"Let us go and sit down at the back of the stalls, Alston," said Charmian. "They don't seem to be trying the locusts yet."
"No. There are always delays. The patience one needs in a theater! Talk of self-control! Here, I'll pull away the—or shall we go to that box?"
"Yes. I'll get on this chair. Help me! That's it."
They sat down in a dark box at the back of the stalls. Far off, across a huge space, they saw the immense stage, lit up now by an amber glow which came not from the footlights but from above. The stage was set with a scene representing an oasis in the desert with yellow sand in the distance. Among some tufted palms stood three or four stage hands, pale, dusty, in shirt sleeves. At the extreme back of the scene, against the horizon, Mr. Mulworth crossed, with a thick-set, lantern-jawed, and very bald man, who was probably Jimber. Claude followed two or three yards behind them, and disappeared. His face looked ghastly under the stream of amber light.
"It's dreadful to see people on the stage not made up!" said Charmian. "They all look so corpse-like. O Alston, are we going to have a success?"
"What! You beginning to doubt!"
"No, no. But when I see this huge dark theater I can't help thinking, 'Shall we fill it?' What a fight art is! I never realized till now that we are on a battlefield. Alston, I feel I would almost rather die than fail."
"Fail! But—"
"Or quite rather die."
"In any case it couldn't be your failure."