* * * * *

AT THE PLAY.

“THE PRUDE’S FALL.”

Though the hero is French and takes up his residence in an English cathedral town in order to rectify our British prudery and show us how to make love, there is practically nothing here that is calculated to bring a blush to the cheek of modesty.  It is true that from time to time Captain le Briquet kisses various outlying portions of his “ange adore,” but it is all very decorous and his ultimate intentions are strictly respectable.

You see, he was really just playing a game.  Big game was his speciality (Africa) and this one was to be as big as an elephant.  It consisted in the correction of a flaw which he had found in the object of his worship, the lovely young Widow Audley, who had refused in his very presence to receive a woman, an old friend of hers, who had preferred love to reputation.  He, the gallant Captain, proposed to amend this error.  By his French methods he would reduce the Widow to such a state of helplessness that she would consent to become his mistress.  The fact that he happened to be a bachelor, and perfectly free to marry her, should not be allowed to stand in the way of his scheme.  He would explain that the exigencies of his vocation as a hunter of big game demanded a greater measure of liberty than was practicable within the bonds of matrimony.  He would be “faithful but free.”

In the course of a brief month (the interval between the First and Second Acts, for we are not permitted to see how he does it) she has become as putty in his hands.  She consents to be his mistress, and is indeed so determined to adopt this informal style of union that when he produces a special marriage licence she is indignant at such a concession to the proprieties.  But once again the Captain proves irresistible with his French methods and all ends well.

[Illustration:  THE CAPTAIN “EXAMINES ARMS.”

Captain le Briquet ...  Mr. GERALD DU MAURIER.

Sir Nevil Moreton, Bart. ...  Mr. FRANKLIN DYALL.]

Mr. GERALD DU MAURIER was the life and soul of the play, which would have been a dullish business without him.  His reappearances were always hailed as a joyous relief to the prevailing depression.  Even Dean Carey—­most delightful in the person of Mr. GILBERT HARE—­became at one time a gloomy Dean; and Miss LILIAN BRAITHWAITE, who played very tenderly in the part of Mrs. Westonry (the lady who had lost her reputation), could not hope to be very entertaining with her reminiscences of a lover whom we had never had the pleasure of meeting.