"I assure you the Government will do nothing of the kind," replied
the Member of Parliament with befitting dignity; "the Prime
Minister told me last night that under no circumstances--"

"My dear Mr. Greech," said Lady Caroline, "we all know that Prime
Ministers are wedded to the truth, but like other wedded couples
they sometimes live apart."

For her, at any rate, the comedy had had a happy ending.

Comus made his way slowly and lingeringly from the stalls, so
slowly that the lights were already being turned down and great
shroud-like dust-cloths were being swaythed over the ornamental
gilt-work. The laughing, chattering, yawning throng had filtered
out of the vestibule, and was melting away in final groups from the
steps of the theatre. An impatient attendant gave him his coat and
locked up the cloak room. Comus stepped out under the portico; he
looked at the posters announcing the play, and in anticipation he
could see other posters announcing its 200th performance. Two
hundred performances; by that time the Straw Exchange Theatre would
be to him something so remote and unreal that it would hardly seem
to exist or to have ever existed except in his fancy. And to the
laughing chattering throng that would pass in under that portico to
the 200th performance, he would be, to those that had known him,
something equally remote and non-existent. "The good-looking
Bassington boy? Oh, dead, or rubber-growing or sheep-farming or
something of that sort."