nduced discussion, and that to Gorla meant a great deal. It
was a season of dearth and emptiness in the footlights and box-office
world, and her performance received a welcome that would scarcely have
befallen it in a more crowded and prosperous day. Her success, indeed,
had been waiting for her, ready-made, as far as the managerial profession
was concerned, and nothing had been left undone in the way of
advertisement to secure for it the appearance, at any rate, of popular
favour. And loud above the interested applause of those who had personal
or business motives for acclaiming a success swelled the exaggerated
enthusiasm of the fairly numerous art-satellites who are unstinted in
their praise of anything that they are certain they cannot understand.
Whatever might be the subsequent verdict of the theatre-filling public
the majority of the favoured first-night audience was determined to set
the seal of its approval on the suggestion dances, and a steady roll of
applause greeted the conclusion of each item. The dancer gravely bowed
her thanks; in marked contradistinction to the gentleman who had
"presented" the performing wolves she did not permit herself the luxury
of a smile.

"It teaches us a great deal," said Rhapsodic Pantril vaguely, but
impressively, after the Fern dance had been given and applauded.

"At any rate we know now that a fern takes life very seriously," broke in
Joan Mardle, who had somehow wriggled herself into Cicely's box.

As Yeovil, from the back of his gallery, watched Gorla running and
ricochetting about the stage, looking rather like a wagtail in energetic
pursuit of invisible gnats and midges, he wondered how many of the middle-
aged women who were eagerly applauding her would have taken the least
notice of similar gymnastics on the part of their offspring in nursery or
garden, beyond perhaps asking them not to make so much noise. And a
bitterer tinge came to his thoughts as he saw the bouquets being handed
up, thoughts of the brave old dowager down at Torywood, the woman who had
worked and wrought so hard and so unsparingly in her day for the well-
being of the State--the State that had fallen helpless into alien hands
before her tired eyes. Her eldest son lived invalid-wise in the South of
France, her second son lay fathoms deep in the North Sea, with the hulk
of a broken battleship for a burial-vault; and now the grand-daughter was
standing here in the limelight, bowing her thanks f