The Socialist

"You put new confidence into me," he said, "and the generosity of your words makes me ashamed. Here I am attacking all that you hold dear, attacking you, indeed, in a public way! And you can say that. I know, moreover, from your tone, that it isn't mere Olympian indifference to anything I and my socialistic brethren can do against any one so fortified and entrenched, so highly placed as you are. It is fine of you to say what you have said. It is fine of you to be present here to-night. And it is finer still of you to remain friends with me and to shake me by the hand."

The duke smiled rather sadly and shook his head.

"No," he said; "there is nothing fine in it at all, Rose. You say that I am fortified and entrenched. So I was, fortified with ignorance and indifference, entrenched by selfishness and convention. But the castle has been undermined though it has not fallen yet. Already I can hear the muffled sound of the engineers in the cellars! I am not what I used to be. I do not think as I used to think. You are responsible, in the first instance, for far more than you know or suspect."

Rose had listened with strange attention. The colour had gone again from his face, his eyes blazed with excitement. The lips beneath the mustard-coloured moustache were slightly parted. When he replied it was in a voice which he vainly tried to steady.

"This is absolutely new to me," he said. "It moves me very deeply. It is startling but it is splendid! What you have said fills me with hope. Do you care to tell me more – not now, because I see the theatre is filling up – but afterwards? We are having a supper on the stage when the show is over – success or not – and we might have a talk later. I didn't like to ask you before."

"I shall be delighted to come," the duke answered. "I have spoken of these things to a few people only. Arthur Burnside has been my chief confidant."

"Splendid fellow, Burnside!" Rose said, with enthusiasm. "A brilliant intellect! He will be a power in England some day."

"He is already," said the duke, with a smile. "He has inherited three hundred thousand pounds from a distant relative, who made a fortune in Canada, and has died intestate. He tells me he is going to devote the whole of it to the socialistic cause."

Rose gasped. "Three hundred thousand pounds!" he said. "Why it will convert half England! You spring surprise after surprise upon me. My brain is beginning to reel. Upon my word, I do believe that this night will prove to be the crowning night of my career!"

"I'm sure I hope so," the duke answered warmly. "But isn't it fine of Burnside! To give up everything like that."

"It is fine," Rose answered; "but there are many Socialists who would do it – just as there are, of course, plenty of Socialists who would become individualists within five minutes of inheriting a quarter of a million! But Burnside will not give it all up; I shall see to that."

"But I thought – "

"Many people fail to understand that we don't want, at any rate, in the present state of things and probably not for hundreds of years, to abolish private property. We want to regulate it. We want to abolish poverty entirely, but we don't say yet that a man shall not have a fair income, and one in excess of others. I shall advise Burnside, for he will come to me, to retain a sufficient capital to bring him in an income of a thousand pounds a year. If the possession of capital was limited to, say, thirty thousand pounds in each individual case, the economic problem would be solved. But I must go. The world arrives, the individualists and aristocrats muster in force!"

"What are you going to do? Why not sit here with me?"

Rose smiled. "I never watch one of my plays on the first night," he said. "It would be torture to the nerves. I am going to forget all about the play and go to a concert at the Queen's Hall. I shall come back before the curtain is rung down – in case the audience want to throw things at me! Au revoir, until supper – you've given me a great deal to think about."

With a wave of his hand, Rose hurried away, and the duke was once more alone.

The theatre was filling up rapidly as the duke moved a little to the front of the box and peeped round the curtains.

Party after party of well-dressed people were pouring into the stalls. Diamonds shimmered upon necks and arms which were like columns of ivory, there was a sudden infusion of colour, pinks and blues, greens and greys, wonderfully accentuated and set off by the sombre black and white of the men's clothes.

A subtle perfume began to fill the air, the blending of many essences ravished from the flowers of the Côte d'Azur. The lights in the roof suddenly jumped up, and the electric candelabra round the circle became brilliant. There was a hum of talk, a cadence of cultured and modulated voices. The whole theatre had become alive, vivid, full of colour and movement.

And, in some electric fashion, the duke was aware that every one was expecting – even as he was expecting – the coming of great things. There was a subtle sense of stifled excitement – apprehension was it? – that was perfectly patent and real.

Everybody felt that something was going to happen. It was not an ordinary first night. Even the critics, who sat more or less together, were talking eagerly among themselves and had lost their somewhat exaggerated air of nonchalance and boredom.

The duke saw many people that he knew. Every one who was not upon the Riviera was there. Great ladies nodded and whispered, celebrated men whispered and nodded. A curious blend of amusement and anxiety was the keynote of the expression upon many faces.

To-night, indeed, was a night of nights!

The duke had not written to Lady Constance Camborne to say that he was going to be present at the first night of The Socialist. She had made some joking reference to the coming production in one of her letters but he had not replied to it. He had kept all his new mental development from her – locked up in his heart. From the very first he had never known real intimacy with her.

As Society took its seats he was certain that every one was talking about him. Sooner or later some one or other would see him, and there would be a sensation. He was sure of it. It would create a sensation.

For many reasons the duke was glad that neither Lord Hayle, the bishop, nor Constance were in the theatre. Gerald, of course, was in hospital at Oxford, the earl and Constance were down at Carlton.

Even as the thought came to his mind, and he watched the stalls cautiously from the back of the darkened box, he started and became rigid. Something seemed to rattle in his head, there was a sensation as if cold water had been poured down his spine.

The Earl of Camborne and his daughter had entered the opposite box upon the grand circle tier.

The duke shrank back into the box, asking himself with fierce insistence why he felt thus – guilty, found out, ashamed?

At that moment the overture ended and the curtain rose upon the play.

Then the duke knew.

CHAPTER XXI

IN THE STAGE BOX AT THE PARK LANE THEATRE

The curtain rose upon a drawing-room scene, perfectly conceived and carried out, an illusion of solid reality, immense and satisfying to eye and intelligence alike.

Here was a silver table, covered with those charming toys, modern and antique, which fashionable women collect and display.

There was a revolving book-shelf of ebony and lapis lazuli which held – so those members of the audience who were near could see – the actual novels and volumes of belles lettres of the moment; the things they had in their own drawing-rooms.

The whole scheme was wonderfully done. It was a room such as Waring and Liberty, assisted by the individual taste of its owner, carry out.

Up to a certain height the walls – and how real and solid they appeared! – were of pale grey, then came a black picture rail, and above it a frieze of deep orange colour. Black, orange, and grey, these were the colour notes of all the scene, and upon the expanses of grey were rows of old Japanese prints, or, rather, the skilful imitation of them, framed in gold.

The carpet was of orange, carrying a serpentine design of dead black, two heavy curtains of black velvet hung on either side of a door leading into a conservatory, softly lit by electric lights concealed amid the massed blossoms, for it was a night scene that opened the play.

There was a low murmur of applause and pleasure from the crowded theatre, for here was a picture as complete and beautiful as any hardened playgoers had seen for many years. Then the sound died away. The new actress was upon the stage, the unknown Mary Marriott; there was a great hush of curiosity and interest.

As the curtain rose the girl had been sitting upon a Chesterfield sofa of blue linen at the "O. P." side of the stage. For a moment or two she had remained quite motionless, a part of the picture, and, with a handkerchief held to her face, her shoulders shaking convulsively.

She was dressed in an evening gown of flame-colour and black.

In front of her, and in the centre of the stage, two odd and incongruous figures were standing.

One was a shabby, middle-aged woman, pale, shrinking, and a little furtive among all the splendours in which she found herself. She wore a rusty bonnet and a black cape scantily trimmed with jet.

By the woman's side stood a tall girl in a hat and a cheap, fawn-coloured jacket. The girl held a soiled boa of white imitation fur in one restless hand. She was beautiful, but sullen and hard of face.

Not a word was spoken.

It might have been a minute and a half before a word was said. The only sound was that of the sobbing from the richly-dressed woman upon the couch and the timid, shuffling feet of the two humble people – mother and daughter evidently – who stood before her.

Yet, curiously enough – and, indeed, it was unprecedented – not a sigh nor sound of impatience escaped the audience. One and all were as still as death. Some extraordinary influence was already flowing over the footlights to capture their imaginations and their nerves.

As yet they hadn't seen the face of the new actress, of whom they had heard so much in general talk and read so much in the newspapers.

A minute and a half had gone by and not a word had been spoken.