Her hand groped out behind her, found the table-cloth and began to scratch it agitatedly. She lifted her head. She was the actress, impressive and subjugating, and Edward Henry felt her power. Then she intoned:
"Brightness falls from the air; Queens have died young and fair; Dust hath closed Helen"s eye."
And she ceased and sat down. There was a silence.
"_Bra_ vo!" murmured Carlo Trent.
"Bra_vo_!" murmured Mr. Marrier.
Edward Henry in the gloom caught Mr. Seven Sachs"s unalterable observant smile across the table.
"Well, Mr. Machin?" said Carlo Trent.
Edward Henry had felt a tremor at the vibrations of Rose Euclid"s voice. But the words she uttered had set up no clear image in his mind, unless it might be of some solid body falling from the air, or of a young woman named Helen, walking along Trafalgar Road, Bursley, on a dusty day, and getting the dust in her eyes. He knew not what to answer.
"Is that all there is of it?" he asked at length.
Carlo Trent said:
"It"s from Thomas Nashe"s "Song in Time of Pestilence." The closing lines of the verse are:
"I am sick, I must die-- Lord, have mercy on me!""
"Well," said Edward Henry, recovering, "I rather like the end. I think the end"s very appropriate."
Mr. Seven Sachs choked over his wine, and kept on choking.
III
Mr.. Marrier was the first to recover from this blow to the prestige of poetry. Or perhaps it would be more honest to say that Mr.. Marrier had suffered no inconvenience from the _contretemps_. His apparent gleeful zest in life had not been impaired. He was a born optimist, of an extreme type unknown beyond the circ.u.mferences of theatrical circles.
"I _say_," he emphasized, "I"ve got an ideah. We ought to be photographed like that. Do you no end of good." He glanced encouragingly at Rose Euclid. "Don"t you see it in the ill.u.s.trated papers? A prayvate supper-party at Wilkins"s Hotel. Miss Ra-ose Euclid reciting verse at a discussion of the plans for her new theatre in Piccadilly Circus. The figures, reading from left to right, are, Mr.
Seven Sachs, the famous actor-author, Miss Rose Euclid, Mr. Carlo Trent, the celebrated dramatic poet, Mr. Alderman Machin, the well-known Midlands capitalist, and so on!" Mr. Marrier repeated, "and so on."
"It"s a notion," said Rose Euclid, dreamily.
"But how _can_ we be photographed?" Carlo Trent demanded with irritation.
"Perfectly easy."
"Now?"
"In ten minutes. I know a photographer in Brook Street."
"Would he come at once?" Carlo Trent frowned at his watch.
"Rather!" Mr. Marrier gaily soothed him, as he went over to the telephone. And Mr. Marrier"s bright, boyish face radiated forth the a.s.surance that nothing in all his existence had more completely filled him with sincere joy than this enterprise of procuring a photograph of the party. Even in giving the photographer"s number--he was one of those prodigies who remember infallibly all telephone numbers--his voice seemed to gloat upon his project.
(And while Mr. Marrier, having obtained communication with the photographer, was saying gloriously into the telephone: "Yes, Wilkins"s. No. Quite private. I"ve got Miss Rose Euclid here, and Mr.
Seven Sachs"--while Mr. Marrier was thus proceeding with his list of star attractions, Edward Henry was thinking:
""_Her_ new theatre"--now! It was "his" a few minutes back!... "The well-known Midlands capitalist," eh? Oh! Ah!")
He drank again. He said to himself: "I"ve had all I can digest of this beastly balloony stuff." (He meant the champagne.) "If I finish the gla.s.s I"m bound to have a bad night." And he finished the gla.s.s, and planked it down firmly on the table.
"Well," he remarked aloud cheerfully. "If we"re to be photographed, I suppose we shall want a bit more light on the subject."
Joseph sprang to the switches.
"Please!" Carlo Trent raised a protesting hand.
The switches were not turned. In the beautiful dimness the greatest tragic actress in the world and the greatest dramatic poet in the world gazed at each other, seeking and finding solace in mutual esteem.
"I suppose it wouldn"t do to call it the Euclid Theatre?" Rose questioned casually, without moving her eyes.
"Splendid!" cried Mr. Marrier from the telephone.
"It all depends whether there are enough mathematical students in London to fill the theatre for a run," said Edward Henry.
"Oh! D"you think so?" murmured Rose, surprised and vaguely puzzled.
At that instant Edward Henry might have rushed from the room and taken the night-mail back to the Five Towns, and never any more have ventured into the perils of London, if Carlo Trent had not turned his head, and signified by a curt, reluctant laugh that he saw the joke.
For Edward Henry could no longer depend on Mr. Seven Sachs. Mr. Seven Sachs had to take the greatest pains to keep the muscles of his face in strict order. The slightest laxity with them--and he would have been involved in another and more serious suffocation.
"No," said Carlo Trent, ""The Muses" Theatre" is the only possible t.i.tle. There is money in the poetical drama." He looked hard at Edward Henry, as though to stare down the memory of the failure of Nashe"s verse. "I don"t want money. I hate the thought of money. But money is the only proof of democratic appreciation, and that is what I need, and what every artist needs.... Don"t you think there"s money in the poetical drama, Mr. Sachs?"
"Not in America," said Mr. Sachs. "London is a queer place."
"Look at the runs of Stephen Phillips"s plays!"
"Yes.... I only reckon to know America."
"Look at what Pilgrim"s made out of Shakspere."
"I thought you were talking about poetry," said Edward Henry too hastily.
"And isn"t Shakspere poetry?" Carlo Trent challenged.
"Well, I suppose if you put it in that way, he _is_!" Edward Henry cautiously admitted, humbled. He was under the disadvantage of never having either seen or read "Shakspere." His sure instinct had always warned him against being drawn into "Shakspere."
"And has Miss Euclid ever done anything finer than Constance?"
"I don"t know," Edward Henry pleaded.
"Why--Miss Euclid in "King John"--"