st you."

III

It was not surprising that Rachel, who never in her life had beheld
at close quarters any of the phenomena of luxury, should blink her
ingenuous eyes at the blinding splendour of the antechambers of the
Imperial Cinema de Luxe. Eyes less ingenuous than hers had blinked
before that prodigious dazzlement. Even Louis, a man of vast
experience and sublime imperturbability, visiting the Imperial on its
opening night, had allowed the significant words to escape him, "Well,
I'm blest!"--proof enough of the triumph of the Imperial!

The Imperial had set out to be the most gorgeous cinema in the Five
Towns; and it simply was. Its advertisements read: "There is always
room at the top." There was. Over the ceiling of its foyer enormous
crimson peonies expanded like tropic blooms, and the heart of each
peony was a sixteen-candle-power electric lamp. No other two cinemas
in the Five Towns, it was reported, consumed together as much current
as the Imperial de Luxe; and nobody could deny that the degree of
excellence of a cinema is finally settled by its consumption of
electricity.

Rachel now understood better the symbolic meaning of the glare in
the sky caused at night by the determination of the Imperial to make
itself known. She had been brought up to believe that, gas being
dear, no opportunity should be lost of turning a jet down, and that
electricity was so dear as to be inconceivable in any house not
inhabited by crass spendthrift folly. She now saw electricity
scattered about as though it were as cheap as salt. She saw written in
electric fire across the inner entrance the beautiful sentiment, "Our
aim is to please YOU." The "you" had two lines of fire under it.
She saw, also, the polite nod of the official, dressed not less
glitteringly than an Admiral of the Fleet in full uniform, whose sole
duty in life was to welcome and reassure the visitor. All this in
Bursley, which even by Knype was deemed an out-of-the-world spot and
home of sordid decay! In Hanbridge she would have been less surprised
to discover such marvels, because the flaunting modernity of Hanbridge
was notorious. And her astonishment would have been milder had she had
been in the habit of going out at night. Like all those who never went
out at night, she had quite failed to keep pace with the advancing
stride of the Five Towns on the great road of civilization.

More impressive still than the extreme radiance about her was the
easy a