A wave of the hand and all the lights were extinguished, save a lamp on the mantelpiece, and in the disconcertingly darkened room Rose Euclid turned her face towards the ray from this solitary silk-shaded globe. Her hand groped out behind her, found the table-cloth and began to scratch it agitatedly. She lifted her head. She was the actress, impressive and subjugating, and Edward Henry felt her power. Then she intoned: "Brightness falls from the air; Queens have died young and fair; Dust hath closed Helen's eye." And she ceased and sat down. There was a silence. "_Bra_ vo!" murmured Carlo Trent. "Bra_vo_!" murmured Mr. Marrier. Edward Henry in the gloom caught Mr. Seven Sachs's unalterable observant smile across the table. "Well, Mr. Machin?" said Carlo Trent. Edward Henry had felt a tremor at the vibrations of Rose Euclid's voice. But the words she uttered had set up no clear image in his mind, unless it might be of some solid body falling from the air, or of a young woman named Helen, walking along Trafalgar Road, Bursley, on a dusty day, and getting the dust in her eyes. He knew not what to answer. "Is that all there is of it?" he asked at length. Carlo Trent said: "It's from Thomas Nashe's 'Song in Time of Pestilence.' The closing lines of the verse are: 'I am sick, I must die-- Lord, have mercy on me!'" "Well," said Edward Henry, recovering, "I rather like the end. I think the end's very appropriate." Mr. Seven Sachs choked over his wine, and kept on choking. III Mr.. Marrier was the first to recover from this blow to the prestige of poetry. Or perhaps it would be more honest to say that Mr.. Marrier had suffered no inconvenience from the _contretemps_. His apparent gleeful zest in life had not been impaired. He was a born optimist, of an extreme type unknown beyond the circumferences of theatrical circles. "I _say_," he emphasized, "I've got an ideah. We ought to be photographed like that. Do you no end of good." He glanced encouragingly at Rose Euclid. "Don't you see it in the illustrated papers? A prayvate supper-party at Wilkins's Hotel. Miss Ra-ose Euclid reciting verse at a discussion of the plans for her new theatre in Piccadilly Circus. The figures, reading from left to right, are, Mr. Seven Sachs, the famous actor-author, Miss Rose Euclid, Mr. Carlo Trent, the celebrated dramatic poet, Mr. Alderman Machin, the well-known Midlands capitalist, and so on!" Mr. Marrier repeated, "and so on." "It's a notion," said Rose Euclid, dreamily. "But how _can_ we be photographed?" Carlo Trent demanded with irritation. "Perfectly easy." "Now?" "In ten minutes. I know a photographer in Brook Street." "Would he come at once?" Carlo Trent frowned at his watch.