At that instant Edward Henry might have rushed from the room and taken the night-mail back to the Five Towns, and never any more have ventured into the perils of London, if Carlo Trent had not turned his head, and signified by a curt, reluctant laugh that he saw the joke.  For Edward Henry could no longer depend on Mr. Seven Sachs.  Mr. Seven Sachs had to take the greatest pains to keep the muscles of his face in strict order.  The slightest laxity with them—­and he would have been involved in another and more serious suffocation.

“No,” said Carlo Trent, “‘The Muses’ Theatre’ is the only possible title.  There is money in the poetical drama.”  He looked hard at Edward Henry, as though to stare down the memory of the failure of Nashe’s verse.  “I don’t want money.  I hate the thought of money.  But money is the only proof of democratic appreciation, and that is what I need, and what every artist needs....  Don’t you think there’s money in the poetical drama, Mr. Sachs?”

“Not in America,” said Mr. Sachs.  “London is a queer place.”

“Look at the runs of Stephen Phillips’s plays!”

“Yes....  I only reckon to know America.”

“Look at what Pilgrim’s made out of Shakspere.”

“I thought you were talking about poetry,” said Edward Henry too hastily.

“And isn’t Shakspere poetry?” Carlo Trent challenged.

“Well, I suppose if you put it in that way, he is!” Edward Henry cautiously admitted, humbled.  He was under the disadvantage of never having either seen or read “Shakspere.”  His sure instinct had always warned him against being drawn into “Shakspere.”

“And has Miss Euclid ever done anything finer than Constance?”

“I don’t know,” Edward Henry pleaded.

“Why—­Miss Euclid in ’King John’—­”

“I never saw ‘King John,’” said Edward Henry.

“Do you mean to say,” expostulated Carlo Trent in italics, “that you never saw Rose Euclid as Constance?”

And Edward Henry, shaking his abashed head, perceived that his life had been wasted.

Carlo, for a few moments, grew reflective and softer.

“It’s one of my earliest and most precious boyish memories,” he murmured, as he examined the ceiling.  “It must have been in eighteen—­”

Rose Euclid abandoned the ice with which she had just been served, and by a single gesture drew Carlo’s attention away from the ceiling, and towards the fact that it would be clumsy on his part to indulge further in the chronology of her career.  She began to blush again.

Mr. Marrier, now back at the table after a successful expedition, beamed over his ice: 

“It was your ‘Constance’ that led to your friendship with the Countess of Chell, wasn’t it, Ra-ose?  You know,” he turned to Edward Henry, “Miss Euclid and the Countess are virry intimate.”

“Yes, I know,” said Edward Henry.

Rose Euclid continued to blush.  Her agitated hand scratched the back of the chair behind her.