Alex was conscious of a throb of gratification, perhaps more attributable to vanity than to anything else, when the young man placed himself just behind her own chair.
Sir Francis, the comparative isolation of the engaged couple sufficiently sanctioned by the family party surrounding them, immediately disposed himself behind Cedric at the extreme left of the box.
The curtain went down to the sound of applause almost as they took their places, and the lights were turned up. Alex looked round her.
The huge house was everywhere sprinkled with groups of children—Eton boys in broad, white collars such as Archie wore, little girls in white frocks with wide pink or blue sashes and hair-ribbons.
When the orchestra began a medley of old-fashioned popular airs, Home, sweet Home, Way down upon the Swanee River, Bluebells of Scotland, and the like, Alex overwrought, fell an easy victim to the cheap appeal to emotionalism.
In the irrational, passionate desire for reassurance that fell upon her, she leant back until her shoulder almost touched Noel's.
"Look at all those children!" she whispered, hardly knowing what she said.
Noel gazed at the stalls through his pince-nez.
"The place is crammed," he said. "They say it's the best show they've ever had. Of course, I haven't seen it yet, but my own idea about these pantomimes is that they don't stick enough to the original story. Take 'Cinderella,' now, or 'The Babes in the Wood.' The whole thing is simply a mass of interpolations—they never really follow the thread of one idea all the way through. I can't help thinking it would be much better if they did, you know. After all, a pantomime is supposed to be for children, isn't it?"
"Yes."