"Plays are a bore; but I've never seen a rehearsal in ordinary clothes. Might be a bit funny. Somehow, nowadays, one can never find a thing one's never seen."
"Now, Mr. Mandeville," said Miss Talbot, tapping him on the arm with animated persistence, "you simply must let us see that rehearsal. We can't come to-night, and we don't want to. We want to see all the funny people in the wrong clothes."
"Of course I can give you a box if you wish it," said Mandeville hastily. "Perhaps your ladyship would come this way." And he led them off down another corridor.
"I wonder," said Jarvis in a meditative manner, "whether even Mandeville prefers that sort of woman."
"Well," asked his clerical companion, "have you any reason to suppose that Mandeville does prefer her?"
Jarvis looked at him steadil
