Quinny, I'm dying! Go away like a good chap and let me die in
peace. Tell all my friends that my last words were...."

Henry went back to his seat beside Mary and whispered to her that
Gilbert was too nervous and agitated to be sociable ... "some sort of
stage fright!..." and they pretended not to notice that he was huddled
in the darkest corner of the box. "Thank goodness," Henry said to the
others, "a novelist doesn't get a storm of nerves on the day of
publication!" Leaning over the edge of the box, he could see Lady Cecily
sitting in the stalls, with Jimphy by her side ... and for a while he
forgot the play and Mary and Gilbert's agitation. She was sitting
forward, looking intently at the stage, and as he watched her, she
laughed and turned to Jimphy as if she would share her pleasure with
him, but Jimphy, lying back in his stall, was fiddling with his
programme, utterly uninterested. She glanced up at the box, her eyes
meeting his, and smiled at him.

"Who is it?" said Mary, leaning towards him.

"Oh ... Lady Cecily Jayne!" he answered, discomposed by her question.

"She's very beautiful, isn't she?"

"Yes."

They turned again to the stage and were silent until the end of the
first act. There was a burst of laughter, and then the curtain
descended, to rise again in quick response to the applause.

"Cheering a chap at his funeral!" said Gilbert, groaning with delight as
he listened to the shouts and handclaps.

They turned to him and offered their congratulations.

"Five curtain-calls," said Roger. "Very satisfactory!"

"It's splendid, Gilbert," Mrs. Graham exclaimed. "I'm sure it'll be a
great success!"

"Oh, dear, O Lord, I wish it were over!" Gilbert replied.

"Let's fill him with whisky," said Ninian, rising and taking hold of
Gilbert's arm, and he and Henry took him and led him to the bar where
they met Jimphy, looking like a lost rabbit.

"Hilloa, Jimphy!" they exclaimed, and he turned gleefully to welcome
them. Here at all events was something he could comprehend. He
congratulated Gilbert. "Jolly good, old chap! Have a drink," he said,
and insisted that they should join him at the bar. "Of course," he added
privately to Henry, "this sort of stuff isn't really in my line ...
jolly good and all that, of course ... but still it's not in my line.
All the same, a chap has to congratulate a chap. Oh, Cecily wants you to
go and talk to her. You know where she is, don't you?"

He turned to listen to