"It is fine," Rose answered; "but there are many Socialists who would do it—just as there are, of course, plenty of Socialists who would become individualists within five minutes of inheriting a quarter of a million! But Burnside will not give it all up; I shall see to that."
"But I thought——"
"Many people fail to understand that we don't want, at any rate, in the present state of things and probably not for hundreds of years, to abolish private property. We want to regulate it. We want to abolish poverty entirely, but we don't say yet that a man shall not have a fair income, and one in excess of others. I shall advise Burnside, for he will come to me, to retain a sufficient capital to bring him in an income of a thousand pounds a year. If the possession of capital was limited to, say, thirty thousand pounds in each individual case, the economic problem would be solved. But I must go. The world arrives, the individualists and aristocrats muster in force!"
"What are you going to do? Why not sit here with me?"
Rose smiled. "I never watch one of my plays on the first night," he said. "It would be torture to the nerves. I am going to forget all about the play and go to a concert at the Queen's Hall. I shall come back before the curtain is rung down—in case the audience want to throw things at me! Au revoir, until supper—you've given me a great deal to think about."
With a wave of his hand, Rose hurried away, and the duke was once more alone.
The theatre was filling up rapidly as the duke moved a little to the front of the box and peeped round the curtains.
Party after party of well-dressed people were pouring into the stalls. Diamonds shimmered upon necks and arms which were like columns of ivory, there was a sudden infusion of colour, pinks and blues, greens and greys, wonderfully accentuated and set off by the sombre black and white of the men's clothes.
A subtle perfume began to fill the air, the blending of many essences ravished from the flowers of the Côte d'Azur. The lights in the roof suddenly jumped up, and the electric candelabra round the circle became brilliant. There was a hum of talk, a cadence of cultured and modulated voices. The whole theatre had become alive, vivid, full of colour and movement.
And, in some electric fashion, the duke was aware that every one was expecting—even as he was expecting—the coming of great things. There was a subtle sense of stifled excitement—apprehension was it?—that was perfectly patent and real.