of its frolicsome mood. It had been obvious throughout
that the house had been quite conscious of its own superior
intellectuality, of its immeasurable elevation above the fare offered.
But Morgan derived his sense of the ghastly failure of the whole
business, not so much from the demeanour of the audience as from that
of one of the critics, who somehow summed it up for him. This critic,
whose bald pate had fascinated his eye, had a curiously irritating,
spasmodic chuckle, and Morgan in vain tried to be unaware of him.

In the intervals of the acts he had remained numbed and dazed, only
gathering to himself a grain of sympathy from the piteous look in
Helen's face. Her demeanour confirmed his intuition, that she must
know everything. She had sat rigid and mournfully attentive in
contrast to Mrs. Blackstone, who had laughed with decorous unrestraint
the whole evening. But he could not prevail upon himself to let her
discover him, and at once plunged behind the scenes to get to Cleo.

He found her in her dressing-room with her maid, who had come to the
theatre to help her, and he had a thrill of disgust as he watched her
rub the cleansing grease over her painted cheeks. It now struck him as
horrible--this pollution of the human face night after night with
filthy cosmetics that could only be removed by a filthier grease. He
felt that all she had so far restrained was going to break forth and
he stood by with subdued mien. Such shattering as had befallen himself
he was strong enough not to consider for the moment. His immediate
feeling was one of pity for her. He fancied he saw her now, not as the
heroine of his fantasy, but just as she was. Sympathy in him there was
none, and he could not make a hypocritical show of any. But he soon
understood that she took it for granted his faith in her was as
unshaken as her own; that she really believed her performance had been
a great one. Her self-illusion was pitiable. She burst forth into
bitter invective against the public, he listening without being able
to find his tongue, but with the consciousness that, even if she had
behaved madly that evening, the audience deserved at least some of
her censure. Why had it sat there, so determined to have its evening's
fun out, cruelly hounding and torturing a creature who, from her very
temperament, must have found the punishment a hellish one? Why, if
people had really been shocked, had they not quietly left the theatre?
That surely woul