'You could be one of the invisible spirits who eat the phantom supper.'
'You and Charles could do that very well,' said Clara, who felt that her plans would succeed. These three men were held together by her personality, and she meant them to unite for the purpose of forcing out those qualities in Charles which made her ready for every sacrifice, if only they could be brought to play their part in the life of his time.... As the wine and food took effect, all three men were in high spirits, and soon were roaring with laughter at the immense joke in which they all shared, the joke of pleasing the British public.
'It is the most wonderful game ever invented,' said Sir Henry. 'Millions and millions of people believing everything they are told. Shouting Hurrah! for fried fish if the hero of the moment says fried fish, and Hooray! for ice-cream when the next hero says ice-cream.... I tell you I could put on a play by Halford Bunn to-morrow, and persuade them for a few weeks that it was better than Shakespeare. Ah! you blame us for that, but the public is at fault always. The man who makes a fortune is the man who invents a new way of boring them.... We shall be like the French soon, where the only means of maintaining any interest in politics is by a scandal now and then.'
As they talked Clara felt more and more remote from them, and at moments found it difficult to believe that it was really she to whom all these amazing things had happened. She thought it must be the end. Here at one table were money, imagination, and showmanship, the three essentials of success, but the three men in whom they lived were talking themselves into ineffectiveness. Even Verschoyle had caught the fever and was talking, and she found herself thinking that the three of them, whom separately she could handle so well, were together too much for her.
They talked for hours, and she tried again and again vainly to steer them back to business. They would have none of it. Their tongues were loosed and they expressed their several discontents in malicious wit.
At last she left the table and took up Charles's portfolio. He sprang to his feet and snatched it away from her rather roughly and said,—
'I don't want to show them yet.'
'It is getting late, Charles,' she protested.
'In Moscow,' he said, 'a feast like this goes on for days.'
Sir Henry took advantage of the altercation to ascertain from Verschoyle that he was willing to back Mann's Tempest for at least an eight weeks' run. That was good enough for Sir Henry. He had no need to look at the drawings.... He was back again in his palmy days. He knew that Clara, like Teresa, would not let him make a fool of himself.