reflecting floors. On every
hand could be heard artistic discussions, serious and informed and yet
lightsome in tone. If it was not the real originality of jazz music that
was being discussed, it was the sureness of the natural untaught taste
of the denizens of the East End and South London, and if not that then
the greatness of male revue artistes, and if not that then the need of a
national theatre and of a minister of fine arts, and if not that then
the sculptural quality of the best novels and the fictional quality of
the best sculpture, and if not that then the influence on British life
of the fox-trot, and if not that then the prospects of bringing modern
poets home to the largest public by means of the board schools, and if
not that then the evil effects of the twin great London institutions for
teaching music upon the individualities of the young geniuses entrusted
to them, and if not that the part played by the most earnest amateurs in
the destruction of opera, and if not that the total eclipse of
Beethoven, Brahms and Wagner since the efflorescence of the Russian
Ballet. And always there ran like a flame through the conversations the
hot breath of a passionate intention to make Britain artistic in the
eyes of the civilised world.

What especially pleased Mr. Prohack about the whole affair, as he moved
to and fro seeking society now instead of avoiding it, was the perfect
futility of the affair, save as it affected Eve's reputation. He
perceived the beauty of costly futility, and he was struck again, when
from afar he observed his wife's conquering mien, by the fact that the
reception did not exist for the League, but the League for the
reception. The reception was a real and a resplendent thing; nobody
could deny it. The League was a fog of gush. The League would be dear at
twopence half-penny. The reception was cheap if it stood him in five
hundred pounds. Eve was an infant; Eve was pleased with gewgaws; but Eve
had found herself and he was well content to pay five hundred pounds for
the look on her ingenuous face.

"And nothing of this would have happened," he thought, impressed by the
wonders of life, "if in a foolish impulse of generosity I hadn't once
lent a hundred quid to that chap Angmering."

He descried Lady Massulam in converse with a tall, stout and
magnificently dressed gentleman, who bowed deeply and departed as Mr.
Prohack approached.

"Who is your fat friend?" said Mr. Prohack.

"He's fr