refathers with a common cradle-ground. The lack of a fire
burning on a national altar seemed to have drawn them by universal
impulse to the congenial flare of the footlights, whether as artists,
producers, impresarios, critics, agents, go-betweens, or merely as highly
intelligent and fearsomely well-informed spectators. They were prominent
in the chief seats, they were represented, more sparsely but still in
fair numbers, in the cheaper places, and everywhere they were voluble,
emphatic, sanguine or sceptical, prodigal of word and gesture, with eyes
that seemed to miss nothing and acknowledge nothing, and a general
restless dread of not being seen and noticed. Of the theatre-going
London public there was also a fair muster, more particularly centred in
the less expensive parts of the house, while in boxes, stalls and circles
a sprinkling of military uniforms gave an unfamiliar tone to the scene in
the eyes of those who had not previously witnessed a first-night
performance under the new conditions.

Yeovil, while standing aloof from his wife's participation in this social
event, had made private arrangements for being a personal spectator of
the scene; as one of the ticket-buying public he had secured a seat in
the back row of a low-priced gallery, whence he might watch, observant
and unobserved, the much talked-of debut of Gorla Mustelford, and the
writing of a new chapter in the history of the fait accompli. Around him
he noticed an incessant undercurrent of jangling laughter, an unending
give-and-take of meaningless mirthless jest and catchword. He had
noticed the same thing in streets and public places since his arrival in
London, a noisy, empty interchange of chaff and laughter that he had been
at a loss to account for. The Londoner is not well adapted for the
irresponsible noisiness of jesting tongue that bubbles up naturally in a
Southern race, and the effort to be volatile was the more noticeable
because it so obviously was an effort. Turning over the pages of a book
that told the story of Bulgarian social life in the days of Turkish rule,
Yeovil had that morning come across a passage that seemed to throw some
light on the thing that had puzzled him:

"Bondage has this one advantage: it makes a nation merry. Where
far-reaching ambition has no scope for its development the community
squanders its energy on the trivial and personal cares of its daily life,
and seeks relief and recreation in simple and easi