damn funny! Well, anyhow, what I was going to say was
this. You don't want to see this rotten play, do you?"

"I do rather!..."

"No, you don't, Quinn. No, you don't. And I don't want to see it,
either. Very well, then, what's to prevent you and me going to the
Empire together, eh? We can come back for Cecily!..."

Henry stared at Lord Jasper. "But we can't do that," he protested.

"Oh, yes we can. Cecily won't mind. She'll be glad. We'll go and tell
her ... and look here, Quinn, I'll introduce you to a girl I know ...
very nice girl ... perfect lady ... lives with her mother as a matter of
fact ... Eh?"

"I'd much rather see the play!"

"Oh, all right," Lord Jasper said sulkily. "All right!"

Henry moved towards the door of the bar, but Lord Jasper made no attempt
to follow him. "Aren't you coming?" he said, pausing at the door.

"No," Lord Jasper replied. "I don't want to see the damn play. I shall
have another drink, and then I shall go to the Empire by myself. You
better go back to Cecily and ... and that chap Farlow. She won't notice
I'm not there!"

"You'd better come and tell her yourself, hadn't you?" Henry said.

Lord Jasper deliberated with himself for a few moments.

"All right," he said. "I will. I'll come presently. You tell her, will
you, that I'll come presently. P'raps you'll change your mind, Quinn,
and come with me to the Empire after you've had another dose of this
damn play. A chap doesn't want to see a play on a chap's birthday!..."

It occurred to Henry that Lord Jasper Jayne was slightly drunk. He had
swallowed the second whisky and soda rather more expeditiously than he
had swallowed the first, and no doubt he had dined well. There was a
bleary look in his eyes that signified a heated brain....

"My God," Henry said to himself, "that beautiful woman married to this
... this swine!"

"I'm thirty-one to-day, ole f'la," Lord Jasper continued, coming over to
Henry and taking hold of his arm. "Thirty-one. I'm getting on in years,
ole f'la, that's what I'm doing ... sere and yellow, so to speak ... and
a chap my age doesn't want to be bothered with a damn play. He wants
something ... something substansl!..." He fumbled over the word
"substantial" and then fell on it. "Something substansl," he repeated.
"Now, if you come with me!..."

"I say, you mustn't talk so loudly," Henry warned him. "The curtain's
gone up, and you'll disturb people...."

"All right, ole f'la, all right. I won't