“The colour,” Carlo proceeded, ignoring Edward Henry’s compliment, “the colour is inspiring.  So is the texture.  I have a woman’s delight in textures.  I could certainly produce better hexameters in such a dressing-gown.”

Although Edward Henry, owing to an unfortunate hiatus in his education, did not know what a hexameter might be, he was artist enough to comprehend the effect of attire on creative work, for he had noticed that he himself could make more money in one necktie than in another, and he would instinctively take particular care in the morning choice of a cravat on days when he meditated a great coup.

“Why don’t you get one?” Marrier suggested.

“Do you really think I could?” asked Carlo Trent, as if the possibility were shimmering far out of his reach like a rainbow.

“Rather!” smiled Harrier.  “I don’t mind laying a fiver that Mr. Machin’s dressing-gown came from Drook’s in Old Bond Street.”  But instead of saying “Old” he said “Ehoold.”

“It did,” Edward Henry admitted.

Mr. Marrier beamed with satisfaction.

“Drook’s, you say,” murmured Carlo Trent.  “Old Bond Street,” and wrote down the information on his shirt cuff.

Rose Euclid watched him write.

“Yes, Carlo,” said she.  “But don’t you think we’d better begin to talk about the theatre?  You haven’t told me yet if you got hold of Longay on the ’phone.”

“Of course we got hold of him,” said Marrier.  “He agrees with me that ‘The Intellectual’ is a better name for it.”

Rose Euclid clapped her hands.

“I’m so glad!” she cried.  “Now what do you think of it as a name, Mr. Machin—­’The Intellectual Theatre’?  You see it’s most important we should settle on the name, isn’t it?”

It is no exaggeration to say that Edward Henry felt a wave of cold in the small of his back, and also a sinking away of the nevertheless quite solid chair on which he sat.  He had more than the typical Englishman’s sane distrust of that morbid word ‘Intellectual.’  His attitude towards it amounted to active dislike.  If ever he used it, he would on no account use it alone; he would say, “Intellectual and all that sort of thing!” with an air of pushing violently away from him everything that the phrase implied.  The notion of baptizing a theatre with the fearsome word horrified him.  Still, he had to maintain his nerve and his repute.  So he drank some champagne, and smiled nonchalantly as the imperturbable duellist smiles while the pistols are being examined.

“Well—­” he murmured.

“You see,” Marrier broke in, with the smile ecstatic, almost dancing on his chair.  “There’s no use in compromise.  Compromise is and always has been the curse of this country.  The unintellectual drahma is dead—­dead.  Naoobody can deny that.  All the box-offices in the West are proclaiming it—­”

“Should you call your play intellectual, Mr. Sachs?” Edward Henry inquired across the table.