Marrier I'm
coming."
"And I'll go back to the gallery," said Edward Henry. "It's the place
for people like me, isn't it? I daresay I'll tear up this paper later,
Miss Euclid--we'll see."
IV
On the next night a male figure in evening dress and a pale overcoat
might have been seen standing at the corner of Piccadilly Circus and
Lower Regent Street, staring at an electric sign in the shape of
a shield which said, in its glittering, throbbing speech of
incandescence:
THE REGENT
ROSE EUCLID
IN
"THE ORIENT PEARL"
The figure crossed the Circus, and stared at the sign from a new point
of view. Then it passed along Coventry Street, and stared at the sign
from yet another point of view. Then it reached Shaftesbury Avenue
and stared again. Then it returned to its original station. It was the
figure of Edward Henry Machin, savouring the glorious electric sign of
which he had dreamed. He lit a cigarette, and thought of Seven Sachs
gazing at the name of Seven Sachs in fire on the facade of a Broadway
Theatre in New York. Was not this London phenomenon at least as fine?
He considered it was. The Regent Theatre existed--there it stood!
(What a name for a theatre!) Its windows were all illuminated. Its
entrance-lamps bathed the pavement in light, and in this radiance
stood the commissionaires in their military pride and their new
uniforms.
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