The Parthenon Theater had for its acropolis the heights of the Adelphi, where, viewed from the embankment gardens below, it seemed to be looking condescendingly down upon the efforts of the London County Council to intellectualize the musical taste of the generation. In the lobby--it had been called the propylaeum until it was found that such a long name had discouraged the public from booking seats beforehand through fear of mispronunciation--a bust of Janet Bond represented the famous statue Pallas Athene on the original acropolis, and the programme-girls, dressed as caryatides, supplied another charming touch of antiquity. The proprietress herself was the outstanding instance in modern times of the exploitation of virginity--it must have been a very profitable exploitation, because the Parthenon Theater itself had been built and paid for by her unsuccessful admirers. Each year made Janet Bond's position as virgin and actress more secure, and at the rate her reputation was growing it was probable that she would soon be at liberty to produce the most immodest plays. At present, however, she still applied the same standard of her conduct to her plays as to herself. Nor did she confine herself to that. She was also very strict about the private lives of her performers, and many a young actress had been seen to leave the stage door in tears because Miss Bond had observed her in unsuitable company at supper. Mothers wrote from all over England to beg Miss Bond to charge herself with the care of their stage-struck daughters; the result was a conventional tone among the supernumeraries slightly flavored with militant suffragism and the higher mathematics. Nor was art neglected; indeed some critics hinted that in the Parthenon Theater art was cultivated at the expense of life, though none of them attempted to gainsay that Miss Bond had learned how to make virtue pay without selling it.