He went, and Robert was at last able to remove his coat, mop his perspiring brow, and release the crushed and dishevelled Phœnix. Robert had to arrange his damp hair at the looking-glass at the back of the box, and the Phœnix had to preen its disordered feathers for some time before either of them was fit to be seen.
They were very, very early. When the lights went up fully the Phœnix, balancing itself on the gilded back of a chair, swayed in ecstasy.
"How fair a scene is this!" it murmured; "how far fairer than my temple! Or have I guessed aright? Have you brought me hither to lift up my head with emotions of joyous surprise? Tell me, my Robert, is it not that this, this is my true temple, and the other was but a humble shrine frequented by outcasts?"
"I don't know about outcasts," said Robert, "but you can call this your temple if you like. Hush! the music is beginning."
I am not going to tell you about the play. As I said before, one can't tell everything, and no doubt you saw "The Water Babies" yourselves. If you did not it was a shame, or rather a pity.
What I must tell you is that, though Cyril and Jane and Robert and Anthea enjoyed it as much as any children possibly could, the pleasure of the Phœnix was far, far greater than theirs.
"This is indeed my temple," it said, again and again. "What radiant rites! And all to do honour to me!"
The songs in the play it took to be hymns in its honour. The choruses were choric songs in its praise. The electric lights, it said, were magic torches lighted for its sake, and it was so charmed with the footlights that the children could hardly persuade it to sit still. But when the limelight was shown it could contain its approval no longer. It flapped its golden wings, and cried in a voice that could be heard all over the theatre:—
"Well done, my servants! Ye have my favour and my countenance!"
Little Tom on the stage stopped short in what he was saying. A deep breath was drawn by hundreds of lungs, every eye in the house turned to the box where the luckless children cringed, and most people hissed, or said "Shish!" or "Turn them out!"