George followed the play through all its shifting scenes; now laughed,
now sighed, now felt the hot blush of shame as he listened to the
atrocious mockery of everything which, from the time he had been an
infant on his mother's knee, he had been taught to regard as good and
pure. He was heated to indignation when the audience applauded the base
character of Maguire, and shuddered when as he thought that a masked
hypocrite was brought before the world as the type of a Christian, and
that a "Serious Family" was only another name for an unhappy, canting
set of ignorant people.

And yet George did not leave the theatre. He was hurt, wounded to the
heart by what he saw and heard, felt he would have given the world to
have stood up in the box, and have told the audience that the play was a
libel upon everything sacred and solemn; but he stayed and saw it out,
rivetted by that strange, unholy infatuation which has been the bane of
so many.

"Let us go now, Hardy," he said, as the curtain dropped; "you do not
care to see the ballet, do you?"

"Oh, in for a penny, in for a pound. While we are here, we may as well
see all that is to be seen. I won't ask you how you liked the comedy. I
want to see something lively now, to remove the disagreeable impressions
it has left upon me."

And so they stayed, delighted with the music, fascinated with the
graceful dancing, and dazzled with the scenery. At length the curtain
fell, and the evening's performance was over.