He was intoxicated with anticipation of his triumph. The practical difficulties which he had created, and those which had been put in his way by Mr Gillies and Mr Smithson had been surmounted, and to see his designs in being, actually realised in the large on back-cloths, wings, and gauzes, gave him the sense of solidity which, had it come into his life before, might have made him almost a normal person.... Clara was to be Ariel. The beloved child was to bring the magic of her personality to kindle the beauty he had created in form and colour. He was almost reconciled to the idea of the characters in the fantasy being impersonated by men and women.
Sir Henry had returned to town enthusiastic and eager. Mann and Clara were a combination strong enough to break the tyranny of the social use of the front of the house over the artistic employment of the stage. This season at all events Lady Butcher and Lady Bracebridge should not have things all their own way.
There was a slight set back and disappointment. An upstart impresario brought over from Germany a production in which form and design had broken down naturalism. This was presented at one of the Halls, and was an instantaneous success, and Charles, in a fit of jealousy, wrote an unfortunately spiteful attack on the German producer, accusing him of stealing his ideas. Sir Henry, a born publicist, was enraged, and threatened to abandon his project. The proper line to take was to welcome the German product and, with an appropriate reference to Perkins and aniline dyes, to point bashfully to what London could do.... He was so furious with Charles that he shut himself up in the aquarium and refused to call rehearsals.
Clara saw him and he reproached her,—
'Why did you bring that dreadful man into my beautiful theatre? He has upset everybody from Gillies to the call-boy, and now he has made us a laughing-stock, and this impresario person is in a position to say that we are jealous. We artists have to hold together or the business men will bowl us out like a lot of skittles, and where will the theatre be then?... Where would you be, my dear? They'd make you take off your clothes and run about the stage with a lot of other young women, and call that—art.... The theatre is either a temple or it is in Western Civilisation what the slave-market is in the East. This damned fool of yours can't see anything outside his own scenery. He thinks he is more important than me; but is a bookbinder more important than John Galsworthy?'
'You mustn't be so angry. Nobody takes Charles seriously except in his work. Everybody expects him to do silly things. You can easily put it right with a dignified letter.'
'But I can't say my own scene-painter is a confounded idiot.'
'You needn't mention him,' said Clara. 'Just say how much you admire the German production and talk about the renaissance of the theatre.'
Sir Henry pettishly took pen and paper, wrote a letter, and handed it to her.
'Will that do?' he asked.