of minor importance.  What is of vast importance, on the other hand, is that the expectation of the audience should not be baffled, and that the curtain should rise upon the immediate sequel to the reading of the poems.  This is, in the exact sense of the words, a scene a faire—­an obligatory scene.  The author has aroused in us a reasonable expectation of it, and should he choose to balk us—­to raise his curtain, say, a week, or a month, later—­we should feel that we had been trifled with.  The general theory of the scene a faire will presently come up for discussion.  In the meantime, I merely make the obvious remark that it is worse than useless to awaken a definite expectation in the breast of the audience, and then to disappoint it.[2]

The works of Sir Arthur Pinero afford many examples of interest very skilfully carried forward.  In his farces—­let no one despise the technical lessons to be learnt from a good farce—­there is always an adventure afoot, whose development we eagerly anticipate.  When the curtain falls on the first act of The Magistrate, we foresee the meeting of all the characters at the Hotel des Princes, and are impatient to assist at it.  In The Schoolmistress, we would not for worlds miss Peggy Hesseltine’s party, which we know awaits us in Act II.  An excellent example, of a more serious order, is to be found in The Benefit of the Doubt.  When poor Theo, rebuffed by her husband’s chilly scepticism, goes off on some manifestly harebrained errand, we divine, as do her relatives, that she is about to commit social suicide by seeking out John Allingham; and we feel more than curiosity as to the event—­we feel active concern, almost anxiety, as though our own personal interests were involved.  Our anticipation is heightened, too, when we see Sir Fletcher Portwood and Mrs. Cloys set off upon her track.  This gives us a definite point to which to look forward, while leaving the actual course of events entirely undefined.  It fulfils one of the great ends of craftsmanship, in foreshadowing without forestalling an intensely interesting conjuncture of affairs.

I have laid stress on the importance of carrying forward the interest of the audience because it is a detail that is often overlooked.  There is, as a rule, no difficulty in the matter, always assuming that the theme be not inherently devoid of interest.  One could mention many plays in which the author has, from sheer inadvertence, failed to carry forward the interest of the first act, though a very little readjustment, or a trifling exercise of invention, would have enabled him to do so. Pillars of Society, indeed, may be taken as an instance, though not a very flagrant one.  Such interest as we feel at the end of the first act is vague and unfocused.  We are sure that something is to come of the return of Lona and Johan, but we have no inkling as to what that something may be.  If we guess that the so-called black sheep