undone in the way of advertisement to secure for it the appearance, at any rate, of popular favour.  And loud above the interested applause of those who had personal or business motives for acclaiming a success swelled the exaggerated enthusiasm of the fairly numerous art-satellites who are unstinted in their praise of anything that they are certain they cannot understand.  Whatever might be the subsequent verdict of the theatre-filling public the majority of the favoured first-night audience was determined to set the seal of its approval on the suggestion dances, and a steady roll of applause greeted the conclusion of each item.  The dancer gravely bowed her thanks; in marked contradistinction to the gentleman who had “presented” the performing wolves she did not permit herself the luxury of a smile.

“It teaches us a great deal,” said Rhapsodic Pantril vaguely, but impressively, after the Fern dance had been given and applauded.

“At any rate we know now that a fern takes life very seriously,” broke in Joan Mardle, who had somehow wriggled herself into Cicely’s box.

As Yeovil, from the back of his gallery, watched Gorla running and ricochetting about the stage, looking rather like a wagtail in energetic pursuit of invisible gnats and midges, he wondered how many of the middle-aged women who were eagerly applauding her would have taken the least notice of similar gymnastics on the part of their offspring in nursery or garden, beyond perhaps asking them not to make so much noise.  And a bitterer tinge came to his thoughts as he saw the bouquets being handed up, thoughts of the brave old dowager down at Torywood, the woman who had worked and wrought so hard and so unsparingly in her day for the well-being of the State—­the State that had fallen helpless into alien hands before her tired eyes.  Her eldest son lived invalid-wise in the South of France, her second son lay fathoms deep in the North Sea, with the hulk of a broken battleship for a burial-vault; and now the grand-daughter was standing here in the limelight, bowing her thanks for the patronage and favour meted out to her by this cosmopolitan company, with its lavish sprinkling of the uniforms of an alien army.

Prominent among the flowers at her feet was one large golden-petalled bouquet of gorgeous blooms, tied with a broad streamer of golden riband, the tribute rendered by Caesar to the things that were Caesar’s.  The new chapter of the fait accompli had been written that night and written well.  The audience poured slowly out with the triumphant music of Jancovius’s Kaiser Wilhelm march, played by the orchestra as a happy inspiration, pealing in its ears.

“It has been a great evening, a most successful evening,” said Lady Shalem to Herr von Kwarl, whom she was conveying in her electric brougham to Cicely Yeovil’s supper party; “an important evening,” she added, choosing her adjectives with deliberation.  “It should give pleasure in high quarters, should it not?”