"Really! Why?"

"He is so evidently an apostle of the Extension movement."

"That's quite good! Heath is a clever man though, despite his size."

"In what way?"

"He manages to grasp the changeful modern spirit of the day exactly."

"I think I was introduced to him once, somewhere or other."

"I believe he does go into society."

"Society condones a good deal."

"It is condonation incarnate."

She looked up at him, and blushed a little. "Perhaps it is as well?"

"For some of us?"

"_Si loda l'uomo modesto._"

"Don't you think modesty is advisable? One never knows how far to go."

"One should experiment, then; modesty is more original than natural nowadays."

"Originality is only a plagiarism from nature."

She opened her fan, moving it quickly. She was not accustomed to be fenced with like this.

Gobion's senses were coming back to him, the voluptuousness had gone, and after the first intoxication of her presence, he looked again and found she did not interest him in the way she sought. After the first act he offered to get them some ices, sending them by a man, while he went to the buffet.

Heath and Wild were there. "Hullo!" said the former, "who's that pretty woman in your box?"

"Picton's wife."

"Lionel Picton?"

"Yes."

"I wouldn't advise you to get mixed up with that lot," he said, making Gobion feel rather guilty as he remembered the article he was going to do for _The Spy_. After a minute Wild moved away.

"Such a joke," said Heath, with a grin. "Wild's brought little Blanche Huntley, the typewriter girl, and both Mrs. Wrampling and Will Fletcher are here, and they're saying that Wrampling himself is in the circle!

It's a dirty world, my boy, a dirty world."

"I wouldn't quarrel with my bread and b.u.t.ter if I were you," said Gobion; "you and I'd be in rather a hole if it wasn't for these little episodes. Mrs. Grundy always was an indecent old person. Ta-ta, see you after at the 'copy shop'?"

"Yes, my wife's away in Birmingham, so I won't go home till morning."

Gobion went back to the box, where he found Moro de Minter, the new humourist, making himself agreeable. Gobion knew the man slightly, and hated him. People said his real name was Gluckstein, and he was reported to have been a ticket collector at Euston before he had come out as the apostle of the ridiculous. He was holding forth on his latest book, and he asked Gobion what he thought of the new humourists.

"I have only met two sorts," he answered, "the disgustingly facetious and the facetiously disgusting. Both are equally nasty."

Miss Leuilette was rather nettled; she liked Minter.

"And what do you think of the new critics of _The Pilgrim_ type, Mr.

Minter?" she asked.

"They squirt venom from the attic into the gutter, and n.o.body is ever hurt." After which pa.s.sage of arms he left the box, and the curtain went up on the Inn at Shepperford.

After the play Gobion saw the ladies into their carriage, and Mrs.

Picton, as she pressed his hand, whispered him to come to tea the next day.

"I shall be quite alone," she said, with a side look.

Then came the "copy shop" and a noisy supper, at which the latest sultry story of a certain judge's wife was repeated and enjoyed.

It struck Gobion more than ever what a drunken, rakish lot these men were, but still he was very little better, only less coa.r.s.e in his methods, and it didn't matter.

Lucy, the barmaid, was in great form. Someone had given her a copy of _The Yellow Book_, with its strange ornamentation.

"They do get these books up in a rum way now," she said, pointing to the figures blazoned on the cover.

"You shouldn't find fault with that, my dear," he said. "The fig-leaf was the grandmother of petticoats"; and everyone roared.

"Can anyone recommend me a new religion?" said a fat man who did sporting tips for _The Moon_.

There was a yell at once. "Flintoff wants a new religion."

"Theosophist!" "Absintheur!" "Jew!" "Mahomedan!"

"Theosophist?" said the fat man; "no, I think not. Madame Blavatski was too frankly indecent. Absintheur might perhaps suit if it wasn't for Miss Marie Corelli. Jew is quite out of the question; there are two difficulties, pork and another. Mahomedan! well, that isn't bad. As many wives as you like--the religion of the henroost. Yes, I think I'll be a Mahomedan."

"How about drinks?" said Gobion.

"Oh, d.a.m.n! Yes, I forgot that, I must stick to Christianity after all."

He limped to the table to get a match.

"What's the matter with your leg?" said Heath.

"I hurt it last night going home in the fog."

"You should try Elliman's--horse for choice."

"I did, and I stank so of turpentine I was quite ashamed to lie with myself."

"You're not ashamed to lie here," said some feeble punster.