ted to witness in
full. We have already noted such a case in _The Wild Duck_: Ibsen knew
that what we really required to witness was not the actual process of
Gregers's disclosure to Hialmar, but its effects. A small, but quite
noticeable, example of a scene thus rightly left to the imagination
occurred in Mr. Somerset Maugham's first play, _A Man of Honour_. In the
first act, Jack Halliwell, his wife, and his sister-in-law call upon his
friend Basil Kent. The sister-in-law, Hilda Murray, is a rich widow; and
she and Kent presently go out on the balcony together and are lost to
view. Then it appears, in a scene between the Halliwells, that they
fully believe that Kent is in love with Mrs. Murray and is now proposing
to her. But when the two re-enter from the balcony, it is evident from
their mien that, whatever may have passed between them, they are not
affianced lovers; and we presently learn that though Kent is in fact
strongly attracted to Mrs. Murray, he considers himself bound in honour
to marry a certain Jenny Bush, a Fleet Street barmaid, with whom he has
become entangled. Many playwrights would, so to speak, have dotted the
i's of the situation by giving us the scene between Kent and Mrs.
Murray; but Mr. Maugham has done exactly right in leaving us to divine
it. We know all that, at this point, we require to know of the relation
between them; to have told us more would have been to anticipate and
discount the course of events.

A more striking instance of a scene rightly placed behind the scenes
occurs in M. de Curel's terrible drama _Les Fossiles_. I need not go
into the singularly unpleasing details of the plot. Suffice it to say
that a very peculiar condition of things exists in the family of the Duc
de Chantemelle. It has been fully discussed in the second act between
the Duke and his daughter Claire, who has been induced to accept it for
the sake of the family name. But a person more immediately concerned is
Robert de Chantemelle, the only son of the house--will he also accept it
quietly? A nurse, who is acquainted with the black secret, misbehaves
herself, and is to be packed off. As she is a violent woman, Robert
insists on dismissing her himself, and leaves the room to do so. The
rest of the family are sure that, in her rage, she will blurt out the
whole story; and they wait, in breathless anxiety, for Robert's return.
What follows need not be told: the point is that this scene--the scene
of tense expect