admiring, triumphant.

Now Edward Henry had had no intention of meriting cake. He had merely
followed in speech the secret train of his thought. But he saw that
he had treated a West End audience as a West End audience had never
before been treated, and that his audacity had conquered. Hence he
determined not to refuse the cake.

"Didn't I tell you I'd settle 'em?" said he.

The band played "God Save the King."

VI

One hour later, in the double-bedded chamber at the Majestic, as his
wife lay in bed and he was methodically folding up a creased white tie
and inspecting his chin in the mirror, he felt that he was touching
again, after an immeasurable interval, the rock-bottom of reality.
Nellie, even when he could only see her face--and that in a
mirror!--was the most real phenomenon in his existence, and she
possessed the strange faculty of dispelling all unreality round about
her.

"Well," he said, "how did you get on in the box?"

"Oh!" she replied, "I got on very well with the Woldo woman. She's one
of our sort. But I'm not _so_ set up with your Elsie April."

"Dash this collar!"

Nellie continued:

"And I can tell you another thing, I don't envy Mr. Rollo Wrissell."

"What's Wrissell got to do with it?"

"She means to marry him."

"Elsie April means to marry Wrissell?"

"He was in and out of the box all night. It was as plain as a
pikestaff."

"What's amiss with my Elsie April?" Edward Henry demanded.

"She's a thought too _pleasant_ for my taste," answered Nellie.

Astonishing, how pleasantness is regarded with suspicion in the Five
Towns, even by women who can at a pinch be angels!

VII

Often during the brief night he gazed sleepily at the vague next bed
and mused upon the extraordinariness of women's consciences. His wife
slept like an innocent. She always did. It was as though she gently
expired every evening and returned gloriously to life every morning.
The sunshiny hours between three and seven were very long to him, but
it was indisputable that he did not hear the clock strike six: which
was at any rate proof of a little sleep to the good. At five minutes
past seven he thought he heard a faint rustling noise in the corridor,
and he arose and tiptoed to the door and opened it. Yes, the Majestic
had its good qualities! He had ordered that all the London morning
daily papers should be laid at his door as early as possible--and
there the pile was, somewhat damp, and as fresh