CHAPTER IV

ROSA'S SUMMONS


Everyone knows the Gold Rooms at the Grand Babylon on the Embankment.
They are immense, splendid, and gorgeous; they possess more gold leaf
to the square inch than any music-hall in London. They were designed
to throw the best possible light on humanity in the mass, to
illuminate effectively not only the shoulders of women, but also the
sombreness of men's attire. Not a tint on their walls that has not
been profoundly studied and mixed and laid with a view to the great
aim. Wherefore, when the electric clusters glow in the ceiling, and
the "after-dinner" band (that unique corporation of British citizens
disguised as wild Hungarians) breathes and pants out its after-dinner
melodies from the raised platform in the main salon, people regard
this coup d'oeil with awe, and feel glad that they are in the dazzling
picture, and even the failures who are there imagine that they have
succeeded. Wherefore, also, the Gold Rooms of the Grand Babylon are
expensive, and only philanthropic societies, plutocrats, and the
Titans of the theatrical world may persuade themselves that they can
afford to engage them.

It was very late when I arrived at my cousin Sullivan's much
advertised reception. I had wished not to go at all, simply because I
was inexperienced and nervous; but both he and his wife were so
good-natured and so obviously anxious to be friendly, that I felt
bound to appear, if only for a short time. As I stood in the first