But what had Ariel to do with pounds and dollars, roubles and marks? Ariel asked nothing but freedom after ages pining in a cloven pine.... In this world of money and machinery and intrigue to control machinery with money, to be free was the deep and secret desire of all humanity. Here in London hearts ached and souls murmured to be free, only to be free, for one moment at whatever cost of tears and suffering and bloody agony. All this in her heart Clara knew, she knew it from her meeting with Rodd, from her solitary brooding in her room, from the drunken women fighting in the street, from the uncontrolled fantasy in Charles Mann, from the boredom that ate away poor Verschoyle's heart; and all the knowledge of her adventurous life she gathered up to distil it into the delight of freedom, for its own sake and also for the sake of the hereafter which, if there be no moment of freedom, no flowering of life, must sink into a deeper and more miserable slavery. In this mood it was pathetic to see Sir Henry, whose whole power lay in machinery, pretending as Prospero to rule by magic. So pathetically out of place was he that he could not even remember the words that so mightily revealed his authority.... When he broke down, he would declare that it was quite a simple matter to improvise blank verse.... But Clara would not let him improvise. She was always ready with the words, the right inevitable words. She would not let him impair her freedom with his lazy reliance upon the machinery of the theatre to pull him through, and so, when he opened his mouth and looked vague, and covered the absence of words with a large gesture, she was ready for him. He reproved her. 'I am always like this at a dress rehearsal. Dress rehearsals are always terrible. The production seems to go altogether to pieces, but it is always there on the night. A good dress rehearsal means a bad first night.' But Clara refused to allow any of her scenes to go to pieces, and they were applauded by the Butcher-Bracebridge fashionables who sat in the stalls. Lady Butcher called out,-- 'It will be one of the best things you have ever done,' and her son's voice was heard booming, 'Hear, hear! Good old pater.' Verschoyle had dropped in, but he was captured by Lady Bracebridge and her daughter, and had to sit between them while they scandalised Clara. According to them she had run away from home and had led an unmentionable life in Paris, actually having been a member of a low company of French players; and she had married but had run away from her husband with Charles Mann, etc., etc. 'I beg your pardon,' said Verschoyle, 'but Miss Day is a friend of mine.' 'One admires her frankness so much,' said Lady Bracebridge. 'Adventures like that make an actress so interesting.' 'But this is her first appearance in any theatre.'