The play was not over when the curtain fell, four months ago; it
was continued in a supplementary act or epilogue which took place
immediately afterwards. “Come home to tea,” Florentia said to certain
friends who had stopped to speak to her in the lobby of the little
theatre in Soho--they had been present at a day performance by the
company of the Theatre Libre, transferred for a week from Paris; and
three of these--Auberon and Dorriforth, accompanying Amicia--turned up
so expeditiously that the change of scene had the effect of being neatly
executed. The short afterpiece--it was in truth very slight--began with
Amicia’s entrance and her declaration that she would never again go to
an afternoon performance: it was such a horrid relapse into the real to
find it staring at you through the ugly daylight on coming out of the
blessed fictive world.
Dorriforth. Ah, you touch there on one of the minor sorrows of life.
That’s an illustration of the general change that comes to pass in us
as we grow older, if we have ever loved the stage: the fading of the
glamour and the mystery that surround it.
Auberon. Do you call it a minor sorrow? It’s one of the greatest. And
nothing can mitigate it.
Amicia. Wouldn’t it be mitigated a little if the stage were a trifle
better? You must remember how that has changed.
Auberon. Never, never: it’s the same old stage. The change is in
ourselves.
Florentia. Well, I never would have given an evening to what we have
just seen. If one could have put it in between luncheon and tea, well
enough. But one’s evenings are too precious.
Dorriforth. Note that--it’s very important.
Florentia. I mean too precious for that sort of thing.
Auberon. Then you didn’t sit spellbound by the little history of the Due
d’Enghien?
Florentia. I sat yawning. Heavens, what a piece!
Amicia. Upon my word I liked it. The last act made me cry.
Dorriforth. Wasn’t it a curious, interesting specimen of some of the
things that are worth trying: an attempt to sail closer to the real?
Auberon. How much closer? The fiftieth part of a point--it isn’t
calculable.
Florentia. It was just like any other play--I saw no difference. It
had neither a plot, nor a subject, nor dialogue, nor situations, nor
scenery, nor costumes, nor acting.
Amicia. Then it was hardly, as you say, just like any other play.
Auberon. Florentia should have said like any other _bad_‘one. The only
way it differed seemed to be that it was bad in theory as well as in
fact.
Amicia. It’s a _morceau de vie_, as the French say.
Auberon. Oh, don’t begin on the French!