Then the duke knew.
CHAPTER XXI IN THE STAGE BOX AT THE PARK LANE THEATRE
The curtain rose upon a drawing-room scene, perfectly conceived and carried out, an illusion of solid reality, immense and satisfying to eye and intelligence alike.
Here was a silver table, covered with those charming toys, modern and antique, which fashionable women collect and display.
There was a revolving book-shelf of ebony and lapis lazuli which held—so those members of the audience who were near could see—the actual novels and volumes of belles lettres of the moment; the things they had in their own drawing-rooms.
The whole scheme was wonderfully done. It was a room such as Waring and Liberty, assisted by the individual taste of its owner, carry out.
Up to a certain height the walls—and how real and solid they appeared!—were of pale grey, then came a black picture rail, and above it a frieze of deep orange colour. Black, orange, and grey, these were the colour notes of all the scene, and upon the expanses of grey were rows of old Japanese prints, or, rather, the skilful imitation of them, framed in gold.
The carpet was of orange, carrying a serpentine design of dead black, two heavy curtains of black velvet hung on either side of a door leading into a conservatory, softly lit by electric lights concealed amid the massed blossoms, for it was a night scene that opened the play.