"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, pitching his voice well--for
municipal politics had made him a practised public speaker, "I
congratulate you. This evening you--have succeeded!"
There was a roar, confused, mirthful, humorously protesting. He
distinctly heard a man in the front row of the stalls say: "Well, for
sheer nerve--!" And then go off into a peal of laughter.
He smiled and retired.
Marrier took charge of him.
"You merit the entire confectioner's shop!" exclaimed Marrier, aghast,
admiring, triumphant.
Now Edward Henry had had no intention of meriting cake. He had merely
followed in speech the secret train of his thought. But he saw that
he had treated a West End audience as a West End audience had never
before been treated, and that his audacity had conquered. Hence he
determined not to refuse the cake.
"Didn't I tell you I'd settle 'em?" said he.
The band played "God Save the King."
VI
One hour later, in the double-bedded chamber at the Majestic, as his
wife lay in bed and he was methodically folding up a creased white tie
and inspecting his chin in the mirror, he felt that he was touching
again, after an immeasurable interval, the rock-bottom of reality.
Nellie, even when he could only see her face--and that in a
mirror!--was the most real phenomenon in his existence, and she
possessed the strange faculty of dispelling all unreality round about
her.
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