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 glass I'm bound to have a bad night." And he finished the glass, 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.