“ Whereupon, the lamps being extinguished, they all filed forth, the door swung to of its own accord, shutting out the sound of babble from the stage, and Edward Henry and Elsie April were left silent and solitary to the sole ray of the street-lamp.
All the Five Towns shrewdness in Edward Henry's character, all the husband in him, all the father in him, all the son in him, leapt to his lips and tried to say to Elsie, "Shall we go and inspect the champagne and sandwiches too?" and failed to say these incantatory words of salvation! ”

“ He knew Seven Sachs was a celebrity because he had verily seen him act--and act very well--in his own play, and because his name in letters a foot high had dominated all the hoardings of the Five Towns. As for Rose Euclid, could there be a greater celebrity? Such was the strange power of the popular legend concerning her, that even now, despite the first fearful shock of disappointment, Edward Henry could not call her by her name, without self-consciously stumbling over it, without a curious thrill. ”

“ The magic word "option" wakened the drowsy speculator in Edward Henry. And the mere act of looking at the plan endowed the plot of land with reality. There it was. It existed.
"An option to buy it?"
"You can't buy land in the West End of London," said Mr. Bryany sagely. "You can only lease it."
"Well, of course," Edward Henry concurred.
"The freehold belongs to Lord Woldo, now aged six months."
"Really!" murmured Edward Henry.
"I've got an option to take up the remainder of the lease, with sixty-four years to run, on the condition I put up a theatre. ”

“ A magnificently arrayed woman in the row in front, somewhat to the right, leaned back and towards him, and behind her fan said:
"You're the only manager here, Mr. Machin! How alive and alert you are!" Her voice seemed to be charged with a hidden meaning.
"D'you think so?" said Edward Henry. He had no idea who she might be. He had probably shaken hands with her at his stone-laying, but if so he had forgotten her face. He was fast becoming one of the oligarchical few who are recognised by far more people than they recognise. ”

“ All London had indeed been present. Half the aristocracy of England, and far more than half the aristocracy of the London stage! The entire preciosity of the metropolis! Journalists with influence enough to plunge the whole of Europe into war! In one short hour Edward Henry's right hand (peeping out from the superb fur coat which he had had the wit to buy) had made the acquaintance of scores upon scores of the most celebrated right hands in Britain. ”

“ If you ask me, the option alone is worth ten thousand dollars. But then they haven't any sense! And that's all there is to it!"
"So you'd advise me to go ahead with the affair on my own?"
Mr. Seven Sachs, his black eyes twinkling, leaned forward and became rather intimately humorous:
"You look as if you wanted advice, don't you?" said he.
"I suppose I do, now I come to think of it!" agreed Edward Henry with a most admirable quizzicalness; in spite of the fact that he had not really meant to "go ahead with the affair," being in truth a little doubtful of his capacity to handle it. ”

“ No one in London can do it! ... You have the happiness of knowing what your mission is, and of knowing too that you are equal to it. What good fortune! I wish I could say as much for myself. I want to do something! I try! But what can I do? Nothing--really! You've no idea of the awful loneliness that comes from a feeling of inability."
"Loneliness!" he repeated. "But surely--" He stopped.
"Loneliness," she insisted. Her little chin was now in her little hand, and her dim face upturned.
And suddenly a sensation of absolute and marvellous terror seized Edward Henry. ”

“ I was Blanche Wilmot, on the road for ten years,--never got a show in London,--and Blanche Wilmot I shall ever be, peeress or no peeress! It was no joke being Lord Woldo's wife, I can tell you; and it's still less of a joke being Lord Woldo's mother. You imagine it. It's worse than carrying about a china vase all the time on a slippery floor. Am I any happier now than I was before I married? Well, I am! There's more worry in one way, but there's less in another. ”

“ Close by stood the prompter, an untidy youth with imperfections of teeth, clutching hard at the red-scored manuscript of "The Orient Pearl." Sundry players, of varying stellar degrees, were posed around in the opulent costumes designed by Saracen Givington, A.R.A. Miss Lindop was in the background, ecstatically happy, her cheeks a race-course of tears. Afar off, in the centre of the stage, alone, stood Rose Euclid, gorgeous in green and silver, bowing and bowing and bowing--bowing before the storm of approval and acclamation that swept from the auditorium across the footlights. ”

“ The retirement of Archibald Florance from the stage a couple of years earlier had caused crimson gleams of sunset splendour to shoot across the Atlantic and irradiate even the Garrick Club, London, so that the members thereof had to shade their offended eyes. Edward Henry had never seen Archibald Florance, but it was not necessary to have seen him in order to appreciate the majesty of his glory. No male in the history of the world was ever more photographed, and few have been the subject of more anecdotes. ”

“ Machin? Tell me. You're a man, but honestly, is it argument? Why, it's just as mean and despicable as brute force."
"I agree with you," said Edward Henry softly.
"Do you really think it will harm the militant cause? Do they really think so? No, it will only harm me. I made a mistake in tactics. I trusted--fool!--to the chivalry of the United States. I might have been arrested in a dozen cities, but I, on purpose, reserved my last two arrests for Chicago and New York, for the sake of the superior advertisement, you see! I never dreamt!--Now it's too late. I am defeated! ”

“ No such effect had ever been seen in the Five Towns, and the felicity of the audience exceeded all previous felicities. The audience yelled, roared, shrieked, gasped, trembled, and punched itself in a furious passion of pleasure. They make plates in the Five Towns. They live by making plates. They understand plates. In the Five Towns a man will carry not seven but twenty-seven dozen plates on a swaying plank for eight hours a day, up steps and down steps, and in doorways and out of doorways, and not break one plate in seven years! ”

“ And Edward Henry was aware of his observant and steady gaze. Edward Henry said to himself: "This man is expecting me to behave in a remarkable way. Bryany has been telling him all about me, and he is waiting to see if I really am as good as my reputation. I have just got to be as good as my reputation!" He looked up at the electric chandelier, almost with regret that it was not gas. One cannot light one's cigarette by twisting a hundred-pound bank-note and sticking it into an electric chandelier. ”

“ Carlo Trent mutteringly protested.
"That is so," admitted Edward Henry.
"Will you read it?"
"Mr. Trent," said Edward Henry. "I'm not so young as I was."
"We're ruined!" sighed Rose Euclid with a tragic gesture.
"Ruined?" Edward Henry took her up, smiling. "Nobody is ruined who knows where he can get a square meal. Do you mean to tell me you don't know where you're going to lunch to-morrow?" And he looked hard at her. ”

“ Could the Five Towns have seen him then, as he waited, it would hardly have recognised its "card," its character, its mirror of aplomb and inventive audacity, in this figure of provincial and plebeian diffidence.
The dandy bowed.
"Do you want a suite, sir?"
"Certainly!" said Edward Henry. Rather too quickly, rather too defiantly; in fact, rather rudely! A habitué would not have so savagely hurled back in the dandy's teeth the insinuation that he wanted only one paltry room. ”

“ Edward Henry rang the bell, and two gentlemen in waiting arrived.
"Clear this table immediately!"
The tone of the command startled everybody except the gentlemen in waiting and Mr. Seven Sachs. Rose Euclid gave vent to her nervous giggle. The poet and Mr. Marrier tried to appear detached and dignified, and succeeded in appearing guiltily confused--for which they contemned themselves. Despite their volition, the glances of all three of them too clearly signified: "This capitalist must be humoured. He has an unlimited supply of actual cash, and therefore he has the right to be peculiar. ”

“ Rollo Wrissell belonged to the latter species. His nose and mouth had the exquisite refinement of the descendant of generations of art-collectors and poet-patronisers. He enjoyed life, but not with rude activity, like the grosser members of the ruling caste, rather with a certain rare languor. He sniffed and savoured the whole spherical surface of the apple of life with those delicate nostrils rather than bit into it. His one conviction was that in a properly managed world nothing ought to occur to disturb or agitate the perfect tranquillity of his existing. ”

“ In the lightest comedy vein, Arnold Bennett treats of a serious economic situation--the invasion of the grim Five Towns by modernity. Helen typifies the splendid revolt of youth against the accepted and conventional. Of all Arnold Bennett's heroines Helen is certainly the daintiest and most fascinating.
The final touch of comedy arises from the fact that Helen at length overcomes her uncle, not by anything modern in her temperament, but by the old-fangled race shrewdness which she has inherited. She defeats him by the more skilful handling of his own weapons. ”

“ Seven Sachs had to take the greatest pains to keep the muscles of his face in strict order. The slightest laxity with them--and he would have been involved in another and more serious suffocation.
"No," said Carlo Trent, "'The Muses' Theatre' is the only possible title. There is money in the poetical drama." He looked hard at Edward Henry, as though to stare down the memory of the failure of Nashe's verse. "I don't want money. I hate the thought of money. But money is the only proof of democratic appreciation, and that is what I need, and what every artist needs.... ”

“ The world at its haughtiest was driving up to Wilkins's to eat its dinner in the unrivalled restaurant, and often guests staying at the hotel came into the outer hall to greet invited friends. And Edward Henry was so overfaced by visions of woman's brilliance and man's utter correctness that he scarcely knew where to look--so apologetic was he for his grey lounge suit and the creases in his boots. ”

“ Every movement and tone enchanted Edward Henry. He was enchanted not at intervals, by a chance gesture, but all the time--when she was serious, when she smiled, when she fingered her teacup, when she pushed her furs back over her shoulders, when she spoke of the weather, when she spoke of the social crisis, and when she made fun, with a certain brief absence of restraint, rather in her artichoke manner of making fun. ”

“ No two women could possibly be more utterly dissimilar than Rose Euclid and the cloistered Nellie.... And yet, as Rose Euclid's hesitant fingers closed on the bank-notes with a gesture of relief, Edward Henry had an agreeable and kindly sensation that all women were alike, after all, in the need of a shield, a protection, a strong and generous male hand. ”

“ He opened his eyes and beheld the triumphant group, and the photographer himself, victorious over even the triumphant, in a superb pose that suggested that all distinguished mankind in his presence was naught but food for the conquering camera. The photographer smiled indulgently, and his smile said: "Having been photographed by me, you have each of you reached the summit of your career. Be content. Retire! Die! Destiny is accomplished!"
"Mr. Machin," said Rose Euclid, "I do believe your eyes were shut!"
"So do I!" Edward Henry curtly agreed. ”

“ Edward Henry most certainly did not like this aspersion on his native district. He gazed in silence at Mr. Bryany's brassy and yet simple face, and did not like the face either.
And Mr. Bryany, beautifully unaware that he had failed in tact, continued: "The Five Towns is the most English place I've ever seen, believe me! Of course it has its good points, and England has her good points; but there's no money stirring. There's no field for speculation on the spot, and as for outside investment, no Englishman will touch anything that really is good." ”

“ But this audience--this magnificent representative audience drawn from London in the brilliant height of the season--had not failed.
It occurred to him to raise his hand. And as he raised his hand it occurred to him that his hand held a lighted cigarette. A magic hush fell upon the magnificent audience, which owned all that endless line of automobiles outside. Edward Henry, in the hush, took a pull at his cigarette. ”