Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 3.djvu/162

154 spoke in blank verse and overflowed with metaphor, who was exalted and heroic beyond all human convenience, and who yet was irresistibly real and related to one's own affairs. But that reality was a part of her spectator's joy, and she was not changed back to the common by his perception of the magnificent trick of art with which it was connected. Before Nick Dormer rejoined him Sherringham, taking a visiting-card from his pocket, wrote on it in pencil a few words in a foreign tongue; but as at that moment he saw Nick coming in he immediately put it out of view.

The last thing before the curtain rose on the fifth act Nick mentioned that he had brought him a message from Basil Dashwood, who hoped they both, on leaving the theatre, would come to supper with him, in company with Miriam and her mother and several others: he had prepared a little informal banquet in honour of so famous a night. At this, while the curtain was rising, Peter immediately took out his card again and added something—he wrote the finest small hand you could see, Nick asked him what he was doing, and after an hesitation he replied:

"It's a word to say I can't come."

"To Dashwood? Oh, I shall go," said Nick.

"Well, I hope you'll enjoy it!" his companion replied in a tone which came back to him afterwards.

When the curtain fell on the last act the people stayed, standing up in their places for the most part. The applause shook the house—the recall became a clamour, the relief from a long tension. This was a moment, in any performance, that Sherringham detested, but he stood for an instant beside