, Mr. Machin?" she greeted him withpleasant composure.
"I'm thinking," said he.
"It's going splendidly," she remarked. "Really!... I'm just runninground to the stage-door to meet dear Rose as she comes off. What adelightful woman your wife is! So pretty, and so sensible!"
She disappeared round the corner before he could compose a suitablehusband's reply to this laudation of a wife.
Then the commissionaires at the entrance seemed to start into life.And then suddenly several preoccupied men strode rapidly out of thetheatre, buttoning their coats, and vanished phantom-like....
Critics, on their way to destruction!
The performance must be finishing. Hastily he followed in thedirection taken by Elsie April.