“The second act revealed the Baron’s chambers.  With the exception of two minutes, he was on the stage until the curtain fell.  The Baron’s effort, so precisely detailed, to reach and raise the dumb-bells from the floor; the inveterate libertine’s interview with shrewd Rosa, the danseuse, who took the tips he expected would impoverish her and thus put her in his power, for the purpose of playing them the other way:  the biting deliberation of his interview with his good Baroness and Henri, who comes to ruin himself to save his family’s honor—­all held the audience with a new sensation.  As he pushed his palsied arms into his coat and pulled himself fairly off his feeble feet in his effort to button it, turned up to his door humming like a preying bumble-bee, faced slowly about again, his piercing little pink eyes darting with anticipation, and off the trembling old lips droned the telling speech:  ’I wonder how his pretty little wife will bear poverty.  H’m!  We shall see’—­the curtain fell to applause which was for the newcomer alone.  He had interested the audience and was talked about between the acts.

“Mr. Palmer rushed back to his dressing-room and found him studiously adding new touches to his make-up for the next act.  ‘Young man,’ exclaimed the manager, ‘do you know you’re making a hit?’ ’That’s what I’m paid for,’ replied Mansfield, without lowering the rabbit’s foot.

“The third act was largely Marcelle’s.  The Baron was on for an episodic interval, but succeeded, in that he did not destroy the impression already created.

“The fourth act revealed a magnificent banquet hall with a huge table laden with crystal, silver, snowy linens, flowers, and lights.  At the top of a short stairway at the back was a gallery and an arched window through which one looked up the green aisle of the Champs-Elysee to the Arc de Triomphe, dimly visible in the moonlight.  The Baron entered for one last glance over the preparations for his petit souper for Rosa and her sister of the ballet at the Opera.

“The effectiveness of his entrance was helped by his appearance behind a colonnade, and there he stood, only half revealed, swaying unsteadily while his palsied hand adjusted his monocle to survey the scene.  There was a flutter of applause from the audience but, appreciatively, it quickly hushed itself.  He dragged himself forward.  The cosmetic could not hide the growing pallor of the parchment drawn over the old reprobate’s skull.  He crept around the table and, with a marvellous piece of ‘business’ by which he held his wobbly legs while he slowly swung a chair under him, collapsed.  The picture was terrible, but fascinating.  People who would, could not turn their heads.  His valet was quick with water and held the glass in place on the salver while he directed it to the groping arm.  The crystal clinked on Chevrial’s teeth as he sucked the water.