George was uneasy; he was distressed.  The extraordinary juxtaposition of respectability and a ribald sexual display startled but did not distress him.  If the whole audience was ready to stand it he certainly was.  He had no desire to protect people from themselves, nor to blush on behalf of others—­whoever they might be.  Had anybody accused him of saintliness he would have resented the charge, quite justifiably, and if the wit of The Gay Spark had been witty, he would have enjoyed it without a qualm.  What distressed him, what utterly desolated him, was the grossness, the poorness, the cheapness, the dullness, and the uninventive monotony of the interminable entertainment.  He yawned, he could not help yawning; he yawned his soul away.  Lois must have heard him yawning, but she did not move.  He looked at her curiously, pitifully, speculating how much of her luxury was due to Irene Wheeler, and how little to ‘Parisian’ of The Sunday Journal—­for he had been inquiring about the fruits of journalism.  The vision of his own office and of the perspective drawing rose seductively and irresistibly in his mind.  He could not stay in the theatre; he felt that if he stayed he would be in danger of dropping down dead, suffocated by tedium; and the drawing must be finished; it would not wait; it was the most urgent thing in the world.  And not a syllable had any person in the box said to him about his great task.  Lois’s forearm, braceleted, lay on the front of the box.  Unceremoniously he took her hand.

“Bye-bye.”

“You aren’t going?” Her whisper was incredulous.

“Must.”

He gave her no chance to expostulate.  With one movement he had seized his hat and coat and slid from the box, just as the finale of the act was imminent and the red-nosed comedian was measuring the gay spark for new lingerie with a giant property-cigar.  He had not said good-bye to Laurencine.  He had not asked about their departure on the morrow.  But he was free.

In the foyer a couple—­a woman in a rose plush sortie de bal, and a blade—­were mysteriously talking.  The blade looked at him, smiled, and left the lady.

“Hal_lo_, old fellow!” It was Buckingham Smith, who had been getting on in the world.

They shook hands.

“You’ve left Chelsea, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” said George.

“So’ve I. Don’t see much of the old gang nowadays.  Heard anything of old Princey lately?”

George replied that he had not.  The colloquy was over in a moment.

“You must come and see my show—­next week,” Buck Smith called out after the departing George.

“I will,” cried George.