Here she found a group already waiting: Darcey and Percival, Clem Smith, the two dressers and, at a distance, one or two stagehands. They all watched the final scene between Helena Hamilton and Adam Poole. In this scene Rutherford tied up and stated finally the whole thesis of his play. The man was faced with his ultimate decision. Would he stay and attempt, with the woman, to establish a sane and enlightened formula for living in place of the one he himself had destroyed or would he go back to his island community and attempt a further development within himself and in a less complex environment? As throughout the play, the conflict was set out in terms of human and personal relationships. It could be played like many another love scene, purely on those terms. Or it could be so handled that the wider implications could be felt by the audience and in the hands of these two players that was what happened. The play ended with them pledging themselves to each other and to an incredible task. As Poole spoke the last lines the electrician, with one eye on Clem below, played madly over his switchboard. The entire set changed its aspect, seemed to dissolve, turned threadbare, a skeleton, a wraith, while beyond it a wide stylized landscape was flooded with light and became as Poole spoke the tag, the background upon which the curtain fell.

‘Might as well be back in panto,’ said the electrician leaning on his dimmers, ‘we got the transformation scene. All we want’s the bloody fairy queen.’

It was at this moment, when the applause seemed to surge forward and beat against the curtains, when Clem shouted: ‘All on,’ and Dr Rutherford plunged out of the OP pass-door, when the players walked on and linked hands, that Poole, looking hurriedly along the line, said: ‘Where’s Ben?’

One of those panic-stricken crises peculiar to the theatre boiled up on the instant. From her position between Darcey and Percival on the stage Martyn saw the call-boy make some kind of protest to Clem Smith and disappear. Above the applause they heard him hare down the passage, yelling: ‘Mr Bennington! Mr Bennington! Please! You’re on!’

‘We can’t wait,’ Poole shouted. ‘Take it up, Clem.’

The curtain rose and Martyn looked into a sea of faces and hands. She felt herself led forward into the roaring swell, bowed with the others, felt Darcey’s and Percival’s hands tighten on hers, bowed again and with them retreated a few steps up-stage as the first curtain fell.

‘Well?’ Poole shouted into the wings. The call-boy could be heard beating on the dressing-room door.

Percival said: ‘What’s the betting he comes on for a star call?’

‘He’s passed out,’ said Darcey. ‘Had one or two more since he came off.’

‘By God, I wouldn’t cry if he never came to.’

‘Go on, Clem,’ said Poole.