Lucian regarded him with grave eyes. ‘Do you think of me as of a rocket or a comet?’ he said. ‘If things are what you say they are, I wish I had never published anything. But I think you are wrong,’ and he went away to consider all that had been said to him. He decided, after some thought and reflection, that his publisher was not arguing on sound lines, and he assured himself for the hundredth time that the production of the tragedy would put everything right. It was now very near to the day on which the tragedy was to be produced at the Athenæum, and both Lucian and Mr. Harcourt had been worried to the point of death by pressmen who wanted to know all about it. Chiefly owing to their persistency the public were now in possession of a considerable amount of information as to what it might expect to hear and see. It was to witness--that portion of it, at any rate, which was lucky enough to secure seats for the first night--an attempt to revive tragedy on the lines of pure Greek art. As this attempt was being made at the close of the nineteenth century, it was quite in accordance with everything that vast sums of money should be laid out on costumes, scenery, and accessories, and it was well known to the readers of the halfpenny newspapers that the production involved the employment of so many hundreds of supernumeraries, that so many thousands of pounds had been spent on the scenery, that certain realistic effects had been worked up at enormous cost, and that the whole affair, to put it in plain language, was a gigantic business speculation--nothing more nor less, indeed, than the provision of a gorgeous spectacular drama, full of life and colour and modern stage effects, which should be enthralling and commanding enough to attract the public until a handsome profit had been made on the outlay. But the words ‘an attempt to revive Tragedy on the lines of pure Greek Art’ looked well in print, and had a highly respectable sound, and the production of Lucian’s second tribute to the tragic muse was looked forward to with much interest by many people who ignored the fact that many thousands of pounds were being expended in placing it upon the stage. CHAPTER XXI