“We are seeing things tonight,” said an important critic as he and a contemporary passed toward the foyer.
Eve rose and followed them, and during the interval she moved from group to group and listened to what the audience had to say.
There was no doubt Wynne Rendall had come into his own, for although every one praised the play it was his name which came first.
“I shall let him off a scathing over the press campaign,” said a representative of one of London’s dailies. “It’s the best production I’ve seen in years.”
Eve noticed and recognized from Wynne’s descriptions, some of the tail-lights to the arts. They were busy adding his name to their lists. They were boasting of alleged friendship with him. One of the more venturesome spoke of him familiarly as “old W. R.”
A man who leaps from obscurity to initials in a single night is getting a move on.
At the final curtain there was an ovation. The author and Wynne responded to “author’s call” together, then, as the applause continued, Wynne came down to the footlights alone. He seemed very collected, and twisted an unlighted cigarette between his forefinger and thumb. For the first time Eve thought he looked young—young and care-free, as though he had stepped into the element he had searched for for so many years. In this new element he moved with an ease and assurance that surprised her. She had thought he would show feverishness or excitement, but there was no trace of either in his bearing.
“Speech! speech!” shouted the gallery.
He looked up at them with a winning smile, and replied, “Of course.” There was a fresh burst of applause and a wave of laughter, and when it died away he began to speak in the manner of a man chatting with friends about a fireside:
“It’s a charming play, isn’t it? Very charming. Tomorrow my learned critics will be saying so. They will say, perhaps, ‘The play’s the thing’; but I trust they won’t forget that the manner of its interpretation is possibly an even greater thing.” He stopped, smiled and said, half under his breath, “Render unto Cæsar—Good-night, everybody.”