w that the public was changing. It
was becoming increasingly difficult to produce an instantaneous
success. The theatre did not stand where it had done in popular
esteem, and its personalities had no longer the vivid authority they
had once enjoyed. When the Prime Minister visited the Imperium, it was
rather Sir Henry than the Prime Minister who was honoured: a sad
declension, for Prime Ministers come and go, but a great actor rules
for ever as sole lessee and manager of an institution as familiar to
the general mind as the House of Commons. Prime Ministers had come and
gone, they had in turn accepted Sir Henry's kind offer of a box for the
first night, but latterly Prime Ministers had gathered popularity and
actor-managers had lost it, so great had been the deterioration of the
public mind since the introduction of cheap newspapers, imposing upon
every public character the necessity of a considerable waste of energy
in advertising.... In the old days, a great man's advertising was done
for him in acknowledgment of his greatness. Sir Henry was uneasy,
could not shake off the gathering gloom, and a deep-seated conviction
that Lady Butcher had made the fatal mistake of his career by devoting
herself so exclusively to the front of the house and social drapery,
bringing him into intimate contact with such persons as Prime
Ministers, Dukes, and Attorney-Generals.... The public had been
admitted behind the scenes. The mystery was gone. The theatre, even
the Imperium had lost its spell. Nothing in it was sacred; not even
rehearsals, which were continually interrupted by journalists, male and
female, elegant young men and women who were friends and acquaintances
of his family, dressmakers. 'Ah! Teresa! Teresa!' sighed Sir Henry,
gazing at the portrait of that lady. 'It needs your touch, your charm,
the quick insight into the health of the theatre which only comes to
those who have been born in it.'

Soon the Imperium would close for a short holiday, after a shockingly
bad season, and its manager had to make up his mind as to his new
production. Mr Gillies was all for safety and economy, and for
postponing any adventure to the Spring, but Sir Henry said,--

'The fate of the whole year is decided in October. The few people who
matter come back from Karlsbad and Scotland cleaned up and scraped, and
it is then that you make your impression. The Spring is too late. We
must have something new.'

'We've got nothin