"Don't want to miss a word," said Charles cordially.
Through the first half of the act Armstrong so yawned and fidgetted in the stall next him, that about the middle of it Charles felt that good manners prompted him to suggest that they should not remain till the end. Yet another way round, good manners were horrified at such a course. It would appear that the play bored him.... But he decided to risk it, Armstrong was so obviously tired of it all.
"Shall we go?" he suggested.
Armstrong slid from his seat into the gangway.
"I thought the third act would be too much for you," he observed.
They went quickly and quietly up through the swing-doors, and Charles, rather troubled, laid a hand on the other's arm.
"It wasn't that a bit, indeed it wasn't," he said. "But you were yawning and grunting, you know—I thought you wanted to get out. I—I was enjoying it."
Armstrong knew he was behaving rudely to his guest, but to-night the thronged theatre, also, in part, the buoyancy of the Serene Joyfulness, had got on his nerves.
"Then go back and enjoy the rest of it," he said.
Charles' good humour was quite unimpaired: it was as fresh as paint.