However we have got Mr. CHARLES HAWTREY back again and that is what really matters.  As a philanderer protesting innocence in the face of damnatory facts we know him well enough; but here we have him innocent and ingenuous as an angel, yet hard put to it to convince anyone but himself of his guilelessness.  A millionaire (dollars) with a wife of economic disposition, who declines to spend his money for him, he feels drawn to a course of knight-errantry and rides abroad in search of damsels in pecuniary distress, with the avowed object of “spreading a little sunshine.”

[Illustration:  “I want to spread a little sunshine.”

James Smith ...  Mr. CHARLES HAWTREY.

Eva Johns ...  Miss JOAN BARRY.]

This quest, as you will easily understand, was not a very difficult one for a man prepared to be imposed upon by just any adventuress, and in the neighbourhood of his various business-branches, San Francisco, Washington, Boston, he soon found a ready channel for the employment of his superfluous wealth.  The natural affection, however, which his generosity inspired was not utilised by him, and you must try to believe that, in spite of the most sinister appearances, he remained a faithful husband.

With the methods by which he appeased his wife’s suspicions I will not trouble you, partly because I could not follow them myself, owing to the obscurity of the plot at its most critical moment.  Enough that all ends well with her firmly-expressed resolution that in the future she will herself do all the necessary squandering.

Mr. CHARLES HAWTREY as James Smith was irresistible in most of the old ways and a few new ones.  The play would have gone poorly without him, in spite of the piquancy of Miss JOAN BARRY as a flapper, the fourth and final recipient of his chaste bounty.  Miss JESSIE BATEMAN as Mrs. James Smith had no chance till just at the end with the turning of the worm.  To the part of Lucille Early—­the Earlys, as a couple, were designed to contrast with the Smiths, the wife in this case spending the money which the husband hadn’t got—­Miss ATHENE SEYLER, who was meant for better things, gave a certain distinction, but perhaps “pressed” a little too much.  Mr. JAMES CAREW, who played Edward Early, was conspicuous as the sole male representative of the American language in this American play.  The fleeting visions that we had of Miss MONA HARRISON as a refractory and venal cook excited general approval.  The three protegees of James Smith were only faintly distinguishable in their rather crude banality.