The apartment in which he stood was plainly but handsomely furnished as a small withdrawing room.  On the oak chiffonier stood a silver tray on which were half a dozen frosted cocktails.  Through the curtains was apparent a room beyond, in which a round table, smothered with flowers, was arranged for supper; in the distance, from the public restaurant, came the sound of softly played music.  Philip glanced at the clock.  The whole of the anxieties of this momentous evening had passed.  Telephone messages had reached him every quarter of an hour.  The play was a great success.  Elizabeth was coming to him with her producer and a few theatrical friends, flushed with triumph.  They were all to meet for the first time that night the man who for the last three months had lived as a hermit—­Merton Ware, the author of “The House of Shams,” the new-found dramatist.

A maitre d’hotel appeared in the space between the two rooms, and bowed.

“Everything is quite ready, Mr. Ware,” he said, in the friendly yet deferential manner of an American head-waiter.  “Won’t you take a cocktail, sir, while you are waiting?”

“Very thoughtful of you, Louis.  I think I will,” Philip assented, taking a little case from his pocket and lighting a cigarette.

The man passed him a glass upon a small salver.

“You’ll pardon the liberty, I am sure, sir,” he continued, dropping his voice a little.  “I’ve just heard that ‘The House of Shams’ seems to be a huge success, sir.  If I might take the liberty of offering my congratulations!”

Philip smiled genially.

“You are the first, Louis,” he said.  “Thank you very much indeed.”

“I think you will find the supper everything that could be desired, Mr. Ware,” the man went on.  “Our head chef, Monsieur Raconnot, has given it his personal attention.  The wine will be slightly iced, as you desired.  I shall be outside in the corridor to announce the guests.”

“Capital, Louis!” Ware replied, sipping his cocktail.  “It will be another quarter of an hour yet before we see anything of them, I am afraid.”

The man disappeared and left Philip once more alone.  He looked through the walls of the room as though, indeed, he could see into the packed theatre and could hear the cries for “Author!” which even then were echoing through the house.  From the moment when Elizabeth, abandoning her reserve, had given him the love he craved, a new strength seemed to have shone out of the man.  Step by step he had thought out subtly and with infinite care every small detail of his life.  It was he who had elected to live those three months in absolute seclusion.  It was he, indirectly, who had arranged that many more photographs of Douglas Romilly, the English shoe manufacturer, should appear in the newspapers.  One moment’s horror he had certainly had.  He could see the little paragraph now, almost lost in the shoals of more important news: