'Yes.'

'It's funny that that should make a man bourgeois.'

Mallinson became flippant.

'I am not so sure,' he said. 'The natives, I should think, are
essentially bourgeois. They love beads, and that's typical of the class.
Evil communications, you know,' and he laughed, but awkwardly and without
merriment.

'Really?' asked Clarice, looking straight at him with grave eyes. She
seemed to be seriously deliberating the truth of his remark. Mallinson's
laughter stopped short. 'There's my aunt beckoning to you,' she said.

Later in the evening she relented towards him, salving her disappointment
with the flattery of his jealousy. She did not, however, relinquish on
that account her intention to make Stephen Drake's acquaintance. She
merely postponed it, trusting that the tides of accident would drift them
together, as indeed they did, though after a longer delay than she had
anticipated.

The occasion of their meeting was provided by the visit of a French
actress to one of the London theatres. Drake and Conway edged into their
stalls just before the curtain rose on a performance of _Frou-Frou_.
During the first act the theatre gradually filled, and when the lights
were turned up at its close only one box was empty. It was upon the first
tier next to the stage. A few minutes after the second act had begun
Conway nudged Drake and nodded towards the box.