Sir T. [At the telephone] No, Gervase! What are you dubious of? (Yes. Martha! Well? Groom? Drinking--drunk. How horrible? No. Yes.) I'm ruined, Gervase! Martha saw and heard Our fate to-night in that magnetic mood She will solicit. (Yes. I come at once.) We conquer if Warwick Groom plays Troilus; If not our curtain's down, our lights are out, My last part played. [Both have reached the door hurriedly and are about to go out.] St. J. Not though your bitterest foe Is satisfied to-night: for "fortune comes "With me." So said your prophetess. Sir T. She did! The day is young: the thing may be retrieved. When shall I see you? St. J. After the play. Sir T. Till then? St. J. I also have my art. Sir T. You in your church, I in my theatre. St. J. One purpose serve? ACT II Scene: The stage of the Grosvenor Theatre, set for the first act of "Troilus and Cressida." Warwick Groom as Troilus and Silas Orchard as Pandarus are seated in the entrance to Priam's castle. Each has a bottle of wine and a silver drinking-cup, and Groom is turning over a book of the play. Abbot, Salerne, Actors and Scene-shifters, at the back and in the wings. Lady Sumner passes at the back, wringing her hands. Groom. Pandar--Prince Pandarus of Troy!--why you, You are the very spirit of the stage! Orchard. You mean the part I play, not me myself. Groom. What other meaning could I have? You _are_ The part you play, and nothing else besides. Orchard. Now there you're wrong; I'm very much myself. Groom. There's not a dozen actors in the town Who can be anything but the part they play. You are a glove, my prince, fit or misfit: Suave to the fingers like a second skin; Pushed on with wetted index, grunt, grimace; Or like the gauntlet of a dwarf that splits Upon a giant's thumb. Orchard. And so are you! Groom. So they would make me; but I'll be a hand-- As I have been. This play was made for me-- For Troilus; and I'll have the business changed, Prince Pandarus of Troy. What kind of ape Was he that played your Troilus? Heavens!--A glove Would have rebelled. The whole rehearsed and drilled For Cressida, Ulysses, Hector, Helen! And Troilus--in the book at blood-heat--stuck In the shade to freeze; cut, mangled, hanged, drawn, quartered! I'll have my lines restored, my scenes rehearsed According to their import. Pandar, room, By your leave, for Troilus! Stand, Diomed! Unmanned abortion, bowelless coward, stand! Prince Pandarus of Troy, you are the stage, The inner spirit and the outward man. For what's the theatre but a splendid bawd-- A little passive recreation pitched To span the abyss from dinner time till supper; To season minds of maidens and of wives With spice of marriage and adultery; The shoeing-horn of whoredom and the nest Of cuckolds. [Abbot comes down with Salerne and several scene-shifters.] Abbot. Now---- Groom. Avaunt, Sir Abbot! Fly!