But a person more immediately concerned is Robert de Chantemelle, the only son of the house—­will he also accept it quietly?  A nurse, who is acquainted with the black secret, misbehaves herself, and is to be packed off.  As she is a violent woman, Robert insists on dismissing her himself, and leaves the room to do so.  The rest of the family are sure that, in her rage, she will blurt out the whole story; and they wait, in breathless anxiety, for Robert’s return.  What follows need not be told:  the point is that this scene—­the scene of tense expectancy as to the result of a crisis which is taking place in another room of the same house—­is really far more dramatic than the crisis itself would be.  The audience already knows all that the angry virago can say to her master; and of course no discussion of the merits of the case is possible between these two.  Therefore M. de Curel is conspicuously right in sparing us the scene of vulgar violence, and giving us the scene of far higher tension in which Robert’s father, wife and sister expect his return, their apprehension deepening with every moment that he delays.

We see, then, that there is such a thing as a false scene a faire—­a scene which at first sight seems obligatory, but is in fact much better taken for granted.  It may be absolutely indispensable that it should be suggested to the mind of the audience, but neither indispensable nor advisable that it should be presented to their eyes.  The judicious playwright will often ask himself, “Is it the actual substance of this scene that I require, or only its repercussion?”

* * * * *

[Footnote 1:  For example, in his criticism of Becque’s La Parisienne (Quarante Ans de Theatre, VI, p. 364), he tells how, at the end of the second act, one of his neighbours said to him, “Eh! bien, vous voila bien attrape!  Ou est la scene a faire?” “I freely admit,” he continues, “that there is no scene a faire; if there had been no third act I should not have been greatly astonished.  When you make it your business to recite on the stage articles from the Vie Parisienne, it makes no difference whether you stop at the end of the second article or at the end of the third.”  This clearly implies that a play in which there is no scene a faire is nothing but a series of newspaper sketches.  Becque, one fancies, might have replied that the scene between Clotilde and Monsieur Simpson at the beginning of Act III was precisely the scene a faire demanded by the logic of his cynicism.]

[Footnote 2:  I need scarcely direct the reader’s attention to Mr. Gilbert Murray’s noble renderings of these speeches.]

[Footnote 3:  Such a scene occurs in that very able play, The Way the Money Goes, by Lady Bell.]

[Footnote 4:  In Mr. Stephen Phillips’s play he does not actually play on the lyre, but he improvises and recites an ode to the conflagration.]