“I tell you what it is. It's a sort of Midnight Mission for the rich. They never have had anything of the kind in the city.”
“And it's very nice,” said Miss Tavish, demurely.
“The performers are selected. You can see things there that you want to see at other places to which you can't go. And everybody you know is there.”
“Oh, I see,” said Jack. “It's what the Independent Theatre is trying to do, and what all the theatrical people say needs to be done, to elevate the character of the audiences, and then the managers can give better plays.”
“That's just it. We want to elevate the stage,” Carmen explained.
“But,” continued Jack, “it seems to me that now the audience is select and elevated, it wants to see the same sort of things it liked to see before it was elevated.”
“You may laugh, Mr. Delancy,” replied Carmen, throwing an earnest simplicity into her eyes, “but why shouldn't women know what is going on as well as men?”
“And why,” Miss Tavish asked, “will the serpentine dances and the London topical songs do any more harm to women than to men?”
“And besides, Mr. Delancy,” Carmen said, chiming in, “isn't it just as proper that women should see women dance and throw somersaults on the stage as that men should see them? And then, you know, women are such a restraining influence.”
“I hadn't thought of that,” said Jack. “I thought the Conventional was for the benefit of the audience, not for the salvation of the performers.”