His question opened the gates again to the doleful flood of Esther's impressions. Her husband listened with a smile; to the detached mind a fiasco has always its amusing side, and Norton Ward was by no means particularly concerned about Arthur or his fortunes. He finished his claret and lit his pipe during the sorrowful recital, and at the end of it remarked, "Well, it serves him right, really. That sort of thing won't do him any good--it's not his job--and perhaps now he'll see it. Didn't Judith come in with you?" "She's gone to bed." "Oh, has she? I say, I had a jolly good meeting to-night--though it's supposed to be a Radical centre. I----" "She was reduced to tears, coming home in the car. Tears, Frank!" "That's rather a strong order, isn't it? She'll be all right in the morning. The fact is, there's been a good deal of trouble at the biscuit works, and since old Thorne's a Liberal, his men----" "She must be a good deal--well, interested in him to do that!" "Wouldn't mind giving him one in the eye. What? I beg your pardon, my dear?" Even in the happiest marriages husband and wife do not always pursue the same train of thought. But Esther was very dutiful. "Never mind! Tell me about the meeting," she said. But she went on thinking of Judith and her tears. After he had seen his friends off, Arthur turned back into the lobby of the theatre. The crowd, that destructive crowd, was thinning quickly; at the tail-end of it there came, hurrying along, a figure vaguely familiar. The next instant its identity was established. There was no mistaking the tremor of the eye. It was Mr. Mayne, of Wills and Mayne, of _Tiddes v. The Universal Omnibus Company, Limited_.. As he came up, he saw Arthur, and gave him a quick glance and a faint smile, but no express recognition. He hurried by, as it were furtively, and, before Arthur had time to claim acquaintance, disappeared into the street. "Shouldn't have imagined he was much of a first-nighter!" thought Arthur, as he made his way towards a little group standing by the Box Office. The two Sarradet men were there, talking in low voices but volubly, gesticulating, looking very angry and somehow unusually French. Marie stood with her arm in Sidney Barslow's, rather as if she needed his support, and the big man himself, smiling composedly, seemed as though he were protecting the family. Fronting them stood Joe Halliday, smoking a cigarette and listening to the voluble talk with a pleasant smile. But when the two men saw Arthur, their talk stopped--silenced perhaps by the presence of a pecuniary disaster greater than that which had befallen the Sarradet house. Joe seized his opportunity and remarked, "After all, Mr. Sarradet, you didn't exactly suppose you were investing in a gilt-edged security!" "I say, where's poor old Beverley?" Arthur asked.