He called one day at the theatre office in answer to a telegram from Falempin. Falempin had something to say to him. He had flung down the glove to the "peegs," he said, by keeping on The Roman Matron for the usual weekly eight performances, in spite of the Press and the public wrath. For three weeks he had played it to empty or abusive houses. Then, at the end of the third week, a man had written in a monthly review that The Roman Matron was the only play of the year, and that all other English plays then running in London were so many symptoms of our national rottenness. The writer was not really moved by The Roman Matron. He was a town wit, trying to irritate the public by praising what it disliked, and by finding a moral death in all that it approved. It may be said of such that they cast bread upon the waters; but the genius, as a rule, does not find it until many days. In this case, as the wit was at the moment the fashion, his article was effectual from the day of its publication. The actors found one evening an attentive, not quite empty house. Three nights later the piece went very well indeed. On the fourth night they were called. By the end of the week The Roman Matron was a success, playing to a full house.
"Naldrett," said Falempin, "I 'ave lost twelve thousand pounds over your play. What so? I go to make perhaps forty thousand. Always back your cards. The peegs they will eat whatever they are told. Some of the papers they are eating their words. You see? Here; here is anozzer. By the same men, I think. Criticism? Next to the peegs, I do lof the critic. It likes not me, these funny men. What is the English people coming to? You 'ave critics; you 'ave very fine critics. But they 'ave no power. Zese men in zese gutter rags—Pah. We go to make you many motor-cars out of zis play."
Leslie brought his wife to town a week later. She wished to consult an oculist. Roger dined with them the night after their arrival.
"Roger," said Leslie, "I want you to meet my cousin, Mrs. Heseltine. She wants you to dine with her to-morrow night. We said that we would bring you if you were free. I hope that you will come; she's such a splendid person."
Roger said that he would go.
That evening he went to an At Home given in honour of a great French poet who was staying in London. He had no wish to attend the function. He went from a sense of duty. He went from a sense of what was due to the guardian of intellect. The At Home was in Kensington, in a big and hideous house. A line of carriages stood by the kerb, each with its tortured horses tossing their heads piteously against the bearing-reins. Flunkeys with white, sensual faces stood at the door. There was a glitter of varnish everywhere, from boots, carriages, and polished metal. There was not much noise, except the champ-champing of the bits and the spattering of foam. Carriage doors slammed from time to time. Loafers insulted those who entered. Women and children, standing by the strip of baize upon the sidewalk, muttered in awed hatred.
Roger went into a room jammed with jabberers. In the middle of the room there was a kind of circle, a sort of pugilists' ring, in which the poet stood. He was a little stocky man, powerfully built. He had a great head, poised back on his shoulders so that his jaw protruded aggressively. It needed only one glance to see that he was the one vital person in the room. The big, beefy, successful English novelists looked like bladders beside him. He talked in a voice which boomed and rang. People crowded up. Ladies in wonderful frocks broke on him, as it were, in successions of waves. He bowed, he was shaken by the hand, he was pulled by the arm. Questions and compliments and platitudes came upon him in every known variety of indifferent French. He never ceased to talk. He could have talked the room to a standstill, and gone on fresh to a dozen like it. He was talking wisely, too. Roger heard half of one booming epigram as he caught his hostess' eye. She was bringing up relays of platitudes to take the place of those already exploded. His host, sawing the air with one hand, was expounding something which he couldn't explain. Roger saw him compliment the poet for taking his point without exposition. Exploded platitudes ran into Roger and apologised. Roger ran into platitudes not yet exploded and apologised. There was a gabble everywhere of unintelligent talk, dominating but not silencing the great voice. Roger heard an elegant young man speak of the poet as "a bounder, an awful bounder." Then somebody took him by the arm. Somebody wanted to talk to him. He said his say to the great man while being dragged to somebody. Somebody in a strange kind of chiton below a strange old gold Greek necklace was telling him about The Roman Matron. Did he write it?
"Yes," he said. "I wrote it."
The hostess interposed. The chiton was borne off to a lady in Early Victorian dress. A little grey man, very erect and wiry, like a colonel on the stage, bumped into Roger.
"Rather a crowd, eh?" he said, as he apologised. "Have you seen my wife anywhere?"