At length, however, a letter came engaging him for one evening. He was
quite incredulous at first, then modestly scared, perplexed, exultant and
depressed by turns. Here was an opening--the first. And because it was
the first its success or failure meant future engagements or consignments
to the street, perhaps as a white-wing. There must be no faltering now,
no bungling, no mistakes, no amateurish hesitation. It is the empty-
headed who most strenuously demand intelligence in others. One yawn from
such an audience meant his professional damnation--he knew that; every
second must break like froth in a wine glass; an instant's perplexity, a
slackening of the tension, and those flaccid intellects would relax into
native inertia. Incapable of self-amusement, depending utterly upon
superior minds for a respite from ennui, their caprice controlled his
fate; and he knew it.
Sitting there by the sunny window with a pair of magnificent white
Persian cats purring on either knee, he read and reread the letter
summoning him on the morrow to Seabright. He knew who his hostess was--a
large lady lately emerged from a corner in lard, dragging with her some
assorted relatives of atrophied intellects and a husband whose only
mental pleasure depended upon the speed attained by his racing car--the
most exacting audience he could dare to confront.
Like the White Knight he had had plenty of practice, but he feared that
warrior's fate; and as he sat there he picked up a bunch of silver hoops,
tossed them up separately so that they descended linked in a glittering
chain, looped them and unlooped them, and, tiring, thoughtfully tossed
them toward the ceiling again, where they vanished one by one in mid-air.
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