That theatre-night with
Frances Wilmot had been the first and last until now, and now assuredly
he did not care any more. But it made him remember. How intoxicated he
had been! He had walked home like a man translated into a strange
country--words had rushed past his ears in floods of music, and the
silver and black streets had been magic-built. Was it his youth, or had
Francey, dancing before him, her head lifted to catch unearthly
harmonies, thrown a spell over his judgment? She had gone, and he was
older--but he had a feeling that the disillusionment was not only in
himself. It was in the atmosphere about him--in the stale air, stamped
on the stereotyped gilt and plush of the shabby theatre and on the faces
of the people. He wondered whether they had all grown too old. Perhaps
the spirit which had driven them into these dark boxes to gaze
open-mouthed, crying or laughing, through a peep-hole into a world of
ideal happiness, or even ideal sorrow, was dead and gone like their faith
in God and every other futile shadow which they had tried to interpose
between themselves and truth. This that remained was perhaps no more
than a tradition--a convention. When people were bored or unhappy they
said: "Let's go to a theatre!" and when they came out they wondered why
they had been, or what they had hoped for.
Reality was beginning to press hard on men. It was driving them into an
iron cul-de-sac, from which there was no escape.
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