"Oh, worse than that—diamond bracelets! And corsets—if necessary. I saw a man wearing both the other day, I really did."
"A man?"
"Well, an actor. That's the sort of thing they run to now-a-days. Long hair and general sloppiness are quite out of date—among the really ultra ones, that is."
"Well," said James, "I give you permission to be as ultra as you like, after you've written 'Hamlet.'"
"That helps, of course. I daresay I'm lacking in proper seriousness, but it seems to me that if the choice were offered me, right now, between being the author of 'Hamlet' and being also an ultra, and not writing 'Hamlet' and staying as I am, I would choose the latter. I don't know what my point of view may be at some future time, but that's what it is now, or at least I think it is. And after all, nobody can get nearer the truth than saying what he thinks his point of view at any given moment is, can he, James?"
CHAPTER III
NOT TRIASSIC, CERTAINLY, BUT NEARLY AS OLD
To return again to the events attendant on the "Beggar's Opera." Harry slept late the morning after the performance, and when he awoke it was with a mind rested and vacant except for an intangible conviction that something pleasant had happened. He yawned and stretched delectably, and in a leisurely sort of way set about discovering just what it was.
"Let's see, now, what can it be?" he argued pleasantly. "Oh, yes, the 'Beggar's Opera.' It's all over, thank Heaven, and it went off creditably well. The wigs arrived in time and the prison set didn't fall over, and nobody lost a cue—so you could notice it." He lay back for a moment to give full rein to the enjoyment of these reflections. "There was something else, though." His mind languidly returned to the pursuit, as a dog crosses a room stretching at every step. "I'm sure there was something else...."