THE PRETTY LADY A Novel by ARNOLD BENNETT 1918 "_Virtue has never yet been adequately represented by any who have had any claim to be considered virtuous. It is the sub-vicious who best understand virtue. Let the virtuous people stick to describing vice--which they can do well enough_." SAMUEL BUTLER CONTENTS Chapter 1. THE PROMENADE 2. THE POWER 3. THE FLAT 4. CONFIDENCE 5. OSTEND 6. THE ALBANY 7. FOR THE EMPIRE 8. BOOTS 9. THE CLUB 10. THE MISSION 11. THE TELEGRAM 12. RENDEZVOUS 13. IN COMMITTEE 14. QUEEN 15. EVENING OUT 16. THE VIRGIN 17. SUNDAY AFTERNOON 18. THE MYSTIC 19. THE VISIT 20. MASCOT 21. THE LEAVE-TRAIN 22. GETTING ON WITH THE WAR 23. THE CALL 24. THE SOLDIER 25. THE RING 26. THE RETURN 27. THE CLYDE 28. SALOME 29. THE STREETS 30. THE CHILD'S ARM 31. "ROMANCE" 32. MRS. BRAIDING 33. THE ROOF 34. IN THE BOUDOIR 35. QUEEN DEAD 36. COLLAPSE 37. THE INVISIBLE POWERS 38. THE VICTORY 39. IDYLL 40. THE WINDOW 41. THE ENVOY Chapter I THE PROMENADE The piece was a West End success so brilliant that even if you belonged to the intellectual despisers of the British theatre you could not hold up your head in the world unless you had seen it; even for such as you it was undeniably a success of curiosity at least. The stage scene flamed extravagantly with crude orange and viridian light, a rectangle of bedazzling illumination; on the boards, in the midst of great width, with great depth behind them and arching height above, tiny squeaking figures ogled the primeval passion in gesture and innuendo. From the arc of the upper circle convergent beams of light pierced through gloom and broke violently on this group of the half-clad lovely and the swathed grotesque. The group did not quail. In fullest publicity it was licensed to say that which in private could not be said where men and women meet, and that which could not be printed. It gave a voice to the silent appeal of pictures and posters and illustrated weeklies all over the town; it disturbed the silence of the most secret groves in the vast, undiscovered hearts of men and women young and old. The half-clad lovely were protected from the satyrs in the audience by an impalpable screen made of light and of ascending music in which strings, brass, and concussion exemplified the naïve sensuality of lyrical niggers. The guffaw which, occasionally leaping sharply out of the dim, mysterious auditorium, surged round the silhouetted conductor and drove like a cyclone between the barriers of plush and gilt and fat cupids on to the stage--this huge guffaw seemed to indicate what might have happened if the magic protection of the impalpable screen had not been there.