e was
carrying on with a handsome Christian, because, having read the play,
he knew what was coming.

In the unfolding of the plot, Morgan was quite uninterested. In fact,
he had long since lost all grasp of its movement and meaning, and,
instead of taking in the dialogue, he contented himself with judging
effects and their impression on the audience.

Though he had seen a little of the rehearsals, he had not yet acquired
any notion of Cleo's abilities, for she had been busy directing and
criticising, simply reading her part as a "fill-in." He had all along
taken it for granted that she must be a great actress. At his most
despondent moments he had never doubted that, simply because it had
never occurred to him to doubt it. However, he was not without some
notion of what good acting should be, and he felt something like a
murderous bludgeon blow when, at the end of five minutes, it began to
be forced on him that she had not even the least glimmer of instinct
for her art.

Despite all her magnificence and the absence of any gaucherie in her
movements when off the stage, all natural grace disappeared the moment
she attempted to be somebody else. Her delivery was unnatural and
pompous; her motions were stiff, strained, ridiculous. The whole of
the first act was unsatisfying to the intelligence, but instead of
dominating it by the force of her personality, Cleo, by the
incompetence of her acting, set up its silliness in relief. If she had
not talked as much as all the other characters put together--for
every word that even the Basha managed to steal in elicited ten
against it--there would have been nothing to suggest she was the
leading character. At one point, indeed, her absurd strutting about
the stage drew a chuckle from somewhere among the ranks of the
critics. To watch her became so painful that Morgan at last turned
away his eyes.

All was over. His beautiful visions had gone. His eyes were suddenly
opened and he found himself transported from dreamland, not to
reality--for he could not yet believe this was reality--but into what
seemed a horrible nightmare.

The act ended at last and the curtain fell amid a frigid silence. Then
there was a little clapping in the gallery--the colour had no doubt
pleased a few of the spectators. But it died away immediately in
discouragement.

There were the usual noises of shuffling and disarrangement and
talking and exits. Morgan drew back as far as he could into the
shado