“My dear Lord Somerville, you do not seem to grasp the real state of things. The Atrium will follow suit, and before you are a week older the great priest of upholsterers will have to retire,” vexatiously retorted Sinclair.
“Yes, and very probably he will be joined in exile by Turn Bull, who has no further need to study Abyssinian bassi-relievi. As you see, I quite grasp our present state of affairs,” smilingly answered Lionel.
“I think I agree with you, Lord Somerville,” languidly remarked Lelia Dale, who had for years been the jewel of dramatic art. “Turn Bull had developed to the highest degree the psychology of clothes.”
“I should call it the physiology of palliaments,” interrupted Murray, the apostle of subtle environment.
“Yes, George,” resumed the flower of the profession, “he has often made me blush with the pruriency with which he endowed his vestments; and my maidenly modesty was less offended by a kiss from his lips than by the erotic influence of his draperies in certain parts of his répertoire.”
“Do not forget, though,” suddenly broke in Sinclair, “that we had arrived at the highest manifestation of local colour; and that the true-to-life surroundings with which we framed our plays had reached the desideratum of the most fastidious art critic. Surely plays represented at the Théâtre Français nowadays, or as they used to be at our Atrium and Arcadia, were truer to life than when Phèdre wore a Louis XIV. Court dress, or Othello a frill?”
“I do not agree with you, Ronald,” replied Lionel, “and I maintain that the evolution of an unsuspicious Othello into a mad bull of jealousy works itself out regardless of frippery. When psychology was the only object of the playwright, and the everlasting study of the actor, dramatic art was at its highest water-mark; but when adaptable environment and the accuracy of costume were made the aim of arduous researches, art fell from its Olympian cloud down to the back-room of an old curiosity shop. Archæology had dethroned psychology; even physiology was reduced to a dissecting-room. Do you believe that the green-eyed passion of an Othello, or the morbid hysteria of a King Lear, would be more enforced by the one wearing the true Venetian uniform, and the other appearing in the barbarian clothing of an early Briton? We must first of all find out whether the passions of the one and the delirium of the other are eternally true to human nature. If they are, what need have you to cut a particular garment for them? Any will do; none will be quite sufficient. You need not clothe Œdipus to understand his evolution; the tragedy he embodies will forever be human, and as long as there exists a suffering humanity, there will be an inadequate struggle between the inner will-power and what is erroneously called—Destiny.”
They had come to the Rotunda, and Lionel, with a gracious wave of his hand, led his friends into the hall, in which marble tables were placed near a circular carved stone bench for visitors to recline.
“I am sure you will all take some iced champagne or Vouvray out of these tempting amphoras,” said he. They all reclined, and the cooling atmosphere fanned them agreeably.
“Is that Montague Vane I see at a distance, tripping daintily over the railings?”