Then only a week ago, for the date of production had to be postponed and yet again postponed until the rehearsals went with a smoothness that no friction disturbed, came the first night of "Easter Eggs," and before the evening was half over the conduct of the execrable Pict, and the apparent permanence of the post-Impressionist pictures on the walls of his gallery, had been smoothed out of Craddock's mind, as a wrinkle in the sand is erased by the incoming tide. From the first moment the simple and brilliant little play, with its neat construction and well-etched delineation of character, charmed and captivated the house. It was not necessary for the audience to put too strenuous a call on their intelligences, and, as Craddock had foreseen, they found an entertainment much to their minds in watching and enjoying the unfolding of the unpretentious but absorbing little chronicle. It had something of the fragrance of Cranford about it, and its gaiety was of some little bonneted Quakeress, suddenly moved to dance in a shy decorous manner. Nor did the faint patronizing blame and praise of the critics next morning disturb him in the slightest: he knew well from the manner of its reception, and the pleased chattering crowd that waited for their vehicles in the lobby when the last act was over that he need have no fear for the solidity of its first night's success. Being a critic himself, he knew how seldom his colleagues spotted the right horse. Indeed, the only jarring note was the attitude of the sardonic author, when, subsequently, he supped with the owner, and in reply to Craddock's congratulations returned those congratulations into his bosom. Armstrong, in fact, seemed rather vexed at the success of the evening, and Craddock remembering, for a brief moment, his own feelings on the success earned by the book of the execrable Pict, understood something of the young man's ingratitude.
Certainly the ill-luck which followed Craddock these last months--even at Marienbad the number of pounds of the too too solid which he had lost, were not what he had hoped for--seemed to have turned, for "Easter Eggs," when it had run a week, gave evidence by its advance bookings, of the security of its favour with the public, and the critics also were airily beginning to say that "they had said so all along." So, with the removal of these financial anxieties, Craddock was at leisure to turn his mind to the riverside again, and on the evening of the day on which he had visited Charles, just previous to the ruthless destruction of the head in his portrait, he went down again to Thorley to dine and sleep at Philip Wroughton's house. He had two ostensible reasons for so doing: in the first place he wanted to see Charles' copy of the Reynolds, in the second he wanted to talk over his friend's plans for the Egyptian winter. He was minded to spend a month or two in Egypt himself, and wondered whether a little judicious hinting would cause Philip to make a suggestion that he would be eager to fall in with.