Mavis put down her empty tumbler, and looked at it reproachfully.

“Will, it has made me come over all funny.  My head’s swimming.”

When they got back to their seats and were watching the ballet, he too felt the consequences of guileless straw-sucking; but with him the after effects were entirely pleasurable.  He felt invigorated, peaceful, massively grand.

He sat placidly enjoying the beauty of the scene, the grace of the dancers, the vibrations of the music.  The stage was dark at first, and one could merely make out that it pictured a wildly-imagined grove in the land of dreams; then it grew brighter, and one saw preposterous giant-flowers—­foxgloves so big that when they opened there was a human face in each quivering bell.  And the flowers came out of the earth and danced; children dressed up as birds, brown boys like beetles, slim girls like butterflies, all came dancing, dancing; with more light every moment, till the dazzle and the blaze seemed to drive away the little people;—­and then quite glorious forms appeared, pirouetting, almost flying—­pink-limbed houris, fairies, nymphs—­“call ’em what you please—­a fair knock-out.”

“It makes me go round and round,” whispered Mavis.

He sat grave and silent—­just nodding his head in approval of all he saw, not troubling to applaud any further, impassive as some Eastern sultan for whom slaves and courtiers had made a mask.

Then gradually his mind seemed half to detach itself from the thraldom of external objects.  These novel sense impressions, pouring into him, joined themselves to old memories, and, mingling, made up a fuller stream of joy.  He seemed to be able to think of five or six things at once; but, as the undercurrent of every thought, there was the same deep-flowing comfort, of which the source lay in his relief at the escape from danger.  Those fairies flashing about under the branches of sham trees momentarily evoked the ancient haunting distress of his youth, and out of this thought came the lofty conception of Mavis as his guardian angel.  How persistently the first of those fancies lingered—­after so many years!  Bother the fairies or nymphs, or whatever they were.  Household angels are what a man wants to bring him contentment; and keep him straight, day by day, and week by week.

Before the ballet was over, he became bored with it.  Too long!  Enough is as good as a feast.  They were singing now as well as dancing.

The massive, voluminously quiescent sensation induced by the liqueurs had passed away, and in its place came increased weariness of the spectacular entertainment.  The light, and the music, and the half-naked women, who still danced and pranced, were affecting his nerves unpleasantly now.  He looked away from the stage, and stared at the audience.  Behind him, as he knew, there were all those hussies with painted faces offering themselves for hire.  And wherever he looked, he seemed to see evidences of amorous traffic.