ey had defied the elements to endow them with a spark of
anything but health. Just then the curtain rose.

Slowly, unwillingly, for he was of a trustful disposition, Shelton
recognised that this play was one of those masterpieces of the modern
drama whose characters were drawn on the principle that men were made
for morals rather than morals made by men, and he watched the play
unfold with all its careful sandwiching of grave and gay.

A married woman anxious to be ridded of her husband was the pivot of
the story, and a number of scenes, ingeniously contrived, with a hundred
reasons why this desire was wrong and inexpedient, were revealed
to Shelton's eyes. These reasons issued mainly from the mouth of a
well-preserved old gentleman who seemed to play the part of a sort of
Moral Salesman. He turned to Halidome and whispered:

"Can you stand that old woman?"

His friend fixed his fine eyes on him wonderingly.

"What old woman?"

"Why, the old ass with the platitudes!"

Halidome's countenance grew cold, a little shocked, as though he had
been assailed in person.

"Do you mean Pirbright?" he said. "I think he's ripping."

Shelton turned to the play rebuffed; he felt guilty of a breach of
manners, sitting as he was in one of his friend's stalls, and he
naturally set to work to watch the play more critically than ever.
Antonia's words again recurred to him, "I don't like unhealthy people,"
and they seemed to throw a sudden light upon this play. It was healthy!

The scene was a drawing-room, softly lighted by electric lamps, with a
cat (Shelton could not decide whether she was real or not) asleep upon
the mat.

The husband, a thick-set, healthy man in evening dress, was drinking off
neat whisky. He put down his tumbler, and deliberately struck a match;
then with even greater deliberation he lit a gold-tipped cigarette....

Shelton was no inexperienced play-goer. He shifted his elbows, for he
felt that something was about to happen; and when the match was pitched
into the fire, he leaned forward in his seat. The husband poured more
whisky out, drank it at a draught, and walked towards the door; then,
turning to the audience as if to admit them to the secret of some
tremendous resolution, he puffed at them a puff of smoke. He left the
room, returned, and once more filled his glass. A lady now entered, pale
of face and dark of eye--his wife. The husband crossed the stage, and
stood before the fire, his legs astride