MISS BRETHERTON

 BY MRS. HUMPHRY WARD

 1888

PREFATORY NOTE

It ought to be stated that the account of the play _Elvira_, given inChapter VII. Of the present story, is based upon an existing play, thework of a little known writer of the Romantic time, whose short, brilliant life came to a tragical end in 1836. 

M. A. W. 

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

So many criticisms, not of a literary but of a personal kind, have beenmade on this little book since its appearance, that I may perhaps beallowed a few words of answer to them in the shape of a short preface tothis new edition. It has been supposed that because the book describes aLondon world, which is a central and conspicuous world with interests andactivities of a public and prominent kind, therefore all the charactersin it are drawn from real persons who may be identified if the seeker isonly clever enough. This charge of portraiture is constantly broughtagainst the novelist, and it is always a difficult one to meet; but onemay begin by pointing out that, in general, it implies a radicalmisconception of the story-teller's methods of procedure. An idea, asituation, is suggested to him by real life, he takes traits andpeculiarities from this or that person whom he has known or seen, butthis is all. When he comes to write--unless, of course, it is a case ofmalice and bad faith--the mere necessities of an imaginative effortoblige him to cut himself adrift from reality. His characters become tohim the creatures of a dream, as vivid often as his waking life, butstill a dream. And the only portraits he is drawing are portraits ofphantoms, of which the germs were present in reality, but to which hehimself has given voice, garb, and action. 

So the present little sketch was suggested by real life; the first hintfor it was taken from one of the lines of criticism--not that of theauthor--adopted towards the earliest performances of an actress who, coming among us as a stranger a year and a half ago, has won the respectand admiration of us all. The share in dramatic success which, in thiscountry at any rate, belongs to physical gift and personal charm; theeffect of the public sensitiveness to both, upon the artist and upon art;the difference between French and English dramatic ideals; these were thevarious thoughts suggested by the dramatic interests of the time. Theywere not new, they had been brought into prominence on more than oneoccasion during the last few years, and, in a general sense, they arecommon to the whole history of dramatic art. In dealing with them theproblem of the story-teller was twofold--on the one hand, to describe thepublic in its two divisions of those who know or think they know, andthose whose only wish is to feel and to enjoy; and on the other hand, todraw such an artist as should embody at once all the weakness and all thestrength involved in the general situation. To do this, it was necessaryto exaggerate and emphasise all the criticisms that had ever been broughtagainst beauty in high dramatic place, while, at the same time, charm andloveliness were inseparable from the main conception. And further, it wassought to show that, although the English susceptibility to physicalcharm--susceptibility greater here, in matters of art, than it is inFrance--may have, and often does have, a hindering effect upon theartist, still, there are other influences in a great society which areconstantly tending to neutralise this effect; in other words, that evenin England an actress may win her way by youth and beauty, and stillachieve by labour and desert another and a greater fame. 

These were the ideas on which this little sketch was based, and inworking them out the writer has not been conscious of any portraiture ofindividuals. Whatever attractiveness she may have succeeded in giving toher heroine is no doubt the shadow, so to speak, of a real influence sostrong that no one writing of the English stage at the present moment caneasily escape it; but otherwise everything is fanciful, the outcome, andindeed, too much the outcome, of certain critical ideas. And in thedetails of the story there has been no chronicling of persons; all theminor and subsidiary figures are imaginary, devised so as to illustrateto the best of the writer's ability the various influences which arecontinually brought to bear upon the artist in the London of to-day. There are traits and reminiscences of actual experience in thebook, --what story was ever without them? But no living person has beendrawn, and no living person has any just reason to think himself orherself aggrieved by any sentence which it contains. 

CHAPTER I

It was the day of the private view at the Royal Academy. The greatcourtyard of Burlington House was full of carriages, and a continuousstream of guests was pressing up the red-carpeted stairs, over whichpresided some of the most imposing individuals known to the eyes ofLondoners, second only to Her Majesty's beefeaters in glory of scarletapparel. Inside, however, as it was not yet luncheon-time, the rooms werebut moderately filled. It was possible to see the pictures, to appreciatethe spring dresses, and to single out a friend even across the LongGallery. The usual people were there: Academicians of the old school andAcademicians of the new; R. A. 's coming from Kensington and the 'regionsof culture, ' and R. A. 's coming from more northerly and provincialneighbourhoods where art lives a little desolately and barely, in want ofthe graces and adornings with which 'culture' professes to provide her. There were politicians still capable--as it was only the first week ofMay--of throwing some zest into their amusements. There were art-criticswho, accustomed as they were by profession to take their art in large andrapid draughts, had yet been unable to content themselves with the onemeagre day allowed by the Academy for the examination of some 800 works, and were now eking out their notes of the day before by a fewsupplementary jottings taken in the intervals of conversation with theirlady friends. There were the great dealers betraying in look and gaittheir profound, yet modest, consciousness that upon them rested thefoundations of the artistic order, and that if, in a superficialconception of things, the star of an Academician differs from that of theman who buys his pictures in glory, the truly philosophic mind assessesmatters differently. And, most important of all, there were the women, old and young, some in the full freshness of spring cottons, as if theeast wind outside were not mocking the efforts of the May sun, and othersstill wrapped in furs, which showed a juster sense of the caprices of theEnglish climate. Among them one might distinguish the usual shades andspecies: the familiar country cousin, gathering material for theover-awing of such of her neighbours as were unable to dip themselvesevery year in the stream of London; the women folk of the artist world, presenting greater varieties of type than the women of any other classcan boast; and lastly, a sprinkling of the women of what calls itself'London Society, ' as well dressed, as well mannered, and as well providedwith acquaintance as is the custom of their kind. 

In one of the farther rooms, more scantily peopled as yet than the rest, a tall thin man was strolling listlessly from picture to picture, makingevery now and then hasty references to his catalogue, but in generaleyeing all he saw with the look of one in whom familiarity with the sightbefore him had bred weariness, if not contempt. He was a handsome man, with a broad brow and a pleasant gentleness of expression. The eyes werefine and thoughtful, and there was a combination of intellectual forcewith great delicacy of line in the contour of the head and face which wasparticularly attractive, especially to women of the more cultivated andimpressionable sort. His thin grayish hair was rather long--not of thatpronounced length which inevitably challenges the decision of thebystander as to whether the wearer be fool or poet, but still long enoughto fall a little carelessly round the head and so take off from thespruce conventional effect of the owner's irreproachable dress andgeneral London air. 

Mr. Eustace Kendal--to give the person we have been describing hisname--was not apparently in a good temper with his surroundings. He wasstanding with a dissatisfied expression before a Venetian scene drawn bya brilliant member of a group of English artists settled on foreign soiland trained in foreign methods. 

'Not so good as last year, ' he was remarking to himself. 'Vulgar drawing, vulgar composition, hasty work everywhere. It is success spoils all thesemen--success and the amount of money there is going. The man who paintedthis didn't get any pleasure out of it. But it's the same all round. Itis money and luxury and the struggle to live which are driving us all onand killing the artist's natural joy in his work. And presently, as thatodd little Frenchman said to me last year, we shall have droppedirretrievably into the "lowest depth of mediocrity. "'

'Kendal!' said an eager voice close to his ear, while a hand was laid onhis arm, 'do you know that girl?'

Kendal turned in astonishment and saw a short oldish man, in whom herecognised a famous artist, standing by, his keen mobile face wearing anexpression of strong interest and inquiry. 

'What girl?' he asked, with a smile, shaking his questioner by the hand. 

'That girl in black, standing by Orchardson's picture. Why, you must knowher by sight! It's Miss Bretherton, the actress. Did you ever see suchbeauty? I must get somebody to introduce me to her. There's nothing worthlooking at since she came in. But, by ill luck, nobody here seems to knowher. '

Eustace Kendal, to whom the warm artist's temperament of his friend waswell known, turned with some amusement towards the picture named, andnoticed that flutter in the room which shows that something or some oneof interest is present. People trying to look unconcerned, and cataloguein hand, were edging towards the spot where the lady in black stood, glancing alternately at her and at the pictures, in the manner of thoseequally determined to satisfy their curiosity and their sense ofpoliteness. The lady in question, meanwhile, conscious that she was beinglooked at, but not apparently disturbed by it, was talking to anotherlady, the only person with her, a tall, gaunt woman, also dressed inblack and gifted abundantly with the forbidding aspect which beautyrequires in its duenna. 

Kendal could see nothing more at first than a tall, slender figure, abeautiful head, and a delicate white profile, in flashing contrast withits black surroundings, and with lines of golden brown hair. But inprofile and figure there was an extraordinary distinction and grace whichreconciled him to his friend's eagerness and made him wish for thebeauty's next movement. Presently she turned and caught the gaze of thetwo men full upon her. Her eyes dropped a little, but there was nothingill-bred or excessive in her self-consciousness. She took her companion'sarm with a quiet movement, and drew her towards one of the strikingpictures of the year, some little way off. The two men also turned andwalked away. 

'I never saw such beauty as that before, ' said the artist, with emphasis. 'I must find some one who knows her, and get the chance of seeing thatface light up, else I shall go home--one may as well. These daubs are notworth the trouble of considering now!'

'See what it is to be an "ideal painter, "' said Kendal, laughing. 'Athome one paints river goddesses, and tree-nymphs, and such like remotecreatures, and abroad one falls a victim to the first well-dressed, healthy-looking girl--chaperone, bonnet, and all. '

'Show me another like her, ' said his friend warmly. 'I tell you they'renot to be met with like that every day. _Je me connais en beauté_, mydear fellow, and I never saw such perfection, both of line and colour, asthat. It is extraordinary; it excites one as an artist. Look, is thatWallace now going up to her?'

Kendal turned and saw a short fair man, with a dry keen American face, walk up to the beauty and speak to her. She greeted him cordially, with abeaming smile and bright emphatic movements of the head, and the threestrolled on. 

'Yes, that is Edward Wallace, --very much in it, apparently. That is theway Americans have. They always know everybody it's desirable to know. But now's your chance, Forbes. Stroll carelessly past them, catchWallace's eye, and the thing is done. '

Mr. Forbes had already dropped Kendal's arm, and was sauntering acrossthe room towards the chatting trio. Kendal watched the scene from adistance with some amusement; saw his friend brush carelessly past theAmerican, look back, smile, stop, and hold out his hand; evidently awhisper passed between them, for the next moment Mr. Forbes was making alow bow to the beauty, and immediately afterwards Kendal saw his finegray head and stooping shoulders disappear into the next room, side byside with Miss Bretherton's erect and graceful figure. 

Kendal betook himself once more to the pictures, and, presently findingsome acquaintances, made a rapid tour of the rooms with them, partingwith them at the entrance that he might himself go back and look at twoor three things in the sculpture room which he had been told wereimportant and promising. There he came across the American, EdwardWallace, who at once took him by the arm with the manner of an old friendand a little burst of laughter. 

'So you saw the introduction? What a man is Forbes! He is as young stillas he was at eighteen. I envy him. He took Miss Bretherton right round, talked to her of all his favourite hobbies, looked at her in a way whichwould have been awkward if it had been anybody else but such agentlemanly maniac as Forbes, and has almost made her promise to sit tohim. Miss Bretherton was a little bewildered, I think. She is so new toLondon that she doesn't know who's who yet in the least. I had to takeher aside and explain to her Forbes's honours; then she fired up--thereis a naïve hero-worship about her just now that she is fresh from acolony--and made herself as pleasant to him as a girl could be. Iprophesy Forbes will think of nothing else for the season. '

'Well, she's a brilliant creature, ' said Kendal. 'It's extraordinary howshe shone out beside the pretty English girls about her. It is anintoxicating possession for a woman, such beauty as that; it's likeroyalty; it places the individual under conditions quite unlike those ofcommon mortals. I suppose it's that rather than any real ability as anactress that has made her a success? I noticed the papers said asmuch--some more politely than others. '

'Oh, she's not much of an actress; she has no training, no _finesse_. Butyou'll see, she'll be the great success of the season. She has wonderfulgrace on the stage, and a fine voice in spite of tricks. And then her_Wesen_ is so attractive; she is such a frank, unspoilt, good-heartedcreature. Her audience falls in love with her, and that goes a long way. But I wish she had had a trifle more education and something worthcalling a training. Her manager, Robinson, talks of her attempting allthe great parts; but it's absurd. She talks very naïvely and prettilyabout "her art"; but really she knows no more about it than a baby, andit is perhaps part of her charm that she is so unconscious of herignorance. '

'It is strange how little critical English audiences are, ' said Kendal. 'I believe we are the simplest people in the world. All that we ask isthat our feelings should be touched a little, but whether by the art orthe artist doesn't matter. She has not been long playing in London, hasshe?'

'Only a few weeks. It's only about two months since she landed fromJamaica. She has a curious history, if you care to hear it; I don't thinkI've seen you at all since I made friends with her?'

'No, ' said Kendal; 'I was beginning to suspect that something absorbinghad got hold of you. I've looked for you two or three times at the club, and could not find you. '

'Oh, it's not Miss Bretherton that has taken up my time. She's so busythat nobody can see much of her. But I have taken her and her people out, two or three times, sight-seeing, since they came--Westminster Abbey, theNational Gallery, and so forth. She is very keen about everything, andthe Worralls--her uncle and aunt--stick to her pretty closely. '

'Where does she come from?'

'Well, her father was the Scotch overseer of a sugar plantation not farfrom Kingston, and he married an Italian, one of your fair Venetiantype--a strange race-combination; I suppose it's the secret of thebrilliancy and out-of-the-wayness of the girl's beauty. Her mother diedwhen she was small, and the child grew up alone. Her father, however, seems to have been a good sort of man, and to have looked after her. Presently she drew the attention of an uncle, a shopkeeper in Kingston, and a shrewd, hard, money-making fellow, who saw there was something tobe made out of her. She had already shown a turn for reciting, and hadperformed at various places--in the schoolroom belonging to the estate, and so on. The father didn't encourage her fancy for it, naturally, beingScotch and Presbyterian. However, he died of fever, and then the child atsixteen fell into her uncle's charge. He seems to have seen at onceexactly what line to take. To put it cynically, I imagine he arguedsomething like this: "Beauty extraordinary--character everything thatcould be desired--talent not much. So that the things to stake on are thebeauty and the character, and let the talent take care of itself. "Anyhow, he got her on to the Kingston theatre--a poor little placeenough--and he and the aunt, that sour-looking creature you saw with her, looked after her like dragons. Naturally, she was soon the talk ofKingston: what with her looks and her grace and the difficulty of comingnear her, the whole European society, the garrison, Government House, andall, were at her feet. Then the uncle played his cards for a Europeanengagement. You remember that Governor Rutherford they had a little timeago? the writer of that little set of drawing-room plays--_NineteenthCentury Interludes_, I think he called them? It was his last year, and hestarted for home while Isabel Bretherton was acting at Kingston. He camehome full of her, and, knowing all the theatrical people here, he wasable to place her at once. Robinson decided to speculate in her, telegraphed out for her, and here she is, uncle, aunt, and invalid sisterinto the bargain. '

'Oh, she has a sister?'

'Yes; a little, white, crippled thing, peevish--cripples generallyare--but full of a curious force of some hidden kind. Isabel is very goodto her, and rather afraid of her. It seems to me that she is afraid ofall her belongings. I believe they put upon her, and she has as muchcapacity as anybody I ever knew for letting herself be trampled upon. '

'What, that splendid, vivacious creature!' said Kendal incredulously. 'Ithink I'd back her for holding her own. '

'Ah, well, you see, ' said the American, with the quiet superiority of athree weeks' acquaintance, 'I know something of her by now, and she's notquite what you might think her at first sight. However, whether she isafraid of them or not, it's to be hoped they will take care of her. Naturally, she has a splendid physique, but it seems to me that Londontries her. The piece they have chosen for her is a heavy one, and then ofcourse society is down upon her, and in a few weeks she'll be the rage. '

'I haven't seen her at all, ' said Kendal, beginning perhaps to be alittle bored with the subject of Miss Bretherton, and turning, eye-glassin hand, towards the sculpture. 'Come and take me some evening. '

'By all means. But you must come and meet the girl herself at my sister'snext Friday. She will be there at afternoon tea. I told Agnes I shouldask anybody I liked. I warned her--you know her little weaknesses!--thatshe had better be first in the field: a month hence, it will beimpossible to get hold of Miss Bretherton at all. '

'Then I'll certainly come, and do my worshipping before the crowdcollects, ' said Kendal, adding, as he half-curiously shifted hiseye-glass so as to take in Wallace's bronzed, alert countenance, 'How didyou happen to know her?'

'Rutherford introduced me. He's an old friend of mine. '

'Well, ' said Kendal, moving off, 'Friday, then. I shall be very glad tosee Mrs. Stuart; it's ages since I saw her last. '

The American nodded cordially to him, and walked away. He was one ofthose pleasant, ubiquitous people who know every one and find time foreverything--a well-known journalist, something of an artist, and stillmore of a man of the world, who went through his London season with someoutward grumbling, but with a real inward zest such as few populardiners-out are blessed with. That he should have attached himself to thelatest star was natural enough. He was the most discreet and profitableof cicerones, with a real talent for making himself useful to nicepeople. His friendship for Miss Bretherton gave her a certain stamp inKendal's eyes, for Wallace had a fastidious taste in personalities andseldom made a mistake. 

Kendal himself walked home, busy with very different thoughts, and wassoon established at his writing-table in his high chambers overlooking aninner court of the Temple. It was a bright afternoon; the spring sunshineon the red roofs opposite was clear and gay; the old chimney-stacks, towering into the pale blue sky, threw sharp shadows on the rich red andorange surface of the tiles. Below, the court was half in shadow, andutterly quiet and deserted. To the left there was a gleam of green, atoning for its spring thinness and scantiness by a vivid energy ofcolour; while straight across the court, beyond the rich patchwork of theroofs and the picturesque outlines of the chimneys, a delicate piece ofwhite stone-work rose into air--the spire of one of Wren's churches, asdainty, as perfect, and as fastidiously balanced as the hand of man couldleave it. 

Inside, the room was such as fitted a studious bachelor of means. Thebook-cases on the walls held old college classics and law-booksunderneath, and above a miscellaneous literary library, of which themain bulk was French, while the side-wings, so to speak, had thattempting miscellaneous air--here a patch of German, there an islandof Italian; on this side rows of English poets, on the other anabundance of novels of all languages--which delights the fond heart ofthe book-lover. The pictures were mostly autotypes and photographs fromsubjects of Italian art, except in one corner, where a fine littlecollection of French historical engravings completely covered the wall, and drew a visitor's attention by the brilliancy of their black andwhite. On the writing-table were piles of paper-covered French books, representing for the most part the palmy days of the Romantics, thoughevery here and there were intervening strata of naturalism, balanced intheir turn by recurrent volumes of Sainte-Beuve. The whole had a studiousair. The books were evidently collected with a purpose, and the piles oforderly MSS. Lying on the writing-table seemed to sum up and explaintheir surroundings. 

The only personal ornament of the room was a group of photographs on themantelpiece. Two were faded and brown, and represented Kendal's parents, both of whom had been dead some years. The other was a large cabinetphotograph of a woman no longer very young--a striking-looking woman, with a fine worn face and a general air of distinction and character. There was a strong resemblance between her features and those of EustaceKendal, and she was indeed his elder and only sister, the wife of aFrench senator, and her brother's chief friend and counsellor. Madame deChâteauvieux was a very noticeable person, and her influence over Eustacehad been strong ever since their childish days. She was a woman who wouldhave justified a repetition in the present day of Sismondi's enthusiasticestimate of the women of the First Empire. She had that _mélange dumeilleur ton_, 'with the purest elegance of manner, and a store of variedinformation, with vivacity of impression and delicacy of feeling, which, 'as he declared to Madame d'Albany, 'belongs only to your sex, and isfound in its perfection only in the best society of France. '

In the days when she and Eustace had been the only children of adistinguished and wealthy father, a politician of some fame, andson-in-law to the Tory premier of his young days, she had always led andinfluenced her brother. He followed her admiringly through her Londonseasons, watching the impression she made, triumphing in her triumphs, and at home discussing every new book with her and sharing, at least inhis college vacations, the secretary's work for their father, which shedid excellently, and with a quick, keen, political sense which Eustacehad never seen in any other woman. She was handsome in her own refinedand delicate way, especially at night, when the sparkle of her white neckand arms and the added brightness of her dress gave her the accent andcolour she was somewhat lacking in at other times. Naturally, she was inno want of suitors, for she was rich and her father was influential, butshe said 'No' many times, and was nearly thirty before M. DeChâteauvieux, the first secretary of the French Embassy, persuaded her tomarry him. Since then she had filled an effective place in Parisiansociety. Her husband had abandoned diplomacy for politics, in which hisgeneral tendencies were Orleanist, while in literature he was well knownas a constant contributor to the _Revue des Deux Mondes_. He and his wifemaintained an interesting, and in its way influential, _salon_, whichprovided a meeting ground for the best English and French society, andshowed off at once the delicate quality of Madame de Châteauvieux'sintelligence and the force and kindliness of her womanly tact. 

Shortly after her marriage the father and mother died, within eighteenmonths of each other, and Eustace found his lot in life radicallychanged. He had been his father's secretary after leaving college, whichprevented his making any serious efforts to succeed at the bar, and inconsequence his interest, both of head and heart, had been moreconcentrated than is often the case with a young man within the walls ofhis home. He had admired his father sincerely, and the worth of hismother's loquacious and sometimes meddlesome tenderness he never realisedfully till he had lost it. When he was finally alone, it became necessaryfor him to choose a line in life. His sister and he divided his father'smoney between them, and Eustace found himself with a fortune such as inthe eyes of most of his friends constituted a leading of Providencetowards two things--marriage and a seat in Parliament. However, fortunately, his sister, the only person to whom he applied for advice, was in no hurry to press a decision in either case upon him. She saw thatwithout the stimulus of the father's presence, Eustace's interest inpolitics was less real than his interest in letters, nor did the timesseem to her propitious to that philosophic conservatism which might besaid to represent the family type of mind. So she stirred him up toreturn to some of the projects of his college days when he and she werefirst bitten with a passion for that great, that fascinating Frenchliterature which absorbs, generation after generation, the interests oftwo-thirds of those who are sensitive to the things of letters. Shesuggested a book to him which took his fancy, and in planning itsomething of the old zest of life returned to him. Moreover, it was abook which required him to spend a part of every year in Paris, and theneighbourhood of his sister was now more delightful to him than ever. 

So, after a time, he settled down contentedly in his London chambers withhis books about him, and presently found that glow of labour stealingover him which is at once the stimulus and the reward of every true sonof knowledge. His book reconciled him to life again, and soon he was asoften seen in the common haunts of London society as before. He dinedout, he went to the theatre, he frequented his club like other men, andevery year he spent three of the winter months in Paris, living in thebest French world, talking as he never talked in London, and cultivating, whether in the theatre or in the _salons_ of his sister's friends or inthe studios of some of the more eminent of French artists, a fastidiouscritical temper, which was rapidly becoming more and more exacting, moreand more master of the man. 

Now, on this May afternoon, as he settled himself down to his work, itwould have given any of those who liked Eustace Kendal--and they weremany--pleasure to see how the look of fatigue with which he had returnedfrom his round of the Academy faded away, how he shook back the tumblinggray locks from his eyes with the zest and the eagerness of one settingforth to battle, and how, as time passed on and the shadows deepened onthe white spire opposite, the contentment of successful labour showeditself in the slow unconscious caress which fell upon the back of thesleeping cat curled up in the chair beside him, or in the absent butstill kindly smile with which he greeted the punctual entrance of theservant, who at five o'clock came to put tea and the evening paper besidehim and to make up the fire, which crackled on with cheery companionablesounds through the lamp-lit evening and far into the night. 

CHAPTER II

Two or three days afterwards, Kendal, in looking over hisengagement-book, in which the entries were methodically kept, noticed'Afternoon tea, Mrs. Stuart's, Friday, ' and at once sent off a note toEdward Wallace, suggesting that they should go to the theatre together onThursday evening to see Miss Bretherton, 'for, as you will see, ' hewrote, 'it will be impossible for me to meet her with a good conscienceunless I have done my duty beforehand by going to see her perform. ' Tothis the American replied by a counter proposal. 'Miss Bretherton, ' hewrote, 'offers my sister and myself a box for Friday night; it will holdfour or five; you must certainly be of the party, and I shall askForbes. '

Kendal felt himself a little entrapped, and would have preferred to seethe actress under conditions more favourable to an independent judgment, but he was conscious that a refusal would be ungracious, so he accepted, and prepared himself to meet the beauty in as sympathetic a frame of mindas possible. 

On Friday afternoon, after a long and fruitful day's work, he foundhimself driving westward towards the old-fashioned Kensington house ofwhich Mrs. Stuart, with her bright, bird-like, American ways, hadsucceeded in making a considerable social centre. His mind was still fullof his work, phrases of Joubert or of Stendhal seemed to be stillfloating about him, and certain subtleties of artistic and criticalspeculation were still vaguely arguing themselves out within him as hesped westward, drawing in the pleasant influences of the spring sunshine, and delighting his eyes in the May green which was triumphing more andmore every day over the grayness of London, and would soon have reachedthat lovely short-lived pause of victory which is all that summer canhope to win amid the dust and crowd of a great city. 

Kendal was in that condition which is proper to men possessed of the trueliterary temperament, when the first fervour of youth for mere living isgone, when the first crude difficulties of accumulation are over, andwhen the mind, admitted to regions of an ampler ether and diviner airthan any she has inhabited before, feels the full charm and spell ofman's vast birthright of knowledge, and is seized with subtlercuriosities and further-reaching desires than anything she has yet beenconscious of. The world of fact and of idea is open, and the explorer'sinstruments are as perfect as they can be made. The intoxication ofentrance is full upon him, and the lassitude which is the inevitableNemesis of an unending task, and the chill which sooner or later descendsupon every human hope, are as yet mere names and shadows, counting fornothing in the tranquil vista of his life, which seems to lie spread outbefore him. It is a rare state, for not many men are capable of theapprenticeship which leads to it, and a breath of hostile circumstancemay put an end to it; but in its own manner and degree, and while itlasts, it is one of the golden states of consciousness, and a manenjoying it feels this mysterious gift of existence to have been a kindlyboon from some beneficent power. 

Arrived at Mrs. Stuart's, Kendal found a large gathering already fillingthe pleasant low rooms looking out upon trees at either end, upon whichMrs. Stuart had impressed throughout the stamp of her own keen littlepersonality. She was competent in all things--competent in her criticismof a book, and more than competent in all that pertained to the nicetiesof house management. Her dinner-parties, of which each was built up fromfoundation to climax with the most delicate skill and unity of plan; herpretty dresses, in which she trailed about her soft-coloured rooms; herenergy, her kindliness, and even the evident but quite innocent pursuitof social perfection in which she delighted--all made her popular; and itwas not difficult for her to gather together whom she would when shewished to launch a social novelty. On the present occasion she was verymuch in her element. All around her were people more or lessdistinguished in the London world; here was an editor, there an artist; ajunior member of the Government chatted over his tea with a foreignMinister, and a flow of the usual London chatter of a superior kind wasrippling through the room when Kendal entered. 

Mrs. Stuart put him in the way of a chair and of abundant chances ofconversation, and then left him with a shrug of her shoulders and awhisper, 'The beauty is shockingly late! Tell me what I shall do if allthese people are disappointed. ' In reality, Mrs. Stuart was beginning tobe restless. Kendal had himself arrived very late, and, as the talkflowed faster, and the room filled fuller of guests eager for the newsensation which had been promised them, the spirits of the little hostessbegan to sink. The Minister had surreptitiously looked at his watch, anda tiresome lady friend had said good-bye in a voice which might have beenlower, and with a lament which might have been spared. Mrs. Stuart setgreat store upon the success of her social undertakings, and to gather acrowd of people to meet the rising star of the season, and then to haveto send them home with only tea and talk to remember, was one of thosefailures which no one with any self-respect should allow themselves torisk. 

However, fortune was once more kind to one of her chief favourites. Mrs. Stuart was just listening with a tired face to the well-meant, butdepressing condolences of the barrister standing by her, who wasdescribing to her the 'absurd failure' of a party to meet the leadingactress of the _Comédie Française_, to which he had been invited in theprevious season, when the sound of wheels was heard outside. Mrs. Stuartmade a quick step forward, leaving her Job's comforter planted in themiddle of his story; the hum of talk dropped in an instant, and the crowdabout the door fell hastily back as it was thrown open and MissBretherton entered. 

What a glow and radiance of beauty entered the room with her! She came inrapidly, her graceful head thrown eagerly back, her face kindling and herhands outstretched as she caught sight of Mrs. Stuart. There was a vigourand splendour of life about her that made all her movements large andemphatic, and yet, at the same time, nothing could exceed the delicatefinish of the physical structure itself. What was indeed characteristicin her was this combination of extraordinary perfectness of detail, witha flash, a warmth, a force of impression, such as often raises the lowerkinds of beauty into excellence and picturesqueness, but is seldom foundin connection with those types where the beauty is, as it were, sufficient in and by itself, and does not need anything but its owninherent harmonies of line and hue to impress itself on the beholders. 

There were some, indeed, who maintained that the smallness and delicacyof her features was out of keeping with her stature and her ample glidingmotions. But here, again, the impression of delicacy was transformed halfway into one of brilliancy by the large hazel eyes and the vividwhiteness of the skin. Kendal watched her from his corner, where hisconversation with two musical young ladies had been suddenly suspended bythe arrival of the actress, and thought that his impression of the weekbefore had been, if anything, below the truth. 

'She comes into the room well, too, ' he said to himself critically; 'sheis not a mere milkmaid; she has some manner, some individuality. Ah, nowFernandez'--naming the Minister--'has got hold of her. Then, I suppose, Rushbrook (the member of the Government) will come next, and we commonermortals in our turn. What absurdities these things are!'

His reflections, however, were stopped by the exclamations of the girlsbeside him, who were already warm admirers of Miss Bretherton, and wildwith enthusiasm at finding themselves in the same room with her. Theydiscovered that he was going to see her in the evening; they envied him, they described the play to him, they dwelt in superlatives on the crowdedstate of the theatre and on the plaudits which greeted Miss Bretherton'sfirst appearance in the ballroom scene in the first act, and they allowedthemselves--being aesthetic damsels robed in sober greenish-grays--agentle lament over the somewhat violent colouring of one of the actress'scostumes, while all the time keeping their eyes furtively fixed on thegleaming animated profile and graceful shoulders over which, in theentrance of the second drawing-room, the Minister's gray head wasbending. 

Mrs. Stuart did her duty bravely. Miss Bretherton had announced to her, with a thousand regrets, that she had only half an hour to give. 'We poorprofessionals, you know, must dine at four. That made me late, and now Ifind I am such a long way from home that six is the latest moment I canstay. ' So that Mrs. Stuart was put to it to get through all theintroductions she had promised. But she performed her task withoutflinching, killing remorselessly each nascent conversation in the bud, giving artist, author, or member of Parliament his proper little sentenceof introduction, and at last beckoning to Eustace Kendal, who left hiscorner feeling society to be a foolish business, and wishing the ordealwere over. 

Miss Bretherton smiled at him as she had smiled at all the others, and hesat down for his three minutes on the chair beside her. 

'I hear you are satisfied with your English audiences, Miss Bretherton, 'he began at once, having prepared himself so far. 'To-night I am to havethe pleasure for the first time of making one of your admirers. '

'I hope it will please you, ' she said, with a shyness that was stillbright and friendly. 'You will be sure to come and see me afterwards? Ihave been arranging it with Mrs. Stuart. I am never fit to talk toafterwards, I get so tired. But it does one good to see one's friends; itmakes one forget the theatre a little before going home. '

'Do you find London very exciting?'

'Yes, very. People have been so extraordinarily kind to me, and it is allsuch a new experience after that little place Kingston. I should have myhead turned, I think, ' she added, with a happy little laugh, 'but thatwhen one cares about one's art one is not likely to think too much ofone's self. I am always despairing over what there is still to do, andwhat one may have done seems to make no matter. '

She spoke with a pretty humility, evidently meaning what she said, andyet there was such a delightful young triumph in her manner, such aninvulnerable consciousness of artistic success, that Kendal felt a secretstir of amusement as he recalled the criticisms which among his own sethe had most commonly heard applied to her. 

'Yes, indeed, ' he answered pleasantly. 'I suppose every artist feels thesame. We all do if we are good for anything--we who scribble as well asyou who act. '

'Oh yes, ' she said, with kindly, questioning eyes, 'you write a greatdeal? I know; Mr. Wallace told me. He says you are so learned, and thatyour book will be splendid. It must be grand to write books. I shouldlike it, I think, better than acting. You need only depend on yourself;but in acting you're always depending on some one else, and you get insuch a rage when all your own grand ideas are spoilt because the leadinggentleman won't do anything different from what he has been used to, orthe next lady wants to show off, or the stage manager has a grudgeagainst you! Something always happens. '

'Apparently the only thing that always happens to you is success, ' saidKendal, rather hating himself for the cheapness of the compliment. 'Ihear wonderful reports of the difficulty of getting a seat at the_Calliope_; and his friends tell me that Mr. Robinson looks ten yearsyounger. Poor man! it is time that fortune smiled on him. '

'Yes, indeed; he had a bad time last year. That Miss Harwood, theAmerican actress, that they thought would be such a success, didn't comeoff at all. She didn't hit the public. It doesn't seem to me that theEnglish public is hard to please. At that wretched little theatre inKingston I wasn't nearly so much at my ease as I am here. Here one canalways do one's best and be sure that the audience will appreciate it. Ihave all sorts of projects in my head. Next year I shall have a theatreof my own, I think, and then--'

'And then we shall see you in all the great parts?'

The beauty had just begun her answer when Kendal became conscious of Mrs. Stuart standing beside him, with another aspirant at her elbow, andnothing remained for him but to retire with a hasty smile and handshake, Miss Bretherton brightly reminding him that they should meet again. 

A few minutes afterwards there was once more a general flutter in theroom. Miss Bretherton was going. She came forward in her long flowingblack garments, holding Mrs. Stuart by the hand, the crowd dividing asshe passed. On her way to the door stood a child, Mrs. Stuart's youngest, looking at her with large wondering brown eyes, and finger on lip. Theactress suddenly stooped to her, lifted her up with the ease of physicalstrength into the midst of her soft furs and velvets, and kissed her witha gracious queenliness. The child threw its little white arms around her, smiled upon her, and smoothed her hair, as though to assure itself thatthe fairy princess was real. Then it struggled down, and in anotherminute the bright vision was gone, and the crowded room seemed to havegrown suddenly dull and empty. 

'That was prettily done, ' said Edward Wallace to Kendal as they stoodtogether looking on. 'In another woman those things would be done foreffect, but I don't think she does them for effect. It is as though shefelt herself in such a warm and congenial atmosphere, she is so sure ofherself and her surroundings, that she is able to give herself full play, to follow every impulse as it rises. There is a wonderful absence of_mauvaise honte_ about her, and yet I believe that, little as she knowsof her own deficiencies, she is really modest--'

'Very possibly, ' said Kendal; 'it is a curious study, a character takenso much _au naturel_, and suddenly transported into the midst of such aLondon triumph as this. I have certainly been very much attracted, andfeel inclined to quarrel with you for having run her down. I believe Ishall admire her more than you do to-night. '

'I only hope you may, ' said the American cordially; 'I am afraid, however, that from any standard that is worth using there is not much tobe said for her as an actress. But as a human being she is very nearlyperfection. '

The afternoon guests departed, and just as the last had gone, Mr. Forbeswas announced. He came in in a bad temper, having been delayed bybusiness, and presently sat down to dinner with Mrs. Stuart and Wallaceand Kendal in a very grumbling frame of mind. Mr. Stuart, a young andable lawyer, in the first agonies of real success at the bar, had sentword that he could not reach home till late. 

'I don't know, I'm sure, what's the good of going to see that girl withyou two carping fellows, ' he began, combatively, over his soup. 'Shewon't suit you, and you'll only spoil Mrs. Stuart's pleasure and mine. '

'My dear Forbes, ' said Wallace in his placid undisturbed way, 'you willsee I shall behave like an angel. I shall allow myself no unpleasantremarks, and I shall make as much noise as anybody in the theatre. '

'That's all very well; but if you don't say it, Kendal will look it; andI don't know which is the most damping. '

'Mrs. Stuart, you shall be the judge of our behaviour, ' said Kendal, smiling--he and Forbes were excellent friends. 'Forbes is not in ajudicial frame of mind, but we will trust you to be fair. I suppose, Forbes, we may be allowed a grumble or two at Hawes if you shut ourmouths on the subject of Miss Bretherton. '

'Hawes does his best, ' said Forbes, with a touch of obstinacy. 'He lookswell, he strides well, he is a fine figure of a man with a big bullyingvoice; I don't know what more you want in a German prince. It is thiseverlasting hypercriticism which spoils all one's pleasure and frightensall the character out of the artists!'

At which Mrs. Stuart laughed, and, woman-like, observed that she supposedit was only people who, like Forbes, had succeeded in disarming thecritics, who could afford to scoff at them, --a remark which drew a funnylittle bow, half-petulant, half-pleased, out of the artist, in whom oneof the strongest notes of character was his susceptibility to theattentions of women. 

'You've seen her already, I believe, ' said Wallace to Forbes. 'I thinkMiss Bretherton told me you were at the _Calliope_ on Monday. '

'Yes, I was. Well, as I tell you, I don't care to be critical. I don'twant to whittle away the few pleasures that this dull life can provide mewith by this perpetual discontent with what's set before one. Why can'tyou eat and be thankful? To _look_ at that girl is a liberal education;she has a fine voice too, and her beauty, her freshness, the energy oflife in her, give me every sort of artistic pleasure. What a curmudgeon Ishould be--what a grudging, ungrateful fellow, if, after all she has doneto delight me, I should abuse her because she can't speak out hertiresome speeches--which are of no account, and don't matter, to myimpression at all, --as well as one of your thin, French, snake-likecreatures who have nothing but their _art_, as you call it; nothing butwhat they have been carefully taught, nothing but what they havelaboriously learnt with time and trouble, to depend upon!'

Having delivered himself of this tirade, the artist threw himself back inhis chair, tossed back his gray hair from his glowing black eyes, andlooked defiance at Kendal, who was sitting opposite. 

'But, after all, ' said Kendal, roused, 'these tiresome speeches are her_métier_; it's her business to speak them, and to speak them well. Youare praising her for qualities which are not properly dramatic at all. Inyour studio they would be the only thing that a man need consider; on thestage they naturally come second. '

'Ah, well, ' said Forbes, falling to upon his dinner again at a gentlesignal from Mrs. Stuart that the carriage would soon be round, 'I knewvery well how you and Wallace would take her. You and I will have todefend each other, Mrs. Stuart, against those two shower-baths, and whenwe go to see her afterwards I shall be invaluable, for I shall be able tosave Kendal and Wallace the humbug of compliments. '

Whereupon the others protested that they would on no account be deprivedof their share of the compliments, and Wallace especially laid it downthat a man would be a poor creature who could not find smooth things tosay upon any conceivable occasion to Isabel Bretherton. Besides, he sawher every day, and was in excellent practice. Forbes looked a littlescornful, but at this point Mrs. Stuart succeeded in diverting hisattention to his latest picture, and the dinner flowed on pleasantly tillthe coffee was handed and the carriage announced. 

CHAPTER III

On their arrival at the theatre armed with Miss Bretherton's order, Mrs. Stuart's party found themselves shown into a large roomy box close to thestage--too close, indeed, for purposes of seeing well. The house wasalready crowded, and Kendal noticed, as he scanned the stalls and boxesthrough his opera-glass, that it contained a considerable sprinkling ofnotabilities of various kinds. It was a large new theatre, which hithertohad enjoyed but a very moderate share of popular favour, so that thebrilliant and eager crowd with which it was now filled was in itself asufficient testimony to the success of the actress who had wrought sogreat a transformation. 

'What an experience this is for a girl of twenty-one, ' whispered Kendalto Mrs. Stuart, who was comfortably settled in the farther corner of thebox, her small dainty figure set off by the crimson curtains behind it. 'One would think that an actor's life must stir the very depths of a manor woman's individuality, that it must call every power into action, andstrike sparks out of the dullest. '

'Yes; but how seldom it is so!'

'Well, in England, at any rate, the fact is, their training is soimperfect they daren't let themselves go. It's only when a man possessesthe lower secrets of his art perfectly that he can aim at the higher. Butthe band is nearly through the overture. Just tell me before the curtaingoes up something about the play. I have only very vague ideas about it. The scene is laid at Berlin?'

'Yes; in the Altes Schloss at Berlin. The story is based upon the legendof the White Lady. '

'What? the warning phantom of the Hohenzollerns?'

Mrs. Stuart nodded. 'A Crown-Prince of Prussia is in love with thebeautiful Countess Hilda von Weissenstein. Reasons of State, however, oblige him to throw her over and to take steps towards marriage with aPrincess of Würtemberg. They have just been betrothed when the Countess, mad with jealousy, plays the part of the White Lady and appears to thePrincess, to try and terrify her out of the proposed marriage. '

'And the Countess is Miss Bretherton?'

'Yes. Of course the malicious people say that her get-up as the WhiteLady is really the _raison d'etre_ of the piece. But hush! there is thesignal. Make up your mind to be bored by the Princess; she is one of theworst sticks I ever saw!'

The first scene represented the ballroom at the Schloss, or rather theroyal anteroom, beyond which the vista of the ballroom opened. ThePrussian and Würtemberg royalties had not yet arrived, with the exceptionof the Prince Wilhelm, on whose matrimonial prospects the play was toturn. He was engaged in explaining the situation to his friend, Waldemarvon Rothenfels, the difficulties in which he was placed, his passion forthe Countess Hilda, the political necessities which forced him to marry adaughter of the House of Würtemberg, the pressure brought to bear uponhim by his parents, and his own despair at having to break the news tothe Countess. 

The story is broken off by the arrival of the royalties, including thepink-and-white maiden who is to be Prince Wilhelm's fate, and the royalquadrille begins. The Prince leads his Princess to her place, when it isdiscovered that another lady is required to complete the figure, and an_aide-de-camp_ is despatched into the ballroom to fetch one. He returns, ushering in the beautiful Hilda von Weissenstein. 

For this moment the audience had been impatiently waiting, and when thedazzling figure in its trailing, pearl-embroidered robes appeared in thedoorway of the ballroom, a storm of applause broke forth again and again, and for some minutes delayed the progress of the scene. 

Nothing, indeed, could have been better calculated than this opening todisplay the peculiar gifts of the actress. The quadrille was a statelyspectacular display, in which splendid dress and stirring music and theeffects of rhythmic motion had been brought freely into play for thedelight of the beholders. Between the figures there was a littleskilfully-managed action, mostly in dumb show. The movements of thejealous beauty and of her faithless lover were invested throughout withsufficient dramatic meaning to keep up the thread of the play. But it wasnot the dramatic aspect of the scene for which the audience cared, it wassimply for the display which it made possible of Isabel Bretherton'syouth and grace and loveliness. They hung upon her every movement, andKendal found himself following her with the same eagerness of eye asthose about him, lest any phase of that embodied poetry should escapehim. 

In this introductory scene, the elements which went to make up the spellshe exercised over her audience were perfectly distinguishable. Kendal'sexplanation of it to himself was that it was based upon an exceptionalnatural endowment of physical perfection, informed and spiritualised bycertain moral qualities, by simplicity, frankness, truth of nature. Therewas a kind of effluence of youth, of purity, of strength, about her whichit was impossible not to feel, and which evidently roused theenthusiastic sympathy of the great majority of those who saw her. 

Forbes was sitting in the front of the box with Mrs. Stuart, his shaggygray head and keen lined face attracting considerable attention in theirneighbourhood. He was in his most expansive mood; the combativeness of anhour before had disappeared, and the ardent susceptible temperament ofthe man was absorbed in admiration, in the mere sensuous artist's delightin a stirring and beautiful series of impressions. When the white dressdisappeared through the doorway of the ballroom, he followed it with asigh of regret, and during the scene which followed between the Princeand his intended bride, he hardly looked at the stage. The Princess, indeed, was all that Mrs. Stuart had pronounced her to be; she wasstiffer and clumsier than even her Teutonic _rôle_ could justify, and shemarched laboriously through her very proper and virtuous speeches, evidently driven on by an uneasy consciousness that the audience was onlyeager to come to the end of them and of her. 

In the little pause which followed the disappearance of thenewly-betrothed pair into the distant ballroom, Mrs. Stuart leantbackward over her chair and said to Kendal:

'Now then, Mr. Kendal, prepare your criticisms! In the scene which isjust coming Miss Bretherton has a good deal more to do than to lookpretty!'

'Oh, but you forget our compact!' said Kendal. 'Remember you are to bethe judge of our behaviour at the end. It is not the part of a judge totempt those on whom he is to deliver judgment to crime. '

'Don't put too much violence on yourselves!' said Mrs. Stuart, laughing. 'You and Edward can have the back of the box to talk what heresy you likein, so long as you let Mr. Forbes perform his devotions undisturbed. '

At this Forbes half turned round, and shook his great mane, under whichgleamed a countenance of comedy menace, at the two men behind him. But inanother instant the tones of Isabel Bretherton's voice riveted hisattention, and the eyes of all those in the box were once more turnedtowards the stage. 

The scene which followed was one of the most meritorious passages in therather heavy German play from which the _White Lady_ had been adapted. Itwas intended to show the romantic and passionate character of theCountess, and to suggest that vein of extravagance and daring in herwhich was the explanation of the subsequent acts. In the original thedialogue had a certain German force and intensity, which lost nothing ofits occasional heaviness in the mouth of Hawes, the large-bonedswaggering personage who played the Prince. An actress with sufficientforce of feeling, and an artistic sense subtle enough to suggest to herthe necessary modulations, could have made a great mark in it. But thefirst words, almost, revealed Isabel Bretherton's limitations, and beforetwo minutes were over Kendal was conscious of a complete collapse of thatsympathetic relation between him and the actress which the first scenehad produced. In another sentence or two the spell had been irrevocablybroken, and he seemed to himself to have passed from a state ofsensitiveness to all that was exquisite and rare in her to a state ofmere irritable consciousness of her defects. It was evident to him thatin a scene of great capabilities she never once rose beyond the tricks ofan elementary elocution, that her violence had a touch of commonness init which was almost vulgarity, and that even her attitudes had lost halftheir charm. For, in the effort--the conscious and laboured effort ofacting--her movements, which had exercised such an enchantment over himin the first scene, had become mere strides and rushes, never indeedwithout grace, but often without dignity, and at all times lacking inthat consistency, that unity of plan which is the soul of art. 

The sense of chill and disillusion was extremely disagreeable to him, and, by the time the scene was half-way through, he had almost ceased towatch her. Edward Wallace, who had seen her some two or three times inthe part, was perfectly conscious of the change, and had been looking outfor it. 

'Not much to be said for her, I am afraid, when she comes to business, 'he said to Kendal in a whisper, as the two leant against the door of thebox. 'Where did she get those tiresome tricks she has, that see-sawintonation she puts on when she wants to be pathetic, and that absurdrestlessness which spoils everything? It's a terrible pity. Sometimes Ithink I catch a gleam of some original power at the bottom, but there issuch a lack of intelligence--in the artist's sense. It is a strikinginstance of how much and how little can be done without education. '

'It is curiously bad, certainly, ' said Kendal, while the actress'sdenunciations of her lover were still ringing through the theatre. 'Butlook at the house! What folly it is ever to expect a great dramatic artin England. We have no sense for the rudiments of the thing. The Frenchwould no more tolerate such acting as this because of the beauty of theactress than they would judge a picture by its frame. However, if menlike Forbes leave their judgment behind them, it's no wonder if commonermortals follow suit. '

'There!' said Wallace, with a sigh of relief as the curtain fell on thefirst act, 'that's done with. There are two or three things in the secondact that are beautiful. In her first appearance as the White Lady she isas wonderful as ever, but the third act is a nuisance--'

'No whispering there, ' said Forbes, looking round upon them. 'Oh, I knowwhat you're after, Edward, perfectly. I hear it all with one ear. '

'That, ' said Wallace, moving up to him, 'is physically impossible. Don'tbe so pugnacious. We leave you the front of the box, and when we appearin your territory our mouths are closed. But in our own domain we claimthe rights of free men. '

'Poor girl!' said Forbes, with a sigh. 'How she manages to tame London asshe does is a marvel to me! If she were a shade less perfect andwonderful than she is, she would have been torn to pieces by you criticslong ago. You have done your best as it is, only the public won't listento you. Oh, don't suppose I don't see all that you see. The criticalpoison's in my veins just as it is in yours, but I hold it in check--itshan't master me. I will have my pleasure in spite of it, and when I comeacross anything in life that makes me _feel_, I will protect my feelingfrom it with all my might. '

'We are dumb, ' said Kendal, with a smile; 'otherwise I would pedanticallyask you to consider what are the feelings to which the dramatic artproperly and legitimately appeals. '

'Oh, hang your dramatic art, ' said Forbes, firing up; 'can't you takethings simply and straightforwardly? She is there--she is doing her bestfor you--there isn't a movement or a look which isn't as glorious as thatof a Diana come to earth, and you won't let it charm you and conquer you, because she isn't into the bargain as confoundedly clever as you areyourselves! Well, it's your loss, not hers. '

'My dear Mr. Forbes, ' said Mrs. Stuart, with her little judicialpeace-making air, 'we shall all go away contented. You will have had yoursensation, they will have had their sense of superiority, and, as for me, I shall get the best of it all round. For, while you are here, I see MissBretherton with your eyes, and yet, as Edward will get hold of me on theway home, I shan't go to bed without having experienced all the joys ofcriticism! Oh! but now hush, and listen to this music. It is one of thebest things in the evening, and we shall have the White Lady directly. '

As she spoke, the orchestra, which was a good one, and perhaps the mostsatisfactory feature in the performance, broke into some weirdMendelssohnian music, and when the note of plaintiveness and mystery hadbeen well established, the curtain rose upon the great armoury of thecastle, a dim indistinguishable light shining upon its fretted roof andmasses of faintly gleaming steel. The scene which followed, in which theCountess Hilda, disguised as the traditional phantom of theHohenzollerns, whose appearance bodes misfortune and death to those whobehold it, throws herself across the path of her rival in the hope ofdriving her and those interested in her by sheer force of terror from thecastle and from Berlin, had been poetically conceived, and it furnishedMiss Bretherton with an admirable opportunity. As the White Lady, glidingbetween rows of armed and spectral figures on either hand, and startlingthe Princess and her companion by her sudden apparition in a gleam ofmoonlight across the floor, she was once more the representative of allthat is most poetical and romantic in physical beauty. Nay, more thanthis; as she flung her white arms above her head, or pointed to theshrinking and fainting figure of her rival while she uttered her wailingtraditional prophecy of woe, her whole personality seemed to be investedwith a dramatic force of which there had been no trace in the long andviolent scene with the Prince. It was as though she was in some sortcapable of expressing herself in action and movement, while in all thearts of speech she was a mere crude novice. At any rate, there could beno doubt that in this one scene she realised the utmost limits of theauthor's ideal, and when she faded into the darkness beyond the moonlightin which she had first appeared, the house, which had been breathlesslysilent during the progress of the apparition, burst into a roar ofapplause, in which Wallace and Kendal heartily joined. 

'Exquisite!' said Kendal in Mrs. Stuart's ear, as he stood behind herchair. 'She was romance itself! Her acting should always be a kind ofglorified and poetical pantomime; she would be inimitable so. '

Mrs. Stuart looked up and smiled agreement. 'Yes, that scene lives withone. If everything else in the play is poor, she is worth seeing for thatalone. _Remember it_!'

The little warning was in season, for the poor White Lady had but toomany after opportunities of blurring the impression she had made. In thegreat situation at the end of the second act, in which the Countess hasto give, in the presence of the Court, a summary of the supposed story ofthe White Lady, her passion at once of love and hatred charges it with aforce and meaning which, for the first time, rouses the suspicions of thePrince as to the reality of the supposed apparition. In the two or threefine and dramatic speeches which the situation involved, the actressshowed the same absence of knowledge and resources as before, the samepowerlessness to create a personality, the same lack of all those quickerand more delicate perceptions which we include under the general term'refinement, ' and which, in the practice of any art, are the outcome oflong and complex processes of education. There, indeed, was the bald, plain fact--the whole explanation of her failure as an artist lay in herlack both of the lower and of the higher kinds of education. It wasevident that her technical training had been of the roughest. In alltechnical respects, indeed, her acting had a self-taught, provincial air, which showed you that she had natural cleverness, but that her models hadbeen of the poorest type. And in all other respects--when it came tointerpretation or creation--she was spoilt by her entire want of thatinheritance from the past which is the foundation of all good work in thepresent. For an actress must have one of the two kinds of knowledge: shemust have either the knowledge which comes from a fine training--initself the outcome of a long tradition--or she must have the knowledgewhich comes from mere living, from the accumulations of personal thoughtand experience. Miss Bretherton had neither. She had extraordinary beautyand charm, and certainly, as Kendal admitted, some original quickness. Hewas not inclined to go so far as to call it 'power. ' But this quickness, which would have been promising in a _debutante_ less richly endowed onthe physical side, seemed to him to have no future in her. 'It will bechecked, ' he said to himself, 'by her beauty and all that flows from it. She must come to depend more and more on the physical charm, and on thatonly. The whole pressure of her success is and will be that way. '

Miss Bretherton's inadequacy, indeed, became more and more visible as theplay was gradually and finely worked up to its climax in the last act. Inthe final scene of all, the Prince, who by a series of accidents hasdiscovered the Countess Hilda's plans, lies in wait for her in thearmoury, where he has reason to know she means to try the effect of athird and last apparition upon the Princess. She appears; he suddenlyconfronts her; and, dragging her forward, unveils before himself and thePrincess the death-like features of his old love. Recovering from theshock of detection, the Countess pours out upon them both a fury ofjealous passion, sinking by degrees into a pathetic, trance-likeinvocation of the past, under the spell of which the Prince's anger meltsaway, and the little Princess's terror and excitement change into eagerpity. Then, when she sees him almost reconquered, and her rival weepingbeside her, she takes the poison phial from her breast, drinks it, anddies in the arms of the man for whose sake she has sacrificed beauty, character, and life itself. 

A great actress could hardly have wished for a better opportunity. Thescene was so obviously beyond Miss Bretherton's resources that even theenthusiastic house, Kendal fancied, cooled down during the progress ofit. There were signs of restlessness, there was even a little talking insome of the back rows, and at no time during the scene was there any ofthat breathless absorption in what was passing on the stage which thedramatic material itself amply deserved. 

'I don't think this will last very long, ' said Kendal in Wallace's ear. 'There is something tragic in a popularity like this; it rests onsomething unsound, and one feels that disaster is not far off. The wholething impresses me most painfully. She has some capacity, of course; ifonly the conditions had been different--if she had been born within ahundred miles of the Paris Conservatoire, if her youth had been passed ina society of more intellectual weight, --but, as it is, this very applauseis ominous, for the beauty must go sooner or later, and there is nothingelse. '

'You remember Desforêts in this same theatre last year in _AdrienneLecouvreur_?' said Wallace. 'What a gulf between the right thing and thewrong! But come, we must do our duty;' and he drew Kendal forward towardsthe front of the box, and they saw the whole house on its feet, clappingand shouting, and the curtain just being drawn back to let the White Ladyand the Prince appear before it. She was very pale, but the storm ofapplause which greeted her seemed to revive her, and she swept hersmiling glance round the theatre, until at last it rested with a specialgleam of recognition on the party in the box, especially on Forbes, whowas outdoing himself in enthusiasm. She was called forward again andagain, until at last the house was content, and the general exit began. 

The instant after her white dress had disappeared from the stage, alittle page-boy knocked at the door of the box with a message that 'MissBretherton begs that Mrs. Stuart and her friends will come and see her. 'Out they all trooped, along a narrow passage, and up a short staircase, until a rough temporary door was thrown open, and they found themselvesin the wings, the great stage, on which the scenery was being hastilyshifted, lying to their right. The lights were being put out; only a fewgas-jets were left burning round a pillar, beside which stood IsabelBretherton, her long phantom dress lying in white folds about her, heruncle and aunt and her manager standing near. Every detail of thepicture--the spot of brilliant light bounded on all sides by dim, far-reaching vistas of shadow, the figures hurrying across the back ofthe stage, the moving ghost-like workmen all around, and in the midstthat white-hooded, languid figure--revived in Kendal's memory whenever inafter days his thoughts went wandering back to the first moment of realcontact between his own personality and that of Isabel Bretherton. 

CHAPTER IV

A few days after the performance of the _White Lady_, Kendal, in thecourse of his weekly letter to his sister, sent her a fairly-detailedaccount of the evening, including the interview with her after the play, which had left two or three very marked impressions upon him. 'I wish, 'he wrote, 'I could only convey to you a sense of her personal charm suchas might balance the impression of her artistic defects, which I supposethis account of mine cannot but leave on you. When I came away that nightafter our conversation with her I had entirely forgotten her failure asan actress, and it is only later, since I have thought over the eveningin detail, that I have returned to my first standpoint of wonder at theeasy toleration of the English public. When you are actually with her, talking to her, looking at her, Forbes's attitude is the only possibleand reasonable one. What does art, or cultivation, or training matter!--Ifound myself saying, as I walked home, in echo of him, --so long as Naturewill only condescend once in a hundred years to produce for us a creatureso perfect, so finely fashioned to all beautiful uses! Let other peoplego through the toil to acquire; their aim is truth: but here is beauty inits quintessence, and what is beauty but three parts of truth? Beauty isharmony with the universal order, a revelation of laws and perfections ofwhich, in our common groping through a dull world, we find in generalnothing to remind us. And if so, what folly to ask of a human creaturethat it should be more than beautiful! It is a messenger from the gods, and we treat it as if it were any common traveller along the highway oflife, and cross-examine it for its credentials instead of raising ouraltar and sacrificing to it with grateful hearts!

'That was my latest impression of Friday night. But, naturally, bySaturday morning I had returned to the rational point of view. The mind'smorning climate is removed by many degrees from that of the evening; andthe critical revolt which the whole spectacle of the _White Lady_ hadoriginally roused in me revived in all its force. I began, indeed, tofeel as if I and humanity, with its long laborious tradition, were on oneside, holding our own against a young and arrogant aggressor--namely, beauty, in the person of Miss Bretherton! How many men and women, Ithought, have laboured and struggled and died in the effort to reach ahigher and higher perfection in one single art, and are they to beoutdone, eclipsed in a moment, by something which is a mere freak ofnature, something which, like the lilies of the field, has neither toilednor spun, and yet claims the special inheritance and reward of those whohave! It seemed to me as though my feeling in her presence of the nightbefore, as if the sudden overthrow of the critical resistance in me hadbeen a kind of treachery to the human cause. Beauty has power enough, Ifound myself reflecting with some fierceness, --let us withhold from her asway and a prerogative which are not rightfully hers; let us defendagainst her that store of human sympathy which is the proper reward, notof her facile and heaven-born perfections, but of labour andintelligence, of all that is complex and tenacious in the workings of thehuman spirit. 

'And then, as my mood cooled still further, I began to recall many anevening at the _Français_ with you, and one part after another, one actorafter another, recurred to me, till, as I realised afresh what dramaticintelligence and dramatic training really are, I fell into an angrycontempt for our lavish English enthusiasms. Poor girl! it is not herfault if she believes herself to be a great actress. Brought up undermisleading conditions, and without any but the most elementary education, how is she to know what the real thing means? She finds herself the ragewithin a few weeks of her appearance in the greatest city of the world. Naturally, she pays no heed to her critics, --why should she?

'And she is indeed a most perplexing mixture. Do what I will I cannotharmonise all my different impressions of her. Let me begin again. Why isit that her acting is so poor? I never saw a more dramatic personality!Everything that she says or does is said or done with a warmth, a force, a vivacity that make her smallest gesture and her lightest tone impressthemselves upon you. I felt this very strongly two or three times afterthe play on Friday night. In her talk with Forbes, for instance, whom shehas altogether in her toils, and whom she plays with as though he werethe gray-headed Merlin and she an innocent Vivien, weaving harmlessspells about him. And then, from this mocking war of words and looks, this gay camaraderie, in which there was not a scrap of coquetry orself-consciousness, she would pass into a sudden outburst of anger as tothe impertinence of English rich people--the impertinence of richmillionaires who have tried once or twice to "order" her for theirevening parties as they would order their ices, or the impertinence ofthe young "swell about town" who thinks she has nothing to do behind thescenes but receive his visits and provide him with entertainment. And, asthe quick impetuous words came rushing out, you felt that here for oncewas a woman speaking her real mind to you, and that with a flashing eyeand curving lip, an inborn grace and energy which made every wordmemorable. If she would but look like that or speak like that on thestage! But there, of course, is the rub. The whole difficulty of artconsists in losing your own personality, so to speak, and finding itagain transformed, and it is a difficulty which Miss Bretherton has nevereven understood. 

'After this impression of spontaneity and natural force, I think whatstruck me most was the physical effect London has already exercised uponher in six weeks. She looks superbly sound and healthy; she is tall andfully developed, and her colour, for all its delicacy, is pure andglowing. But, after all, she was born in a languid tropical climate, andit is the nervous strain, the rush, the incessant occupation of Londonwhich seem to be telling upon her. She gave me two or three times apainful impression of fatigue on Friday--fatigue and something likedepression. After twenty minutes' talk she threw herself back against theiron pillar behind her, her White Lady's hood framing a face so pale anddrooping that we all got up to go, feeling that it was cruelty to keepher up a minute longer. Mrs. Stuart asked her about her Sundays, andwhether she ever got out of town. "Oh, " she said, with a sigh and a lookat her uncle, who was standing near, "I think Sunday is the hardest dayof all. It is our 'at home' day, and such crowds come--just to look atme, I suppose, for I cannot talk to a quarter of them. " Whereupon Mr. Worrall said in his bland commercial way that society had its burdens aswell as its pleasures, and that his dear niece could hardly escape hersocial duties after the flattering manner in which London had welcomedher. Miss Bretherton answered, with a sort of languid rebellion, that hersocial duties would soon be the death of her. But evidently she is verydocile at home, and they do what they like with her. It seems to me thatthe uncle and aunt are a good deal shrewder than the London public; it isborne in upon me by various indications that they know exactly what theirniece's popularity depends on, and that it very possibly may not be along-lived one. Accordingly, they have determined on two things: first, that she shall make as much money for the family as can by any means bemade; and, secondly, that she shall find her way into London society, andsecure, if possible, a great _parti_ before the enthusiasm for her hashad time to chill. One hears various stories of the uncle, all in thissense; I cannot say how true they are. 

'However, the upshot of the supper-party was that next day Wallace, Forbes, and I met at Mrs. Stuart's house, and formed a Sunday Leaguefor the protection of Miss Bretherton from her family; in other words, we mean to secure that she has occasional rest and country air onSunday--her only free day. Mrs. Stuart has already wrung out of Mrs. Worrall, by a little judicious scaring, permission to carry her off fortwo Sundays--one this month and one next--and Miss Bretherton's romanticside, which is curiously strong in her, has been touched by thesuggestion that the second Sunday should be spent at Oxford. 

'Probably for the first Sunday--a week hence--we shall go to Surrey. Youremember Hugh Farnham's property near Leith Hill? I know all the farmsabout there from old shooting days, and there is one on the edge of somegreat commons, which would be perfection on a May Sunday. I will writeyou a full account of our day. The only rule laid down by the League isthat things are to be so managed that Miss Bretherton is to have nopossible excuse for fatigue so long as she is in the hands of thesociety. 

'My book goes on fairly well. I have been making a long study of DeMusset, with the result that the poems seem to me far finer than I hadremembered, and the _Confessions d' un Enfant du Siècle_ a miserableperformance. How was it it impressed me so much when I read it first? Hispoems have reminded me of you at every step. Do you remember how you usedto read them aloud to our mother and me after dinner, while the fatherhad his sleep before going down to the House?'

Ten days later Kendal spent a long Monday evening in writing thefollowing letter to his sister:--

'Our yesterday's expedition was, I think, a great success. Mrs. Stuartwas happy, because she had for once induced Stuart to put away his papersand allow himself a holiday; it was Miss Bretherton's first sight of thegenuine English country, and she was like a child among the gorse and thehawthorns, while Wallace and I amused our manly selves extremely well inbefriending the most beautiful woman in the British Isles, in drawing herout and watching her strong naive impressions of things. Stuart, I think, was not quite happy. It is hardly to be expected of a lawyer in thecrisis of his fortunes that he should enjoy ten hours' divorce from hisbriefs; but he did his best to reach the common level, and his wife, whois devoted to him, and might as well not be married at all, from thepoint of view of marital companionship, evidently thought him perfection. The day more than confirmed my liking for Mrs. Stuart; there are certainlittle follies about her; she is too apt to regard every distinguisheddinner-party she and Stuart attend as an event of enormous and universalinterest, and beyond London society her sympathies hardly reach, exceptin that vague charitable form which is rather pity and toleration thansympathy. But she is kindly, womanly, soft; she has no small jealousiesand none of that petty self-consciousness which makes so many womenwearisome to the great majority of plain men, who have no wish to taketheir social exercises too much _au sérieux. _

'I was curious to see what sort of a relationship she and Miss Brethertonhad developed towards each other. Mrs. Stuart is nothing if notcultivated; her light individuality floats easily on the stream of Londonthought, now with this current, now with that, but always in movement, never left behind. She has the usual literary and artistic topics at herfingers' end, and as she knows everybody, whenever the more abstractsides of a subject begin to bore her, she can fall back upon an endlessstore of gossip as lively, as brightly-coloured, and, on the whole, asharmless as she herself is. Miss Bretherton had till a week or two agobut two subjects--Jamaica and the stage--the latter taken in a somewhatnarrow sense. Now, she has added to her store of knowledge a great numberof first impressions of London notorieties, which naturally throw hermind and Mrs. Stuart's more frequently into contact with each other. ButI see that, after all, Mrs. Stuart had no need of any bridges of thiskind to bring her on to common ground with Isabel Bretherton. Her strongwomanliness and the leaven of warm-hearted youth still stirring in herwould be quite enough of themselves, and, besides, there is her criticaldelight in the girl's beauty, and the little personal pride andexcitement she undoubtedly feels at having, in so creditable and naturala manner, secured a hold on the most interesting person of the season. Itis curious to see her forgetting her own specialities, and neglecting tomake her own points, that she may bring her companion forward and set herin the best light. Miss Bretherton takes her homage very prettily; it isnatural to her to be made much of, and she does not refuse it, but she inher turn evidently admires enormously her friend's social capabilitiesand cleverness, and she is impulsively eager to make some return for Mrs. Stuart's kindness--an eagerness which shows itself in the greatestcomplaisance towards all the Stuarts' friends, and in a constantwatchfulness for anything which will please and flatter them. 

'However, here I am as usual wasting time in analysis instead ofdescribing to you our Sunday. It was one of those heavenly days withwhich May startles us out of our winter pessimism, sky and earth seemedto be alike clothed in a young iridescent beauty. We found a carriagewaiting for us at the station, and we drove along a great main road untila sudden turn landed us in a green track traversing a land of endlesscommons, as wild and as forsaken of human kind as though it were a regionin some virgin continent. On either hand the gorse was thick and golden, great oaks, splendid in the first dazzling sharpness of their springgreen, threw vast shadows over the fresh moist grass beneath, and overthe lambs sleeping beside their fleecy mothers, while the hawthorns roseinto the sky in masses of rose-tinted snow, each tree a shining miracleof white set in the environing blue. 

'Then came the farmhouse--old, red-brick, red-tiled, casemented--everything that the aesthetic soul desires--the farmer andhis wife looking out for us, and a pleasant homely meal ready in theparlour, with its last-century woodwork. 

'Forbes was greatly in his element at lunch. I never knew him more racy;he gave us biographies, mostly imaginary, illustrated by sketches, madein the intervals of eating, of the sitters whose portraits he hascondescended to take this year. They range from a bishop and a royaltydown to a little girl picked up in the London streets, and hispresentation of the characteristic attitudes of each--those attitudeswhich, according to him, betray the "inner soul" of the bishop or thefoundling--was admirable. Then he fell upon the Academy--that respectedbody of which I suppose he will soon be the President--and tore it limbfrom limb. With what face I shall ever sit at the same table with him atthe Academy dinners of the future--supposing fortune ever exalts me againas she did this year to that august meal--I hardly know. Millais's faces, Pettie's knights, or Calderon's beauties--all fared the same. You couldnot say it was ill-natured; it was simply the bare truth of things put inthe whimsical manner which is natural to Forbes. 

'Miss Bretherton listened to and laughed at it all, finding her waythrough the crowd of unfamiliar names and allusions with a woman'scleverness, looking adorable all the time in a cloak of some brown velvetstuff, and a large hat also of brown velvet. She has a beautiful hand, fine and delicate, not specially small, but full of character; it waspleasant to watch it playing with her orange, or smoothing back every nowand then the rebellious locks which will stray, do what she will, beyondthe boundaries assigned to them. Presently Wallace was ill-advised enoughto ask her which pictures she had liked best at the Private View; shereplied by picking out a ballroom scene of Forth's and an unutterablemawkish thing of Halford's--a troubadour in a pink dressing-gown, gracefully intertwined with violet scarves, singing to a party of robustyoung women in a "light which never was on sea or land. " "You could countall the figures in the first, " she said, "it was so lifelike, so real;"and then Halford was romantic, the picture was pretty, and she liked it. I looked at Forbes with some amusement; it was gratifying, rememberingthe rodomontade with which Wallace and had been crushed on the night ofthe _White Lady_, to see him wince under Miss Bretherton's liking of theworst art in England! Is the critical spirit worth something, or is itsuperfluous in theatrical matters and only indispensable in matters ofpainting! I think he caught the challenge in my eye, for he evidentlyfelt himself in some little difficulty. 

'"Oh, you couldn't, " he said with a groan, "you couldn't like thatballroom, --and that troubadour, Heaven forgive us! Well, there must besomething in it, --there must be something in it, if it really gives youpleasure, --I daresay there is; we're so confoundedly uppish in the way welook at things. If either of them had a particle of drawing or a scrap oftaste, if both of them weren't as bare as a broomstick of the leastvestige of gift, or any suspicion of knowledge, there might be a gooddeal to say for them! Only, my dear Miss Bretherton, you see it's reallynot a matter of opinion; I assure you it isn't. I could prove to you asplain as that two and two make four, that Halford's figures don't join inthe middle, and that Forth's men and women are as flat as my hand--thereisn't a back among them! And then the taste, and the colour, and theclap-trap idiocy of the sentiment! No, I don't think I can stand it. I amall for people getting enjoyment where they can, " with a defiant look atme, "and snapping their fingers at the critics. But one must draw theline somewhere. There's some art that's out of court from the beginning. "

'I couldn't resist it. 

'"Don't listen to him, Miss Bretherton, " I cried. "If I were you Iwouldn't let him spoil your pleasure; the great thing is to _feel_;defend your feeling against him! It's worth more than his criticisms. "

'Forbes's eyes looked laughing daggers at me from under his shaggy whitebrows. Mrs. Stuart and Wallace kept their countenances to perfection; butI had him, there's no denying it. 

'"Oh, I know nothing about it, " said Isabel Bretherton, divinelyunconscious of the little skirmish going on around her. "You must teachme, Mr. Forbes. I only know what touches me, what I like--that's all Iknow in anything. "

'"It's all we any of us know, " said Wallace airily. "We begin with 'Ilike' and 'I don't like, ' then we begin to be proud, and makedistinctions and find reasons; but the thing beats us, and we come backin the end to 'I like' and 'I don't like. '"

'The lunch over, we strolled out along the common, through heather whichas yet was a mere brown expanse of flowerless undergrowth, and copseswhich overhead were a canopy of golden oak-leaf, and carpeted underneathwith primroses and the young up-curling bracken. Presently through alittle wood we came upon a pond lying wide and blue before us under thebreezy May sky, its shores fringed with scented fir-wood and the wholeair alive with birds. We sat down under a pile of logs fresh-cut andfragrant, and talked away vigorously. It was a little difficult often tokeep the conversation on lines which did not exclude Miss Bretherton. Forbes, the Stuarts, Wallace, and I are accustomed to be together, andone never realises what a freemasonry the intercourse even of a capitalis until one tries to introduce an outsider into it. We talked thetheatre, of course, the ways of different actors, the fortunes ofmanagers. Isabel Bretherton naturally has as yet seen very little; hercomments were mainly personal, and all of a friendly, enthusiastic kind, for the profession has been very cordial to her. A month or five weeksmore and her engagement at the _Calliope_ will be over. There are othertheatres open to her, of course, and all the managers are at her feet;but she has set her heart upon going abroad for some time, and has, Iimagine, made so much money this season that the family cannot in decencyobject to her having her own way. "I am wild to get to Italy, " she saidto me in her emphatic, impetuous way. "Sir Walter Rutherford has talkedto me so much about it that I am beginning to dream of it. I long to havedone with London and be off! This English sun seems to me so chilly, " andshe drew her winter cloak about her with a little shiver, although theday was really an English summer day, and Mrs. Stuart was in cotton. "Icome from such warmth, and I loved it. I have been making acquaintancewith all sorts of horrors since I came to London--face-ache andrheumatism and colds!--I scarcely knew there were such things in theworld. And I never knew what it was to be tired before. Sometimes I canhardly drag through my work. I hate it so: it makes me cross like anaughty child!"

'"Do you know, " I said, flinging myself down beside her on the grass andlooking up at her, "that it's altogether wrong? Nature never meant you tofeel tired; it's monstrous, it's against the natural order of things!"

'"It's London, " she said, with her little sigh and the drooping lip thatis so prettily pathetic. "I have the roar in my ears all day, and itseems to be humming through my sleep at night. And then the crowd, andthe hurry people are in, and the quickness and sharpness of things! But Ihave only a few weeks more, " she added, brightening, "and then by OctoberI shall be more used to Europe--the climate and the life. "

'I am much impressed, and so is Mrs. Stuart, by the struggle her nervousstrength is making against London. All my nursing of you, Marie, and ofour mother has taught me to notice these things in women, and I findmyself taking often a very physical and medical view of Miss Bretherton. You see, it is a case of a northern temperament and constitution relaxedby tropical conditions, and then exposed once more in an exceptionaldegree to the strain and stress of northern life. I rage when I think ofsuch a piece of physical excellence marred and dimmed by our harshEnglish struggle. And all for what? For a commonplace, make-believe art, vulgarising in the long run both to the artist and the public! There is asense of tragic waste about it. Suppose London destroys her health--thereare some signs of it--what a futile, ironical pathos there would be init. I long to step in, to "have at" somebody, to stop it. 

'A little incident later on threw a curious light upon her. We had movedon to the other side of the pond and were basking in the fir-wood. Theafternoon sun was slanting through the branches on to the bosom of thepond; a splendid Scotch fir just beside us tossed out its red-limbedbranches over a great bed of green reeds, starred here and there withyellow irises. The woman from the keeper's cottage near had brought usout some tea, and most of us had fallen into a sybaritic frame of mind inwhich talk seemed to be a burden on the silence and easeful peace of thescene. Suddenly Wallace and Forbes fell upon the question of Balzac, ofwhom Wallace has been making a study lately, and were soon landed in adiscussion of Balzac's method of character-drawing. Are Eugène deRastignac, le Père Goriot, and old Grandet real beings or mereincarnations of qualities, mathematical deductions from a given point? Atlast I was drawn in, and the Stuarts: Stuart has trained his wife inBalzac, and she has a dry original way of judging a novel, which isstimulating and keeps the ball rolling. It was the first time that thetalk had not centred in one way or another round Miss Bretherton, who, ofcourse, was the first consideration throughout the day in all our minds. We grew vehement and forgetful, till at last a little movement of hersdiverted the general current. She had taken off her hat and was leaningback against the oak under which she sat, watching with parted lips and agaze of the purest delight and wonder the movements of a nut-hatchoverhead, a creature of the woodpecker kind, with delicate purple grayplumage, who was tapping the branch above her for insects with his largedisproportionate bill, and then skimming along to a sand-bank a littledistance off, where he disappeared with his prey into his nest. 

'"Ha!" said Wallace, who is a bird-lover, "a truce to Balzac, and let uswatch those nut-hatches! Miss Bretherton's quite right to prefer them toFrench novels. "

'"French novels!" she said, withdrawing her eyes from the branch aboveher, and frowning a little at Wallace as she spoke. "Please don't expectme to talk about them--I know nothing about them--I have never wishedto. "

'Her voice had a tone almost of hauteur in it. I have noticed it before. It is the tone of the famous actress accustomed to believe in herself andher own opinion. I connected it, too, with all one hears of herdetermination to look upon herself as charged with a mission for thereform of stage morals. French novels and French actresses! apparentlyshe regards them all as so many unknown horrors, standing in the way ofthe purification of dramatic art by a beautiful young person with a highstandard of duty. It is very odd! Evidently she is the ScotchPresbyterian's daughter still, for all her profession, and her success, and her easy ways with the Sabbath! Her remark produced a good deal ofunregenerate irritation in me. If she were a first-rate artist to beginwith, I was inclined to reflect, this moral enthusiasm would touch andcharm one a good deal more; as it is, considering her position, it israther putting the cart before the horse. But, of course, one canunderstand that it is just these traits in her that help her to make theimpression she does on London society and the orthodox public in general. 

'Wallace and I went off after the nut-hatches, enjoying a private laughby the way over Mrs. Stuart's little look of amazement and discomfort asMiss Bretherton delivered herself. When we came back we found Forbessketching her--she sitting rather flushed and silent under the tree, andhe drawing away and working himself at every stroke into a greater andgreater enthusiasm. And certainly she was as beautiful as a dream, sitting against that tree, with the brown heather about her and the youngoak-leaves overhead. But I returned in an antagonistic frame of mind, alittle out of patience with her and her beauty, and wondering why Naturealways blunders somewhere!

'However, on the way home she had another and a pleasanter surprise forme. A carriage was waiting for us on the main road, and we strolledtowards it through the gorse and the trees and the rich level eveninglights. I dropped behind for some primroses still lingering in bloombeside a little brook; she stayed too, and we were together, out ofear-shot of the rest. 

'"Mr. Kendal, " she said, looking straight at me, as I handed the flowersto her, "you may have misunderstood something just now. I don't want topretend to what I haven't got. I don't know French, and I can't readFrench novels if I wished to ever so much. "

'What was I to say? She stood looking at me seriously, a little proudly, having eased her conscience, as it seemed to me, at some cost to herself. I felt at first inclined to turn the thing off with a jest, but suddenlyI thought to myself that I too would speak my mind. 

'"Well, " I said deliberately, walking on beside her; "you lose a gooddeal. There are hosts of French novels which I would rather not see awoman touch with the tips of her fingers; but there are others, whichtake one into a bigger world than we English people with our parochialways of writing and seeing have any notion of. George Sand carries youfull into the mid-European stream--you feel it flowing, you are broughtinto contact with all the great ideas, all the big interests; she is aneducation in herself. And then Balzac! he has such a range and breadth, he teaches one so much of human nature, and with such conscience, suchforce of representation! It's the same with their novels as with theirtheatre. Whatever other faults he may have, a first-rate Frenchman of theartistic sort takes more pains over his work than anybody else in theworld. They don't shirk, they throw their life-blood into it, whetherit's acting, or painting, or writing. You've never seen Desforêts, Ithink?--no, of course not, and you will be gone before she comes again. What a pity!"

'Miss Bretherton picked one of my primroses ruthlessly to pieces, andflung it away from her with one of her nervous gestures. "I am notsorry, " she said. "Nothing would have induced me to go and see her. "

'"Indeed!" I said, waiting a little curiously for what she would saynext. 

'"It's not that I am jealous of her, " she exclaimed, with a quick proudlook at me; "not that I don't believe she's a great actress; but I can'tseparate her acting from what she is herself. It is women like that whobring discredit on the whole profession--it is women like that who makepeople think that no good woman can be an actress. I resent it, and Imean to take the other line. I want to prove, if I can, that a woman maybe an actress and still be a lady, still be treated just as you treat thewomen you know and respect! I mean to prove that there need never be aword breathed against her, that she is anybody's equal, and that herprivate life is her own, and not the public's! It makes my blood boil tohear the way people--especially men--talk about Madame Desforêts; thereis not one of you who would let your wife or your sister shake hands withher, and yet how you rave about her, how you talk as if there werenothing in the world but genius--and French genius!"

'It struck me that I had got to something very much below the surface inMiss Bretherton. It was a curious outburst; I remembered how often hercritics had compared her to Desforêts, greatly to her disadvantage. Wasthis championship of virtue quite genuine? or was it merely the bestmeans of defending herself against a rival by the help of Britishrespectability?

'"Mme. Desforêts, " I said, perhaps a little drily, "is a riddle to herbest friends, and probably to herself; she does a thousand wild, imprudent, _bad_ things if you will, but she is the greatest actress themodern world has seen, and that's something to have done for yourgeneration. To have moved the feelings and widened the knowledge ofthousands by such delicate, such marvellous, such conscientious work ashers--there is an achievement so great, so masterly, that I for one willthrow no stones at her!"

'It seemed to me all through as though I were speaking perversely; Icould have argued on the other side as passionately as Isabel Brethertonherself; but I was thinking of her dialogue with the Prince, of thatfeeble, hysterical death-scene, and it irritated me that she, with herbeauty, and with British Philistinism and British virtue to back her, should be trampling on Desforêts and genius. But I was conscious of myaudacity. If a certain number of critics have been plain-spoken, IsabelBretherton has none the less been surrounded for months past with peoplewho have impressed upon her that the modern theatre is a very doubtfulbusiness, that her acting is as good as anybody's, and that her specialmission is to regenerate the manners of the stage. To have the naked, artistic view thrust upon her--that it is the actress's business to_act_, and that if she does that well, whatever may be her personalshort-comings, her generation has cause to be grateful to her--must berepugnant to her. She, too, talks about art, but it is like a child wholearns a string of long words without understanding them. She walked onbeside me while I cooled down and thought what a fool I had been toendanger a friendship which had opened so well, --her wonderful lipsopening once or twice as though to speak, and her quick breath coming andgoing as she scattered the yellow petals of the flowers far and wide witha sort of mute passion which sent a thrill through me. It was as thoughshe could not trust herself to speak, and I waited awkwardly onProvidence, wishing the others were not so far off. But suddenly thetension of her mood seemed to give way. Her smile flashed out, and sheturned upon me with a sweet, eager graciousness, quite indescribable. 

'"No, we won't throw stones at her! She _is_ great, I know, but thatother feeling is so strong in me. I care for my art; it seems to megrand, magnificent!--but I think I care still more for making peoplefeel it is work a good woman can do, for holding my own in it, andasserting myself against the people who behave as if all actresses haddone the things that Madame Desforêts has done. Don't think me narrow andjealous. I should hate you and the Stuarts to think that of me. You haveall been so kind to me--such good, real friends! I shall never forgetthis day--Oh! look, there is the carriage standing up there. I wish itwas the morning and not the evening, and that it might all come again! Ihate the thought of London and that hot theatre to-morrow night. Oh, myprimroses! What a wretch I am! I've lost them nearly all. Look, just thatbunch over there, Mr. Kendal, before we leave the common. "

'I sprang to get them for her, and brought back a quantity. She took themin her hand--how unlike other women she is after all, in spite of herhatred of Bohemia!--and, raising them to her lips, she waved a farewellthrough them to the great common lying behind us in the evening sun. "Howbeautiful! how beautiful! This English country is so kind, so friendly!It has gone to my heart. Good-night, you wonderful place!"

'She had conquered me altogether. It was done so warmly--with such awinning, spontaneous charm. I cannot say what pleasure I got out of thoseprimroses lying in her soft ungloved hand all the way home. Henceforward, I feel she may make what judgments and draw what lines she pleases; shewon't change me, and I have some hopes of modifying her; but I am notvery likely to feel annoyance towards her again. She is like some frank, beautiful, high-spirited child playing a game she only half understands. I wish she understood it better. I should like to help her to understandit--but I won't quarrel with her, even in my thoughts, any more!

 * * * * *

'On looking over this letter it seems to me that ifyou were not you, and I were not I, you might withsome plausibility accuse me of being--what?--in lovewith Miss Bretherton? But you know me too well. You know I am one of the old-fashioned people whobelieve in community of interests--in belonging to thesame world. When I come coolly to think about it, Ican hardly imagine two worlds, whether outwardly orinwardly, more wide apart than mine and MissBretherton's. '

CHAPTER V

During the three weeks which elapsed between the two expeditions of the'Sunday League, ' Kendal saw Miss Bretherton two or three times undervarying circumstances. One night he took it into his head to go to thepit of the _Calliope_, and came away more persuaded than before that asan actress there was small prospect for her. Had she been an ordinarymortal, he thought the original stuff in her might have been disciplinedinto something really valuable by the common give and take, the normalrubs and difficulties of her profession. But, as it was, she had beenlifted at once by the force of one natural endowment into a positionwhich, from the artistic point of view, seemed to him hopeless. Herinstantaneous success--dependent as it was on considerations whollyoutside those of dramatic art--had denied her all the advantages whichare to be won from struggle and from laborious and gradual conquest. Andmore than this, it had deprived her of an ideal; it had tended to makeher take her own performance as the measure of the good and possible. For, naturally, it was too much to expect that she herself should analysetruly the sources and reasons of her popularity. She must inevitablybelieve that some, at least, of it was due to her dramatic talent initself. 'Perhaps some of it is, ' Kendal would answer himself. 'It is verypossible that I am not quite fair to her. She has all the faults whichrepel me most. I could get over anything but this impression of bareblank ignorance which she makes upon me. And as things are at present, itis impossible that she should learn. It might be interesting to have theteaching of her! But it could only be done by some one with whom she camenaturally into frequent contact. Nobody could thrust himself in upon her. And she seems to know very few people who could be of any use to her. '

On another occasion he came across her in the afternoon at Mrs. Stuart's. The conversation turned upon his sister, Madame de Châteauvieux, for whomMrs. Stuart had a warm but very respectful admiration. They had met twoor three times in London, and Madame de Châteauvieux's personaldistinction, her refinement, her information, her sweet urbanity ofmanner, had made a great impression upon the lively little woman, who, from the lower level of her own more commonplace and conventional successin society, felt an awe-struck sympathy for anything so rare, so unlikethe ordinary type. Her intimacy with Miss Bretherton had not gone farbefore the subject of 'Mr. Kendal's interesting sister' had beenintroduced, and on this particular afternoon, as Kendal entered herdrawing-room, his ear was caught at once by the sound of Marie's name. Miss Bretherton drew him impulsively into the conversation, and he foundhimself describing his sister's mode of life, her interests, her world, her belongings, with a readiness such as he was not very apt to show inthe public discussion of any subject connected with himself. But IsabelBretherton's frank curiosity, her kindling eyes and sweet parted lips, and that strain of romance in her which made her so quickly responsive toanything which touched her imagination, were not easy to resist. She wasdelightful to his eye and sense, and he was as conscious as he had everbeen of her delicate personal charm. Besides, it was pleasant to him totalk of that Parisian world, in which he was himself vitally interested, to any one so naive and fresh. Her ignorance, which on the stage hadannoyed him, in private life had its particular attractiveness. And, withregard to this special subject, he was conscious of breaking down aprejudice; he felt the pleasure of conquering a great reluctance in her. Evidently on starting in London she had set herself against everythingthat she identified with the great Trench actress who had absorbed thetheatre-going public during the previous season; not from personaljealousy, as Kendal became ultimately convinced, but from a sense of keenmoral revolt against Madame Desforêts's notorious position and thestories of her private life which were current in all circles. She haddecided in her own mind that French art meant a tainted art, and she hadshown herself very restive--Kendal had seen something of it on theirSurrey expedition--under any attempts to make her share the interestwhich certain sections of the English cultivated public feel in foreignthought, and especially in the foreign theatre. Kendal took particularpains, when they glided off from the topic of his sister to more generalmatters, to make her realise some of the finer aspects of the Frenchworld of which she knew so little, and which she judged so harshly; thelaborious technical training to which the dwellers on the other side ofthe channel submit themselves so much more readily than the English inany matter of art; the intellectual conscientiousness and refinement dueto the pressure of an organised and continuous tradition, and so on. Herealised that a good deal of what he said or suggested must naturally belost upon her. But it was delightful to feel her mind yielding to his, while it stimulated her sympathy and perhaps roused her surprise to findin him every now and then a grave and unpretending response to thosemoral enthusiasms in herself which were too real and deep for much directexpression. 

'Whenever I am next in Paris, she said to him, when she perforce rose togo, with that pretty hesitation of manner which was so attractive in her, 'would you mind--would Madame de Châteauvieux, --if I asked you tointroduce me to your sister? It would be a great pleasure to me. '

Kendal made a very cordial reply, and they parted knowing more of eachother than they had yet done. Not that his leading impression of her wasin any way modified. Incompetent and unpromising as an artist, delightfulas a woman, --had been his earliest verdict upon her, and his convictionof its reasonableness had been only deepened by subsequent experience;but perhaps the sense of delightfulness was gaining upon the sense ofincompetence? After all, beauty and charm and sex have in all ages beentoo much for the clever people who try to reckon without them. Kendal wasfar too shrewd not to recognise the very natural and reasonable characterof the proceeding, and not to smile at the first sign of it in his ownperson. Still, he meant to try, if he could, to keep the two estimatesdistinct, and neither to confuse himself nor other people by confoundingthem. It seemed to him an intellectual point of honour to keep his headperfectly cool on the subject of Miss Bretherton's artistic claims, buthe was conscious that it was not always very easy to do--a consciousnessthat made him sometimes all the more recalcitrant under the pressure ofher celebrity. 

For it seemed to him that in society he heard of nothing but her--herbeauty, her fascination, and her success. At every dinner-table he heardstories of her, some of them evident inventions, but all tending in thesame direction--that is to say, illustrating either the girl's proudindependence and her determination to be patronised by nobody, not evenby royalty itself, or her lavish kind-heartedness and generosity towardsthe poor and the inferiors of her own profession. She was for the momentthe great interest of London, and people talked of her popularity andsocial prestige as a sign of the times and a proof of the changedposition of the theatre and of those belonging to it. Kendal thought itproved no more than that an extremely beautiful girl of irreproachablecharacter, brought prominently before the public in any capacitywhatever, is sure to stir the susceptible English heart, and that IsabelBretherton's popularity was not one which would in the long run affectthe stage at all. But he kept his reflections to himself, and in generaltalked about her no more than he was forced to do. He had a sort ofchivalrous feeling that those whom the girl had made in any degree herpersonal friends ought, as far as possible, to stand between her and thisinquisitive excited public. And it was plain to him that the enormoussocial success was not of her seeking, but of her relations. 

One afternoon, between six and seven, Kendal was working alone in hisroom with the unusual prospect of a clear evening before him. He hadfinished a piece of writing, and was standing before the fire deep inthought over the first paragraphs of his next chapter, when he heard aknock; the door opened, and Wallace stood on the threshold. 

'May I come in? It's a shame to disturb you; but I've really gotsomething important to talk to you about. I want your advice badly. '

'Oh, come in, by all means. Here's some cold tea; will you have some? orwill you stay and dine? I must dine early to-night for my work. I'll ringand tell Mason. '

'No, don't; I can't stay. I must be in Kensington at eight. ' He threwhimself into Kendal's deep reading-chair, and looked up at his friendstanding silent and expectant on the hearth-rug. 'Do you remember thatplay of mine I showed you in the spring?'

Kendal took time to think. 

'Perfectly; you mean that play by that young Italian fellow which youaltered and translated? I remember it quite well. I have meant to ask youabout it once or twice lately. '

'You thought well of it, I know. Well, my sister has got me into the mostuncomfortable hobble about it. You know I hadn't taken it to any manager. I've been keeping it by me, working it up here and there. I am in no wantof money just now, and I had set my heart on the thing's being reallygood--well written and well acted. Well, Agnes, in a rash moment two orthree days ago, and without consulting me, told Miss Bretherton the wholestory of the play, and said that she supposed I should soon want somebodyto bring it out for me. Miss Bretherton was enormously struck with theplot, as Agnes told it to her, and the next time I saw her she insistedthat I should read some scenes from it to her--'

'Good heavens! and now she has offered to produce it and play theprincipal part in it herself, ' interrupted Kendal. 

Wallace nodded. 'Just so; you see, my relations with her are so friendlythat it was impossible for me to say no. But I never was in a greaterfix. She was enthusiastic. She walked up and down the room after I'd donereading, repeating some of the passages, going through some of thesituations, and wound up by saying, "Give it me, Mr. Wallace! It shall bethe first thing I bring out in my October season--if you will let me haveit. " Well, of course, I suppose most people would jump at such an offer. Her popularity just now is something extraordinary, and I see no signs ofits lessening. Any piece she plays in is bound to be a success, and Isuppose I should make a good deal of money out of it; but then, you see, I don't want the money, and--'

'Yes, yes, I see, ' said Kendal, thoughtfully; 'you don't want the money, and you feel that she will ruin the play. It's a great bore certainly. '

'Well, you know, how could she help ruining it? She couldn't play thepart of Elvira--you remember the plot?--even decently. It's an extremelydifficult part. It would be superb--I think so, at least--in the handsof an actress who really understood her business; but Miss Brethertonwill make it one long stagey scream, without any modulation, any shades, any delicacy. It drives one wild to think of it. And yet how, in thename of fortune, am I to get out of it?'

'You had thought, ' said Kendal, 'I remember, of Mrs. Pearson for theheroine. '

'Yes; I should have tried her. She is not first-rate, but at least she isintelligent; she understands something of what you want in a part likethat. But for poor Isabel Bretherton, and those about her, the greatpoints in the play will be that she will have long speeches and be ableto wear "medieval" dresses! I don't suppose she ever heard of Aragon inher life. Just imagine her playing a high-born Spanish woman of thefifteenth century! Can't you see her?'

'Well, after all, ' said Kendal, with a little laugh, 'I should see whatthe public goes for mostly--that is to say, Isabel Bretherton ineffective costume. No, it would be a great failure--not a failure, ofcourse, in the ordinary sense. Her beauty, the medieval get-up, and theromantic plot of the piece, would carry it through, and, as you say, youwould probably make a great deal by it. But, artistically, it would be aghastly failure. And Hawes! Hawes, I suppose, would play Macias? Goodheavens!'

'Yes, ' said Wallace, leaning his head on his hands and looking gloomilyout of window at the spire of St. Bride's Church. 'Pleasant, isn't it?But what on earth am I to do? I never was in a greater hole. I'm not theleast in love with that girl, Kendal, but there isn't anything she askedme to do for her that I wouldn't do if I could. She's the warmest-heartedcreature--one of the kindest, frankest, sincerest women that everstepped. I feel at times that I'd rather cut my hand off than hurt herfeelings by throwing her offer in her face, and yet, that play has beenthe apple of my eye to me for months; the thought of seeing it spoilt byclumsy handling is intolerable to me. '

'I suppose it would hurt her feelings, ' said Kendal meditatively, 'if yourefused?'

'Yes, ' said Wallace emphatically; 'I believe it would wound herextremely. You see, in spite of all her success, she is beginning to beconscious that there are two publics in London. There is the smallfastidious public of people who take the theatre seriously, and there isthe large easy-going public who get the only sensation they want out ofher beauty and her personal prestige. The enthusiasts have no difficulty, as yet, in holding their own against the scoffers, and for a long timeMiss Bretherton knew and cared nothing for what the critical people said, but of late I have noticed at times that she knows more and cares morethan she did. It seems to me that there is a little growing soreness inher mind, and just now if I refuse to let her have that play it willdestroy her confidence in her friends, as it were. She won't reproach me, she won't quarrel with me, but it will go to her heart. Do, for heaven'ssake, Kendal, help me to some plausible fiction or other!'

'I wish I could, ' said Kendal, pacing up and down, his gray hair fallingforward over his brow. There was a pause, and then Kendal walkedenergetically up to his friend and laid his hand on his shoulder. 

'You oughtn't to let her have that play, Wallace; I'm quite clear onthat. You know how much I like her. She's all you say, and more; but artis art, and acting is acting. I, at any rate, take these thingsseriously, and you do too. We rejoice in it for her sake; but, after all, when one comes to think of it, this popularity of hers is enough to makeone despair. Sometimes I think it will throw back the popular dramatictaste for years. At any rate, I am clear that if a man has got hold of afine work of art, as you have in that play, he has a duty to it and tothe public. You are bound to see it brought out under the best possibleconditions, and we all know that Miss Bretherton's acting, capped withHawes's, would kill it, from the artistic point of view. '

'Perfectly true, perfectly true, ' said Wallace. 'Well, would you have metell her so?'

'You must get out of it somehow. Tell her that the part is one you feelwon't suit her--won't do her justice. '

'Much good that would do! She thinks the part just made for her--costumesand all. '

'Well, then, say you haven't finished your revision, and you must havetime for more work at it; that will postpone the thing, and she will hearof something else which will put it out of her head. '

'There are all sorts of reasons against that, ' said Wallace; 'it's hardlyworth while going through them. In the first place, she wouldn't believeme; in the second, she won't forget it, whatever happens, and it wouldonly put the difficulty off a few weeks at most. I feel so stupid aboutthe whole thing. I like her too much. I'm so afraid of saying anything tohurt her, that I can't _finesse_. All my wits desert me. I say, Kendal!'

'Well?'

Wallace hesitated, and glanced up at his friend with his most winningexpression. 

'Do you think _you_ could earn my eternal gratitude and manage the thingfor me? You know we're going to Oxford next Sunday, and I suppose weshall go to Nuneham, and there will be opportunities for walks, and soon. Could you possibly take it in hand? She has an immense respect foryou intellectually. If you tell her that you're sure the part won't suither, that she won't do herself justice in it; if you could lead theconversation on to it and try to put her out of love for the schemewithout seeming to have a commission from me in any way, I should beindeed everlastingly obliged! You wouldn't make a mess of it, as I shouldbe sure to do. You'd keep your head cool. '

'Well!' said Kendal, laughing, balancing himself on the table facingWallace. 'That's a tempting prospect! But if I don't help you out you'llgive in, I know; you're the softest of men, and I don't want you to givein. '

'Yes, of course I shall give in, ' said Wallace, with smiling decision. 'If you don't want me to, suppose you take the responsibility. I've knownyou do difficult things before; you manage somehow to get your own waywithout offending people. '

'H'm, ' said Kendal; 'I don't know whether that's flattering or not. ' Hebegan to walk up and down the room again cogitating. 'I don't mindtrying, ' he said at last, 'in a very gingerly way. I can't, of course, undertake to be brutal. It would be impossible for any one to treat _her_roughly. But there might be ways of doing it. There's time to think overthe best way of doing it. Supposing, however, she took offence?Supposing, after Sunday next, she never speaks to either of us again?'

'Oh!' said Wallace, wincing, 'I should give up the play at once if shereally took it to heart. She attaches one to her. I feel towards her asthough she were a sister--only more interesting, because there's thecharm of novelty. '

Kendal smiled. 'Miss Bretherton hasn't got to that yet with me. Sisters, to my mind, are as interesting as anybody, and more so. But how on earth, Wallace, have you escaped falling in love with her all this time?'

'Oh, I had enough of that last year, ' said Wallace abruptly, rising andlooking for his overcoat, while his face darkened; 'it's an experience Idon't take lightly. '

Kendal was puzzled; then his thoughts quickly put two and two together. He remembered a young Canadian widow who had been a good deal at Mrs. Stuart's house the year before; he recalled certain suspicions of his ownabout her and his friend--her departure from London and Wallace's longabsence in the country. But he said nothing, unless there was sympathy inthe cordial grip of his hand as he accompanied the other to the door. 

On the threshold Wallace turned irresolutely. 'It will be a risk nextSunday, ' he said; 'I'm determined it shan't be anything more. She is notthe woman, I think, to make a quarrel out of a thing like that. '

'Oh no, ' said Kendal; 'keep your courage up. I think it may be managed. You give me leave to handle _Elvira_ as I like. '

'Oh heavens, yes!' said Wallace; 'get me out of the scrape any way youcan, and I'll bless you for ever. What a brute I am never to have askedafter your work! Does it get on?'

'As much as any work can in London just now. I must take it away with mesomewhere into the country next month. It doesn't like dinner-parties. '

'Like me, ' said Wallace, with a shrug. 

'Nonsense!' said Kendal; 'you're made for them. Good-night. '

'Good-night. It's awfully good of you. '

'What? Wait till it's well over!'

Wallace ran down the stairs and was gone. Kendal walked back slowly intohis room and stood meditating. It seemed to him that Wallace did notquite realise the magnificence of his self-devotion. 'For, after all, it's an awkward business, ' he said to himself, shaking his head over hisown temerity. 'How I am to come round a girl as frank, as direct, asunconventional as that, I don't quite know! But she ought not to havethat play; it's one of the few good things that have been done for theEnglish stage for a long time past. It's well put together, the plotgood, three or four strongly marked characters, and some fine VictorHugoish dialogue, especially in the last act. But there is extravagancein it, as there is in all the work of that time, and in IsabelBretherton's hands a great deal of it would be grotesque: nothing wouldsave it but her reputation and the get-up, and that would be too greata shame. No, no; it will not do to have the real thing swamped by allsorts of irrelevant considerations in this way. I like Miss Brethertonheartily, but I like good work, and if I can save the play from her, Ishall save her too from what everybody with eyes in his head would see tobe a failure!'

It was a rash determination. Most men would have prudently left thematter to those whom it immediately concerned, but Kendal had a Quixoticside to him, and at this time in his life a whole-hearted devotion tocertain intellectual interests, which decided his action on a point likethis. In spite of his life in society, books and ideas were at thismoment much more real to him than men and women. He judged life from thestandpoint of the student and the man of letters, in whose eyesconsiderations, which would have seemed abstract and unreal to otherpeople, had become magnified and all-important. In this matter of Wallaceand Miss Bretherton he saw the struggle between an ideal interest, so tospeak, and a personal interest, and he was heart and soul for the ideal. Face to face with the living human creature concerned, his principles, aswe have seen, were apt to give way a little, for the self underneath waswarm-hearted and impressionable, but in his own room and by himself theywere strong and vigorous, and would allow of no compromise. 

He ruminated over the matter during his solitary meal, planning his lineof action. 'It all depends, ' he said to himself, 'on that, --if whatWallace says about her is true, if my opinion has really any weight withher, I shall be able to manage it without offending her. It's good of herto speak of me as kindly as she seems to do; I was anything but amiableon that Surrey Sunday. However, I felt then that she liked me all thebetter for plain-speaking; one may be tolerably safe with her that shewon't take offence unreasonably. What a picture she made as she pulledthe primroses to pieces--it seemed all up with one! And then her smileflashing out--her eagerness to make amends--to sweep away a harshimpression--her pretty gratefulness--enchanting!'

On Saturday, at lunch-time, Wallace rushed in for a few minutes to saythat he himself had avoided Miss Bretherton all the week, but that thingswere coming to a crisis. 'I've just got this note from her, ' he saiddespairingly, spreading it out before Kendal, who was making a scrappybachelor meal, with a book on each side of him, at a table littered withpapers. 

'Could anything be more prettily done? If you don't succeed to-morrow, Kendal, I shall have signed the agreement before three days are over!'

It was indeed a charming note. She asked him to fix any time he chose foran appointment with her and her business manager, and spoke withenthusiasm of the play. 'It cannot help being a great success, ' shewrote; 'I feel that I am not worthy of it, but I will do my very best. The part seems to me, in many respects, as though it had been written forme. You have never, indeed, I remember, consented in so many words to letme have _Elvira_. I thought I should meet you at Mrs. Stuart's yesterday, and was disappointed. But I am sure you will not say me nay, and you willsee how grateful I shall be for the chance your work will give me. '

'Yes, that's done with real delicacy, ' said Kendal. Not a word of thepecuniary advantages of her offer, though she must know that almost anyauthor would give his eyes just now for such a proposal. Well, we shallsee. If I can't make the thing look less attractive to her withoutrousing her suspicions, and if you can't screw up your courage torefuse--why, you must sign the agreement, my dear fellow, and make thebest of it; you will find something else to inspire you before long. '

'It's most awkward, ' sighed Wallace, as though making up his perplexedmind with difficulty. 'The great chance is that by Agnes's account she isvery much inclined to regard your opinion as a sort of intellectualstandard; she has two or three times talked of remarks of yours as ifthey had struck her. Don't quote me at all, of course. Do it asimpersonally as you can--'

'If you give me too many instructions, ' said Kendal, returning the letterwith a smile, 'I shall bungle it. Don't make me nervous. I can't promiseyou to succeed, and you mustn't bear me a grudge if I fail. '

'A grudge! No, I should think not. By the way, have you heard from Agnesabout the trains to-morrow?'

'Yes, Paddington, 10 o'clock, and there is an 8. 15 train back fromCulham. Mrs. Stuart says we're to lunch in Balliol, run down to Nunehamafterwards, and leave the boats there, to be brought back. '

'Yes, we lunch with that friend of ours--I think you know him--HerbertSartoris. He has been a Balliol don for about a year. I only trust theweather will be what it is to-day. '

The weather was all that the heart of man could desire, and the party meton the Paddington platform with every prospect of another successful day. Forbes turned up punctual to the moment, and radiant under the combinedinfluence of the sunshine and of Miss Bretherton's presence; Wallace hadmade all the arrangements perfectly, and the six friends found themselvespresently journeying along to Oxford, at that moderated speed which isall that a Sunday express can reach. The talk flowed with zest andgaiety; the Surrey Sunday was a pleasant memory in the background, andall were glad to find themselves in the same company again. It seemed toKendal that Miss Bretherton was looking rather thin and pale, but shewould not admit it, and chattered from her corner to Forbes and himselfwith the mirth and _abandon_ of a child on its holiday. At last the'dreaming spires' of Oxford rose from the green, river-threaded plain, and they were at their journey's end. A few more minutes saw themalighting at the gate of the new Balliol, where stood Herbert Sartorislooking out for them. He was a young don with a classical edition on handwhich kept him up working after term, within reach of the libraries, andhe led the way to some pleasant rooms overlooking the inner quadrangle ofBalliol, showing in his well-bred look and manner an abundantconsciousness of the enormous good fortune which had sent him IsabelBretherton for a guest. For at that time it was almost as difficult toobtain the presence of Miss Bretherton at any social festivity as it wasto obtain that of royalty. Her Sundays were the objects of conspiraciesfor weeks beforehand on the part of those persons in London society whowere least accustomed to have their invitations refused, and to have andto hold the famous beauty for more than an hour in his own rooms, andthen to enjoy the privilege of spending five or six long hours on theriver with her, were delights which, as the happy young man felt, wouldrender him the object of envy to all at least of his fellow-dons belowforty. 

In streamed the party, filling up the book-lined rooms and startling thetwo old scouts in attendance into an unwonted rapidity of action. MissBretherton wandered round, surveyed the familiar Oxford luncheon-table, groaning under the time-honoured summer fare, the books, the engravings, and the sunny, irregular quadrangle outside, with its rich adornings ofgreen, and threw herself down at last on to the low window-seat with asigh of satisfaction. 

'How quiet you are! how peaceful! how delightful it must be to live here!It seems as if one were in another world from London. Tell me what thatbuilding is over there; it's too new, it ought to be old and gray likethe colleges we saw coming up here. Is everybody gone away--"gone down"you say? I should like to see all the learned people walking about foronce. '

'I could show you a good many if there were time, ' said young Sartoris, hardly knowing however what he was saying, so lost was he in admirationof that marvellous changing face. 'The vacation is the time they showthemselves; it's like owls coming out at night. You see, Miss Bretherton, we don't keep many of them; they're in the way in term time. But invacation they have the colleges and the parks and the Bodleian tothemselves, and you may study their ways, and their spectacles, and theirumbrellas, under the most favourable conditions. '

'Oh yes, ' said Miss Bretherton, with a little scorn, 'people always makefun of what they are proud of. But I mean to believe that you are _all_learned, and that everybody here works himself to death, and that Oxfordis quite, quite perfect!'

'Did you hear what Miss Bretherton was saying, Mrs. Stuart?' said Forbes, when they were seated at luncheon. 'Oxford is perfect, she declaresalready; I don't think I quite like it: it's too hot to last. '

'Am I such a changeable creature, then?' said Miss Bretherton, smiling athim. 'Do you generally find my enthusiasms cool down?'

'You are as constant as you are kind, ' said Forbes, bowing to her; 'I amonly like a child who sighs to see a pleasure nearing its highest point, lest there should be nothing so good afterwards. '

'Nothing so good!' she said, 'and I have only had one little drivethrough the streets. Mr. Wallace, are you and Mrs. Stuart really going toforbid me sight-seeing?'

'Of course!' said Wallace emphatically. 'That's one of the fundamentalrules of the society. Our charter would be a dead letter if we let youenter a single college on your way to the river to-day. '

'The only art, my dear Isabel, ' said Mrs. Stuart, 'that you will beallowed to study to-day, will be the art of conversation. '

'And a most fatiguing one, too!' exclaimed Forbes; 'it beats sight-seeinghollow. But, my dear Miss Bretherton, Kendal and I will make it up toyou. We'll give you an illustrated history of Oxford on the way toNuneham. I'll do the pictures, and he shall do the letterpress. Oh! thegood times I've had up here--much better than he ever had'--noddingacross at Kendal, who was listening. 'He was too proper behaved to enjoyhimself; he got all the right things, all the proper first-classes andprizes, poor fellow! But, as for me, I used to scribble over mynote-books all lecture-time, and amuse myself the rest of the day. Andthen, you see, I was up twenty years earlier than he was, and the worldwas not as virtuous then as it is now, by a long way. '

Kendal was interrupting, when Forbes, who was in one of his maddestmoods, turned round upon his chair to watch a figure passing along thequadrangle in front of the bay-window. 

'I say, Sartoris, isn't that Camden, the tutor who was turned out ofMagdalen a year or two ago for that atheistical book of his, and whom youtook in, as you do all the disreputables? Ah, I knew it!

"By the pricking of my thumbsSomething wicked this way comes. "

That's not mine, my dear Miss Bretherton; it's Shakespeare's first, Charles Lamb's afterwards. But look at him well--he's a heretic, a real, genuine heretic. Twenty years ago it would have been a thrilling sight;but now, alas! it's so common that it's not the victim but thepersecutors who are the curiosity. '

'I don't know that, ' said young Sartoris. 'We liberals are by no meansthe cocks of the walk that we were a few years ago. You see, now we havegot nothing to pull against, as it were. So long as we had two or threegood grievances, we could keep the party together and attract all theyoung men. We were Israel going up against the Philistines, who had us intheir grip. But now, things are changed; we've got our own way all round, and it's the Church party who have the grievances and the cry. It is wewho are the Philistines and the oppressors in our turn, and, of course, the young men as they grow up are going into opposition. '

'And a very good thing, too!' said Forbes. 'It's the only thing thatprevents Oxford becoming as dull as the rest of the world. All yourpicturesqueness, so to speak, has been struck out of the struggle betweenthe two forces. The Church force is the one that has given you all yourbuildings and your beauty, while, as for you liberals, who will know sucha lot of things that you're none the happier for knowing--well, I supposeyou keep the place habitable for the plain man who doesn't want to bebullied. But it's a very good thing the other side are strong enough tokeep you in order. '

The conversation flowed on vigorously--Forbes guiding it, now here, nowthere, while Kendal presently turned away to talk in an undertone to Mrs. Stuart, who sat next him, at the farther corner of the table from MissBretherton. 

'Edward has told you of my escapade, ' said Mrs. Stuart. 'Yes, I have putmy foot in it dreadfully. I don't know how it will turn out, I am sure. She's so set upon it, and Edward is so worried. I don't know how I cameto tell her. You see, I've seen so much of her lately, it slipped outwhen we were talking. '

'It was very natural, ' said Kendal, glad to notice from Mrs. Stuart's wayof attacking the subject that she knew nothing of his own share in thematter. It would have embarrassed him to be conscious of anotherobserver. 'Oh, a hundred things may turn up; there are ways out of thesethings if one is determined to find them. '

Mrs. Stuart shook her head. 'She is so curiously bent upon it. She ispossessed with the idea that the play will suit her better than any shehas had yet. Don't you think her looking very tired? I have come to knowher much better these last few weeks, and it seems absurd; but I getanxious about her. Of course, she is an enormous success, but I fancy thetheatrical part of it has not been quite so great as it was at first. '

'So I hear, too, ' said Kendal; 'the theatre is quite as full, but thetemper of the audience a good deal flatter. '

'Yes, ' said Mrs. Stuart; 'and then there is that curious little sister ofhers, whom you haven't seen, and who counts for a good deal. I believethat in reality she is very fond of Isabel, and very proud of her, butshe's very jealous of her too, and she takes her revenge upon her sisterfor her beauty and her celebrity by collecting the hostile things peoplesay about her acting, and pricking them into her every now and then, likeso many pins. At first Isabel was so sure of herself and the public thatshe took no notice--it seemed to her only what every actress must expect. But now it is different. She is not so strong as she was when she cameover, nor so happy, I think, and the criticisms tell more. She isheartily sick of the _White Lady_, and is bent upon a change, and Ibelieve she thinks this play of Edward's is just what she wants to enableher to strengthen her hold upon the public. '

'There never was a greater delusion, ' said Kendal; 'it's the last part inthe world she ought to attempt. Properly speaking, unless she puts it in, there's no posing in it, none of that graceful attitudinising she does sowell. It's a long tragic part--a tremendous strain, and would take allthe powers of the most accomplished art to give it variety and charm. '

'Oh, I know, ' sighed Mrs. Stuart, 'I know. But what is to be done?'

Kendal shrugged his shoulders with a smile, feeling as hopeless as shedid. The paleness of the beautiful face opposite indeed had touched hissympathies very keenly, and he was beginning to think the safety ofWallace's play not such a desperately important matter after all. However, there was his promise, and he must go on with it. 'But I'll behanged, ' he said to himself, 'if I come within a thousand miles ofhurting her feelings. Wallace must do that for himself if he wants to. '

It had been arranged that Miss Bretherton should be allowed two breaches, and two only, of the law against sight-seeing--a walk through theschools'-quadrangle, and a drive down High Street. Mr. Sartoris, who hadbeen an examiner during the summer term, and had so crept into the goodgraces of the Clerk of the Schools, was sent off to suborn thatfunctionary for the keys of the iron gates which on Sunday shut out theOxford world from the sleepy precincts of the Bodleian. The old clerk wasin a lax vacation mood, and the envoy returned key in hand. Mrs. Stuartand Forbes undertook the guidance of Miss Bretherton, while the othersstarted to prepare the boats. It was a hot June day, and the graybuildings, with their cool shadows, stood out delicately against a paleblue sky dappled with white cloud. Her two guides led Miss Brethertonthrough the quadrangle of the schools, which, fresh as it was from thehands of the restorer, rose into the air like some dainty white piece ofold-world confectionery. For the windows are set so lightly in thestone-work, and are so nearly level with the wall, that the whole greatbuilding has an unsubstantial card-board air, as if a touch might dintit. 

'The doctrinaires call it a fault, ' said Forbes indignantly, pointing outthe feature to his companions. 'I'd like to see them build anythingnowadays with half so much imagination and charm. '

They looked enviously at the closed door of the Bodleian, they read theLatin names of the schools just freshly painted at intervals round thequadrangle, and then Forbes led them out upon the steps in front of theRadcliffe and S. Mary's, and let them take their time a little. 

'How strange that there should be anything in the world, ' cried MissBretherton, 'so beautiful all through, so all of a piece as this! I hadno idea it would be half so good. Don't, don't laugh at me, Mr. Forbes. Ihave not seen all the beautiful things you other people have seen. Justlet me rave. '

'_I_ laugh at you!' said Forbes, standing back in the shadow of thearchway, his fine lined face, aglow with pleasure, turned towards her. '_I_, who have got Oxford in my bones and marrow, so to speak! Why, everystone in the place is sacred to me! Poetry lives here, if she has fledfrom all the world besides. No, no; say what you like, it cannot be toostrong for me. '

Mrs. Stuart, meanwhile, kept her head cool, admired all that she wasexpected to admire, and did it well, and never forgot that the carriagewas waiting for them, and that Miss Bretherton was not to be tired. Itwas she who took charge of the other two, piloted them safely into thefly, carried them down the High Street, sternly refused to make a stop atMagdalen, and finally landed them in triumph to the minute at the greatgate of Christchurch. Then they strolled into the quiet cathedral, delighted themselves with its irregular bizarre beauty, its unexpectedturns and corners, which gave it a capricious fanciful air for all thesolidity and business-like strength of its Norman framework, and as theyrambled out again, Forbes made them pause over a window in the northernaisle--a window by some Flemish artist of the fifteenth century, whoseems to have embodied in it at once all his knowledge and all hisdreams. In front sat Jonah under his golden-tinted gourd--an ill-temperedFlemish peasant--while behind him the indented roofs of the Flemish townclimbed the whole height of the background. It was probably the artist'snative town; some roof among those carefully-outlined gables shelteredhis own household Lares. But the hill on which the town stood, and themountainous background and the purple sea, were the hills and the sea notof Belgium, but of a dream country--of Italy, perhaps, the medievalartist's paradise. 

'Happy man!' said Forbes, turning to Miss Bretherton; 'look, he put ittogether four centuries ago, all he knew and all he dreamt of. And thereit is to this day, and beyond the spirit of that window there is nogetting. For all our work, if we do it honestly, is a compound of what weknow and what we dream. '

Miss Bretherton looked at him curiously. It was as though for the firsttime she connected the man himself with his reputation and his pictures, that the great artist in him was more than a name to her. She listened tohim sympathetically, and looked at the window closely, as though tryingto follow all he had been saying. But it struck Mrs. Stuart that therewas often a bewilderment in her manner which had been strange to it onher first entrance into London. Those strong emphatic ways Kendal hadfirst noticed in her were less frequent. Sometimes she struck Mrs. Stuartas having the air of a half-blindfold person trying to find her way alongstrange roads. 

They passed out into the cool and darkness of the cloisters, and throughthe new buildings, and soon they were in the Broad Walk, trees as old asthe Commonwealth bending overhead, and in front the dazzling green of theJune meadows, the shining river in the distance, and the sweep ofcloud-flecked blue arching in the whole. 

The gentlemen were waiting for them, metamorphosed in boating-clothes, and the two boats were ready. A knot of idlers and lookers-on watched theembarkation, for on Sunday the river is forsaken, and they were the onlyadventurers on its blue expanse. Off they pushed, Miss Bretherton, Kendal, Mr. Stuart, and Forbes in one boat, the remaining members of theparty in the other. Isabel Bretherton had thrown off the wrap which shealways carried with her, and which she had gathered round her in thecathedral, and it lay about her in green fur-edged folds, bringing herwhite dress into relief, the shapely fall of the shoulders and all theround slimness of her form. As Kendal took the stroke oar, after he hadarranged everything for her comfort, he asked her if Oxford was what shehad expected. 

'A thousand times better!' she said eagerly. 

'You have a wonderful power of enjoyment. One would think your Londonlife would have spoilt it a little. '

'I don't think anything ever could. I was always laughed at for it as achild, I enjoy everything. '

'Including such a day as you had yesterday? How _can_ you play the _WhiteLady_ twice in one day? It's enough to wear you out. '

'Oh, everybody does it. I was bound to give a _matinée_ to the professionsome time, and yesterday had been fixed for it for ages. But I have onlygiven three _matinées_ altogether, and I shan't give another before mytime is up. '

'That's a good hearing, ' said Kendal. 'Do you get tired of the _WhiteLady_?'

'Yes, ' she said emphatically; 'I am sick of her. But, ' she added, bendingforward with her hands clasped on her knee, so that what she said couldbe heard by Kendal only; 'have you heard, I wonder, what I have in myhead for the autumn? Oh well, we must not talk of it now; I have no rightto make it public yet. But I should like to tell you when we get toNuneham, if there's an opportunity. '

'We will make one, ' said Kendal, with an inward qualm. And she fell backagain with a nod and a smile. 

On they passed, in the blazing sunshine, through Iffley lock and underthe green hill crowned with Iffley village and its Norman church. The haywas out in the fields, and the air was full of it. Children, in tidySunday frocks, ran along the towing-path to look at them; a reflectedheaven smiled upon them from the river depths; wild rose-bushes overhungthe water, and here and there stray poplars rose like land-marks intothe sky. The heat, after a time, deadened conversation. Forbes every nowand then would break out with some comment on the moving landscape, whichshowed the delicacy and truth of his painter's sense, or set the boatalive with laughter by some story of the unregenerate Oxford of his ownundergraduate days; but there were long stretches of silence when, exceptto the rowers, the world seemed asleep, and the regular fall of the oarslike the pulsing of a hot dream. 

It was past five before they steered into the shadow of Nuneham woods. The meadows just ahead were a golden blaze of light, but here the shadelay deep and green on the still water, spanned by a rustic bridge, andbroken every now and then by the stately whiteness of the swans. Richsteeply-rising woods shut in the left-hand bank, and foliage, grass, andwild flowers seemed suddenly to have sprung into a fuller luxuriance thanelsewhere. 

'It's too early for tea, ' said Mrs. Stuart's clear little voice on thebank; 'at least, if we have it directly it will leave such a long timebefore the train starts. Wouldn't a stroll be pleasant first?'

Isabel Bretherton and Kendal only waited for the general assent beforethey wandered off ahead of the others. 'I should like very much to have aword with you, ' she had said to him as he handed her out of the boat. Andnow, here they were, and, as Kendal felt, the critical moment was come. 

'I only wanted to tell you, ' she said, as they paused in the heart of thewood, a little out of breath after a bit of steep ascent, 'that I havegot hold of a play for next October that I think you are rather speciallyinterested in--at least, Mr. Wallace told me you had heard it all, andgiven him advice about it while he was writing it. I want so much to hearyour ideas about it. It always seems to me that you have thought moreabout the stage and seen more acting than any one else I know, and I carefor your opinion very much indeed--do tell me, if you will, what youthought of _Elvira!_'

'Well, ' said Kendal quietly, as he made her give up her wrap to him tocarry, 'there is a great deal that's fine in it. The original sketch, asthe Italian author left it, was good, and Wallace has enormously improvedupon it. Only--'

'Isn't it most dramatic?' she exclaimed, interrupting him; 'there are somany strong situations in it, and though one might think the subject alittle unpleasant if one only heard it described, yet there is nothing inthe treatment but what is noble and tragic. I have very seldom felt sostirred by anything. I find myself planning the scenes, thinking overthem this way and that incessantly. '

'It is very good and friendly of you, ' said Kendal warmly, 'to wish me togive you advice about it. Do you really want me to speak my full mind?'

'Of course I do, ' she said eagerly; 'of course I do. I think there areone or two points in it that might be changed. I shall press Mr. Wallaceto make a few alterations. I wonder what were the changes that occurredto you?'

'I wasn't thinking of changes, ' said Kendal, not venturing to look at heras she walked beside him, her white dress trailing over the moss-grownpath, and her large hat falling back from the brilliant flushed cheeksand queenly throat. 'I was thinking of the play itself, of how the partwould really suit you. '

'Oh, I have no doubts at all about that, ' she said, but with a quick lookat him; 'I always feel at once when a part will suit me, and I havefallen in love with this one. It is tragic and passionate, like the_White Lady_, but it is quite a different phase of passion. I am tired ofscolding and declaiming. _Elvira_ will give me an opportunity of showingwhat I can do with something soft and pathetic. I have had suchdifficulties in deciding upon a play to begin my October season with, and now this seems to me exactly what I want. People prefer me always insomething poetical and romantic, and this is new, and the mounting of itmight be quite original. '

'And yet I doubt, ' said Kendal; 'I think the part of Elvira wantsvariety, and would it not be well for you to have more of a change?Something with more relief in it, something which would give your lightervein, which comes in so well in the _White Lady_, more chance?'

She frowned a little and shook her head. 'My turn is not that way. I canplay a comedy part, of course--every actor ought to be able to--but Idon't feel at home in it, and it never gives me pleasure to act. '

'I don't mean a pure light-comedy part, naturally, but something whichwould be less of a continuous tragic strain than this. Why, almost allthe modern tragic plays have their passages of relief, but the textureof _Elvira_ is so much the same throughout, --I cannot conceive a greaterdemand on any one. And then you must consider your company. Frankly, Icannot imagine a part less suited to Mr. Hawes than Macias; and hisdifficulties would react on you. '

'I can choose whom I like, ' she said abruptly; 'I am not bound to Mr. Hawes. '

'Besides, ' he said cautiously, changing his ground a little, 'I shouldhave said--only, of course, you must know much better--that it is alittle risky to give the British public such very serious fare as this, and immediately after the _White Lady_. The English theatre-goer neverseems to me to take kindly to medievalism--kings and knights and noblesand the fifteenth century are very likely to bore him. Not that I mean toimply for a moment that the play would be a failure in point ofpopularity. You have got such a hold that you could carry anythingthrough; but I am inclined to think that in _Elvira_ you would be ratherfighting against wind and tide, and that, as I said before, it would be agreat strain upon you. '

'The public makes no objection to Madame Desforêts in Victor Hugo, ' sheanswered quickly, even sharply. 'Her parts, so far as I know anythingabout them, are just these romantic parts, and she has made her enormousreputation out of them. '

Kendal hesitated. 'The French have a great tradition of them, ' he said. 'Racine, after all, was a preparation for Victor Hugo. '

'No, no!' she exclaimed, with sudden bitterness and a change of voicewhich startled him; 'it is not that. It is that I am I, and MadameDesforêts is Madame Desforêts. Oh, I see! I see very well that your mindis against it. And Mr. Wallace--there were two or three things in hismanner which have puzzled me. He has never said yes to my proposalformally. I understand perfectly what it means; you think that I shall dothe play an injury by acting it; that it is too good for me!'

Kendal felt as if a thunderbolt had fallen; the sombre passion of hermanner affected him indescribably. 

'Miss Bretherton!' he cried. 

'Yes, yes!' she said, almost fiercely, stopping in the path. 'It's that, I know. I have felt it almost since your first word. What power have I, if not tragic power? If a part like Elvira does not suit me, what doessuit me? Of course, that is what you mean. If I cannot act Elvira, I amgood for nothing--I am worse than good for nothing--I am an impostor, asham!'

She sat down on the raised edge of the bank, for she was trembling, andclasped her quivering hands on her knees. Kendal was beside himself withdistress. How had he blundered so, and what had brought this about? Itwas so unexpected, it was incredible. 

'Do--do believe me!' he exclaimed, bending over her. 'I never meantanything the least disrespectful to you; I never dreamt of it. You askedme to give you my true opinion, and my criticism applied much more to theplay than to yourself. Think nothing of it, if you yourself arepersuaded. You must know much better than I can what will suit you. Andas for Wallace--Wallace will be proud to let you do what you will withhis play. '

It seemed to him that he would have said anything in the world to sootheher. It was so piteous, so intolerable to him to watch that quiveringlip. 

'Ah, yes, ' she said, looking up, a dreary smile flitting over her face, 'I know you didn't mean to wound me; but it was there, your feeling; Isaw it at once. I might have seen it, if I hadn't been a fool, in Mr. Wallace's manner. I did see it. It's only what every one whose opinion isworth having is beginning to say. My acting has been a nightmare to melately. I believe it has all been a great, great mistake. '

Kendal never felt a keener hatred of the conventions which rule therelations between men and women. Could he only simply have expressed hisown feeling, he would have knelt beside her on the path, have taken thetrembling hands in his own, and comforted her as a woman would have done. But as it was, he could only stand stiff and awkward before her, and yetit seemed to him as if the whole world had resolved itself into his ownindividuality and hers, and as if the gay river party and the brightfriendly relations of an hour before were separated from the present byan impassable gulf. And, worst of all, there seemed to be a strangeperversity in his speech--a fate which drove him into betraying everyhere and there his own real standpoint whether he would or no. 

'You must not say such things, ' he said, as calmly as he could. 'You havecharmed the English public as no one else has ever charmed it. Is notthat a great thing to have done? And if I, who am very fastidious andvery captious, and over-critical in a hundred ways--if I am inclined tothink that a part is rather more than you, with your short dramaticexperience, can compass quite successfully, why, what does it matter? Imay be quite wrong. Don't take any notice of my opinion: forget it, andlet me help you, if I can, by talking over the play. '

She shook her head with a bitter little smile. 'No, no; I shall neverforget it. Your attitude only brought home to me, almost more stronglythan I could bear, what I have suspected a long, long time--the_contempt_ which people like you and Mr. Wallace feel for me!'

'Contempt!' cried Kendal, beside himself, and feeling as if all thecriticisms he had allowed himself to make of her were recoiling in oneavenging mass upon his head. 'I never felt anything but the warmestadmiration for your courage, your work, your womanly goodness andsweetness. '

'Yes, ' she said, rising and holding out her hand half-unconsciously forher cloak, which she put round her as though the wood had suddenly growncold; 'admiration for me as a woman, contempt for me as an artist!There's the whole bare truth. Does it hold my future in it, I wonder? Isthere nothing in me but this beauty that people talk of, and which Isometimes _hate_?'

She swept her hair back from her forehead with a fierce dramatic gesture. It was as though the self in her was rising up and asserting itselfagainst the judgment which had been passed upon it, as if some hiddenforce hardly suspected even by herself were beating against its bars. Kendal watched her in helpless silence. 'Tell me, ' she said, fixing herdeep hazel eyes upon him, 'you owe it me--you have given me so much pain. No, no; you did not mean it. But tell me, and tell me from the bottom ofyour heart--that is, if you are interested enough in me--what is it Iwant? What is it that seems to be threatening me with failure as anartist? I work all day long, my work is never out of my head; it seems topursue me all night. But the more I struggle with it the less successfulI seem even to myself. '

Her look was haunting: there was despair and there was hope in it. Itimplied that she had set him up in her impulsive way as a sort of oraclewho alone could help her out of her difficulty. In presence of that lookhis own conventionality fell away from him, and he spoke the plain, direct truth to her. 

'What you want, ' he said slowly, as if the words were forced from him, 'is _knowledge!_ London has taught you much, and that is why you aredissatisfied with your work--it is the beginning of all real success. Butyou want positive knowledge--the knowledge you could get from books, andthe knowledge other people could teach you. You want a true sense of whathas been done and what can be done with your art, and you want an insightinto the world of ideas lying round it and about it. You are very young, and you have had to train yourself. But every human art nowadays is socomplicated that none of us can get on without using the great stores ofexperience others have laid up for us. '

It was all out now. He had spoken his inmost mind. They had stoppedagain, and she was looking at him intently; it struck him that he couldnot possibly have said what he had been saying unless he had been led onby an instinctive dependence upon a great magnanimity of nature in her. And then the next moment the strange opposites the matter held in itflashed across him. He saw the crowded theatre, the white figure on thestage, his ear seemed to be full of the clamour of praise with whichLondon had been overwhelming its favourite. It was to this spoilt childof fortune that he had been playing the schoolmaster--he, one captiousman of letters, against the world. 

But she had not a thought of the kind, or rather, the situation presenteditself to her in exactly the contrary light. To her Kendal's words, instead of being those of a single critic, were the voice and theembodiment of a hundred converging impressions and sensations, and shefelt a relief in having analysed to the full the vague trouble which hadbeen settling upon her by this unraveling of her own feelings and his. 

'I am very grateful to you, ' she said steadily; 'very. It is strange, butalmost when I first saw you I felt that there was something ominous inyou to me. My dream, in which I have been living, has never been soperfect since, and now I think it has gone. Don't look so grieved, ' shecried, inexpressibly touched by his face, 'I am glad you told me all youthought. It will be a help to me. And as for poor Elvira, ' she added, trying to smile for all her extreme paleness, 'tell Mr. Wallace I giveher up. I am not vexed, I am not angry. Don't you think now we had bettergo back to Mrs. Stuart? I should like a rest with her before we all meetagain. '

She moved forward as she spoke, and it seemed to Kendal that her step wasunsteady and that she was deadly white. He planted himself before her inthe descending path, and held out a hand to her to help her. She gave himher own, and he carried it impetuously to his lips. 

'You are nobleness itself!' he cried, from the depths of his heart. 'Ifeel as if I had been the merest pedant and blunderer--the mostincapable, clumsy idiot. '

She smiled, but she could not answer. And in a few more moments voicesand steps could be heard approaching, and the scene was over. 

CHAPTER VI

The Sunday party separated at Paddington on the night of the Nunehamexpedition, and Wallace and Eustace Kendal walked eastward together. Thejourney home had been very quiet. Miss Bretherton had been forced todeclare herself 'extremely tired, ' and Mrs. Stuart's anxiety and sense ofresponsibility about her had communicated themselves to the rest of theparty. 

'It is the effect of my long day yesterday, ' she said apologetically toForbes, who hovered about her with those affectionate attentions which aman on the verge of old age pays with freedom to a young girl. 'It won'tdo to let the public see so much of me in future. But I don't want tospoil our Sunday. Talk to me, and I shall forget it. '

Wallace, who had had his eyes about him when she and Eustace Kendalemerged from the wood in view of the rest of the party, was restless andill at ease, but there was no getting any information, even by a gesture, from Kendal, who sat in his corner diligently watching the moonlight onthe flying fields, or making every now and then some disjointed attemptsat conversation with Mrs. Stuart. 

At the station Miss Bretherton's carriage was waiting; the party ofgentlemen saw her and Mrs. Stuart, who insisted on taking her home, intoit; the pale, smiling face bent forward; she waved her hand in responseto the lifted hats, and she was gone. 

'Well?' said Wallace, with a world of inquiry in his voice, as he andKendal turned eastward. 

'It has been an unfortunate business, ' said Kendal abruptly. 'I never dida thing worse, I think, or spent a more painful half-hour. '

Wallace's face fell. 'I wish I hadn't bored you with my confoundedaffairs, ' he exclaimed. 'It was too bad!'

Kendal was inclined to agree inwardly, for he was in a state of irritablereaction; but he had the justice to add aloud, 'It was I who was the foolto undertake it. And I think, indeed, it could have been done, but thatcircumstances, which neither you nor I had weighed sufficiently, wereagainst it. She is in a nervous, shaken state, mentally and physically, and before I had had time to discuss the point at all, she had carried iton to the personal ground, and the thing was up. '

'She is deeply offended, then?'

'Not at all, in the ordinary sense; she is too fine a creature; but shetalked of the "contempt" that you and I feel for her!'

'Good heavens!' cried Wallace, feeling most unjustly persuaded that hisfriend had bungled the matter horribly. 

'Yes, ' said Kendal deliberately; '"contempt, " that was it. I don't knowhow it came about. All I know is, that what I said, which seemed to mevery harmless, was like a match to a mine. But she told me to tell youthat she made no further claim on _Elvira_. So the play is safe. '

'D---- the play!' cried Wallace vigorously, a sentiment to which perhapsKendal's silence gave consent. 'But I cannot let it rest there. I mustwrite to her. '

'I don't think I would, if I were you, ' said Kendal. 'I should let italone. She looks upon the matter as finished. She told me particularly totell you that she was _not_ vexed, and you may be quite sure that sheisn't, in any vulgar sense. Perhaps that makes it all the worse. However, you've a right to know what happened, so I'll tell you, as far as Iremember. '

He gave an abridged account of the conversation, which made matters alittle clearer, though by no means less uncomfortable, to Wallace. Whenit was over, they were nearing Vigo Street, the point at which theirroutes diverged, Wallace having rooms in the Albany, and Kendal hailed ahansom. 

'If I were you, ' he said, as it came up, 'I should, as I said before, letthe thing alone as much as possible. She will probably speak to you aboutit, and you will, of course, say what you like, but I'm pretty sure shewon't take up the play again, and if she feels a coolness towardsanybody, it won't be towards you. '

'There's small consolation in that!' exclaimed Wallace. 

'Anyhow, make the best of it, my dear fellow, ' said Kendal, as thoughdetermined to strike a lighter key. 'Don't be so dismal, things will lookdifferently to-morrow morning--they generally do--there's no tremendousharm done. I'm sorry I didn't do your bidding better. Honestly, when Icome to think over it, I don't see how I could have done otherwise. ButI don't expect you to think so. '

Wallace laughed, protested, and they parted. 

A few moments later Kendal let himself into his rooms, where lights wereburning, and threw himself into his reading-chair, beside which his booksand papers stood ready to his hand. Generally, nothing gave him a greatersense of _bien-être_ than this nightly return, after a day spent insociety, to these silent and faithful companions of his life. He wasaccustomed to feel the atmosphere of his room when he came back to itcharged with welcome. It was as though the thoughts and schemes he hadleft warm and safe in shelter there started to life again after a day'storpor, and thronged to meet him. His books smiled at him with friendlyfaces, the open page called to him to resume the work of the morning--hewas, in every sense, at home. Tonight, however, the familiar spell seemedto have lost its force. After a hasty supper he took up some proofs, penin hand. But the first page was hardly turned before they had dropped onto his knee. It seemed to him as if he still felt on his arm the folds ofa green, fur-edged cloak, as if the touch of a soft cold hand were stilllingering in his. Presently he fell to recalling every detail of theafternoon scene, --the arching beech trees, the rich red and brown of theearth beneath, tinged with the winter sheddings of the trees, the littleraised bank, her eyes as she looked up at him, the soft wisps of hergolden brown hair under her hat. What superb, unapproachable beauty itwas! how living, how rich in content and expression!

'Am I in love with Isabel Bretherton?' he asked himself at last, lyingback on his chair with his eyes on the portrait of his sister. 'PerhapsMarie could tell me--I don't understand myself. I don't think so. And ifI were, I am not a youngster, and my life is a tolerably full one. Icould hold myself in and trample it down if it were best to do so. I canhardly imagine myself absorbed in a great passion. My bachelor life is agood many years old--my habits won't break up easily. And, supposing Ifelt the beginnings of it, I could stop it if reason were against it. '

He left his chair, and began to pace up and down the room, thinking. 'Andthere is absolutely no sort of reason in my letting myself fall in lovewith Isabel Bretherton! She has never given me the smallest right tothink that she takes any more interest in me than she does in hundreds ofpeople whom she meets on friendly terms, unless it may be an intellectualinterest, as Wallace imagines, and that's a poor sort of stepping-stoneto love! And if it were ever possible that she should, this afternoon hastaken away the possibility. For, however magnanimous a woman may be, athing like that rankles: it can't help it. She will feel the sting of itworse to-morrow than to-day, and, though she will tell herself that shebears no grudge, it will leave a gulf between us. For, of course, shemust go on acting, and, whatever depressions she may have, she mustbelieve in herself; no one can go on working without it, and I shallalways recall to her something harsh and humiliating!'

'Supposing, by any chance, it were not so--supposing I were able togather up my relation with her again and make it a really friendly one--Ishould take, I think, a very definite line; I should make up my mindto be of use to her. After all, it is true what she says: there are manythings in me that might be helpful to her, and everything there was sheshould have the benefit of. I would make a serious purpose of it. Sheshould find me a friend worth having. '

His thoughts wandered on a while in this direction. It was pleasant tosee himself in the future as Miss Bretherton's philosopher and friend, but in the end the sense of reality gained upon his dreams. 'I am afool!' he said to himself resolutely at last, 'and I may as well go tobed and put her out of my mind. The chance is over--gone--done with, ifit ever existed. '

The next morning, on coming down to breakfast, he saw among his letters ahandwriting which startled him. Where had he seen it before? In Wallace'shand three days ago? He opened it, and found the following note:--

'MY DEAR MR. KENDAL--You know, I think, that I am off next week--onMonday, if all goes well. We go to Switzerland for a while, and then toVenice, which people tell me is often very pleasant in August. We shallbe there by the first week in August, and Mr. Wallace tells me he hearsfrom you that your sister, Madame de Châteauvieux, will be there aboutthe same time. I forgot to ask you yesterday, but, if you think she wouldnot object to it, would you give me a little note introducing me to her?All that I have heard of her makes me very anxious to know her, and shewould not find me a troublesome person! We shall hardly, I suppose, meetagain before I start. If not, please remember that my friends can alwaysfind me on Sunday afternoon. --Yours very truly, ISABEL BRETHERTON. '

Kendal's hand closed tightly over the note. Then he put it carefully backinto its envelope, and walked away with his hands behind him and the notein them, to stare out of window at the red roofs opposite. 

'That is like her, ' he murmured to himself; 'I wound and hurt her: sheguesses I shall suffer for it, and, by way of setting up the friendlybond again, next day, without a word, she asks me to do her a kindness!Could anything be more delicate, more gracious!'

Kendal never had greater difficulty in fixing his thoughts to his workthan that morning, and at last, in despair, he pushed his book aside, andwrote an answer to Miss Bretherton, and, when that was accomplished, along letter to his sister. The first took him longer than its brevityseemed to justify. It contained no reference to anything but her request. He felt a compulsion upon him to treat the situation exactly as she haddone, but, given this limitation, how much cordiality and respect couldtwo sides of letterpaper be made to carry with due regard to decorum andgrammar?

When he next met Wallace, that hopeful, bright-tempered person hadentirely recovered his cheerfulness. Miss Bretherton, he reported, hadattacked the subject of _Elvira_ with him, but so lightly that he had noopportunity for saying any of the skilful things he had prepared. 

'She evidently did not want the question seriously opened, ' he said, 'soI followed your advice and let it alone, and since then she has beencharming both to Agnes and me. I feel myself as much of a brute as ever, but I see that the only thing I can do is to hold my tongue about it. ' Towhich Kendal heartily agreed. 

A few days afterwards the newspapers gave a prominent place to reports ofMiss Bretherton's farewell performance. It had been a great social event. Half the distinguished people in London were present, led by royalty. London, in fact, could hardly bear to part with its favourite, andcompliments, flowers, and farewells showered upon her. Kendal, who hadnot meant to go at the time when tickets were to be had, tried about themiddle of the week after the Oxford Sunday to get a seat, but found itutterly impossible. He might have managed it by applying to her throughEdward Wallace, but that he was unwilling to do, for various reasons. He told himself that, after all, it was better to let her little note andhis answer close his relations with her for the present. Everywhere elsebut in the theatre she might still regard him as her friend; but therethey could not but be antagonistic in some degree one to another, and noteven intellectually did Kendal wish just now to meet her on a footing ofantagonism. 

So, when Saturday night came, he passed the hours of Miss Bretherton'striumph at a ministerial evening party, where it seemed to him that theair was full of her name and that half the guests were there as a_pis-aller, _ because the _Calliope_ could not receive them. And yet hethought he noticed in the common talk about her that criticism of her asan actress was a good deal more general than it had been at the beginningof the season. The little knot of persons with an opinion and reasons forit had gradually influenced the larger public. Nevertheless, there was noabatement whatever of the popular desire to see her, whether on the stageor in society. The _engouement_ for her personally, for her beauty, andher fresh pure womanliness, showed no signs of yielding, and would holdout, Kendal thought, for some time, against a much stronger current ofdepreciation on the intellectual side than had as yet set in. 

He laid down the Monday paper with a smile of self-scorn and muttered: 'Ishould like to know how much she remembers by this time of the prig wholectured to her in Nuneham woods a week ago!' In the evening his _PallMall Gazette_ told him that Miss Bretherton had crossed the channel thatmorning, _en route_ for Paris and Venice. He fell to calculating theweeks which must elapse before his sister would be in Venice, and beforehe could hear of any meeting between her and the Bretherton party, andwound up his calculations by deciding that London was already hot andwould soon be empty, and that, as soon as he could gather togethercertain books he was in want of, he would carry them and his proofs downinto Surrey, refuse all invitations to country houses, and devote himselfto his work. 

Before he left he paid a farewell call to Mrs. Stuart, who gave him fulland enthusiastic accounts of Isabel Bretherton's last night, and informedhim that her brother talked of following the Brethertons to Venice sometime in August. 

'Albert, ' she said, speaking of her husband, 'declares that he cannot getaway for more than three weeks, and that he must have some walking; sothat, what we propose at present is to pick up Edward at Venice at theend of August, and move up all together into the mountains afterwards. Oh, Mr. Kendal, ' she went on a little nervously, as if not quite knowingwhether to attack the subject or not, 'it _was_ devoted of you to throwyourself into the breach for Edward as you did at Oxford. I am afraid itmust have been very disagreeable, both to you and to her. When Edwardtold me of it next morning it made me cold to think of it. I made up mymind that our friendship--yours and ours--with her was over. But do youknow she came to call on me that very afternoon--how she made time Idon't know--but she did. Naturally, I was very uncomfortable, but shebegan to talk of it in the calmest way while we were having tea. "Mr. Kendal was probably quite right, " she said, "in thinking the partunsuited to me; anyhow, I asked him for his opinion, and I should be apoor creature to mind his giving it. " And then she laughed and said thatI must ask Edward to keep his eyes open for anything that would do betterfor her in the autumn. And since then she has behaved as if she hadforgotten all about it. I never knew any one with less smallness abouther. '

'No; she is a fine creature, ' said Kendal, almost mechanically. Howlittle Mrs. Stuart knew--or rather, how entirely remote she was from_feeling_--what had happened! It seemed to him that the emotion of thatscene was still thrilling through all his pulses, yet to what ordinarylittle proportions had it been reduced in Mrs. Stuart's mind! He alonehad seen the veil lifted, had come close to the energetic reality of thegirl's nature. That Isabel Bretherton could feel so, could look so, wasknown only to him--the thought had pain in it, but the keenest pleasurealso. 

'Do you know, ' said Mrs. Stuart presently, with a touch of reproach inher voice, 'that she asked for you on the last night?'

'Did she?'

'Yes. We had just gone on to the stage to see her after the curtain hadfallen. It was such a pretty sight, you ought not to have missed it. ThePrince had come to say good-bye to her, and, as we came in, she was justturning away in her long phantom dress with the white hood falling roundher head, like that Romney picture--don't you remember?--of LadyHamilton, --Mr. Forbes has drawn her in it two or three times. The stagewas full of people. Mr. Forbes was there, of course, and Edward, andourselves, and presently I heard her say to Edward, "Is Mr. Kendal here?I did not see him in the house. " Edward said something about your nothaving been able to get a seat, which I thought clumsy of him, for, ofcourse, we could have got some sort of place for you at the last moment. She didn't say anything, but I thought--if you won't mind my saying so, Mr. Kendal--that, considering all things, it would have been better ifyou had been there. '

'It seems to me, ' said Kendal, with vexation in his voice, 'that there isa fate against my doing anything as I ought to do it. I thought, on thewhole, it would be better not to make a fuss about it when it came tothe last. You see she must look upon me to some extent as a critical, ifnot a hostile, influence, and I did not wish to remind her of myexistence. '

'Oh well, ' said Mrs. Stuart in her cheery commonsense way, 'that eveningwas such an overwhelming experience that I don't suppose she could havefelt any soreness towards anybody. And, do you know, she _is_ improved?I don't quite know what it is, but certainly one or two of those longscenes she does more intelligently, and even the death-scene isbetter, --less monotonous. I sometimes think she will surprise us allyet. '

'Very likely, ' said Kendal absently, not in reality believing a word ofit, but it was impossible to dissent. 

'I hope so, ' exclaimed Mrs. Stuart, 'with all my heart. She has been verydepressed often these last weeks, and certainly, on the whole, peoplehave been harder upon her than they were at first. I am so glad that sheand your sister will meet in Venice. Madame de Châteauvieux is just thefriend she wants. '

Kendal walked home feeling the rankling of a fresh pin-point. She hadasked for him, and he had not been there! What must she think, apparently, but that, from a sour, morose consistency, he had refused tobe a witness of her triumph!

Oh, hostile fates!

 * * * * *

A week later Eustace was settled in the Surrey farmhouse which hadsheltered the Sunday League on its first expedition. The Surrey countrywas in its full glory: the first purple heather was fully out, and thedistant hills rose blue and vaporous across stretches of vivid crimson, broken here and there by the dim gray greens of the furze or the sharpercolour of the bracken. The chorus of birds had died away, but the nestswere not yet tenantless. The great sand-pit near the farmhouse was stillvocal with innumerable broods of sand-martins, still enlivened by theconstant skimming to and fro of the parent birds. And under Kendal'ssitting-room window a pair of tomtits, which the party had watched thatMay Sunday, were just launching their young family on the world. One ofhis first walks was to that spot beyond the pond where they had madetheir afternoon camping-ground. The nut-hatches had fled--fled, Kendalhoped, some time before, for the hand of the spoiler had been near theirdwelling, and its fragments lay scattered on the ground. He presentlylearnt to notice that he never heard the sharp sound of the bird'stapping beak among the woods without a little start of recollection. 

Outside his walks, his days were spent in continuous literary effort. Hisbook was in a condition which called for all his energies, and he threwhimself vigorously into it. The first weeks were taken up with a longreview of Victor Hugo's prose and poetry, with a view to a final criticalresult. It seemed to him that there was stuff in the great Frenchman tosuit all weathers and all skies. There were sombre, wind-swept days, whenthe stretches of brown ling not yet in flower, the hurrying clouds, andthe bending trees, were in harmony with all the fierce tempestuous sideof the great Romantic. There were others when the homely, tender, domestic aspect of the country formed a sort of framework andaccompaniment to the simpler patriarchal elements in the books whichKendal had about him. Then, when the pages on Victor Hugo werewritten, those already printed on Chateaubriand began to dissatisfy him, and he steeped himself once more in the rolling artificial harmonies, themingled beauty and falsity of one of the most wonderful of styles, thathe might draw from it its secrets and say a last just word about it. 

He knew a few families in the neighbourhood, but he kept away from them, and almost his only connection with the outer world, during his firstmonth in the country, was his correspondence with Madame de Châteauvieux, who was at Etretât with her husband. She wrote her brother very lively, characteristic accounts of the life there, filling her letters withamusing sketches of the political or artistic celebrities with whom thelittle Norman town swarms in the season. 

After the third or fourth letter, however, Kendal began to lookrestlessly at the Etretât postmark, to reflect that Marie had been therea long time, and to wonder she was not already tired of such a publicsort of existence as the Etretât life. The bathing scenes, and thefire-eating deputy, and the literary woman with a mission for the spreadof naturalism, became very flat to him. He was astonished that his sisterwas not as anxious to start for Italy as he was to hear that she had doneso. 

This temper of his was connected with the fact that after the first ofAugust he began to develop a curious impatience on the subject of thedaily post. At Old House Farm the post was taken as leisurely aseverything else; there was no regular delivery, and Kendal generally wascontent to trust to the casual mercies of the butcher or baker for hisletters. But, after the date mentioned, it occurred to him that hisletters reached him with an abominable irregularity, and that it would dohis work no harm, but, on the contrary, much good, if he took a dailyconstitutional in the direction of the post-office, which gave a touch ofofficial dignity to the wasp-filled precincts of a grocer's shop in thevillage, some two miles off. 

For some considerable number of days, however, his walks only furnishedhim with food for reflection on the common disproportion of means to endsin this life. His sister's persistence in sticking to the soil of Francebegan to seem to him extraordinary! However, at last, the monotony of theEtretât postmarks was broken by a postcard from Lyons. 'We are here forthe night on some business of Paul's; to-morrow we hope to be at Turin, and two or three days later at Venice. By the way, where will theBrethertons be? I must trust to my native wits, I suppose, when I getthere. She is not the sort of light to be hidden under a bushel. '

This postcard disturbed Kendal not a little, and he felt irritably thatsomebody had mismanaged matters. He had supposed, and indeed suggested, that Miss Bretherton should enclose his note in one of her own to hissister's Paris address, giving, at the same time, some indication of aplace of meeting in Venice. But if she had not done this, it was verypossible that the two women might miss each other after all. Sometimes, when he had been contemplating this possibility with disgust, he wouldwith a great effort make himself reflect why it was that he cared aboutthe matter so disproportionately. Why was he so deeply interested inIsabel Bretherton's movements abroad, and in the meeting which wouldbring her, so to speak, once more into his own world? Why! because it wasimpossible, he would answer himself indignantly, not to feel a profoundinterest in any woman who had ever shared as much emotion with you as shehad with him in those moments at Nuneham, who had received a wound atyour hands, had winced under it, and still had remained gracious, andkind, and womanly! 'I should be a hard-hearted brute, ' he said tohimself, 'if I did not feel a very deep and peculiar interest in her--ifI did not desire that Marie's friendship should abundantly make up to herfor my blundering!'

Did he ever really deceive himself into imagining that this was all? Itis difficult to say. The mind of a man no longer young, and trained inall the subtleties of thought, does not deal with an invading sentimentexactly as a youth would do with all his experience to come. It stealsupon him more slowly, he is capable of disguising it to himself longer, of escaping from it into other interests. Passion is in its ultimateessence the same, wherever it appears and under whatever conditions, butit possesses itself of human life in different ways. Slowly, andcertainly, the old primeval fire, the commonest, fatalest, divinest forceof life, was making its way into Kendal's nature. But it was making itsway against antagonistic forces of habit, tradition, self-restraint, --itfound a hundred other interests in possession;--it had a strangeimpersonality and timidity of nature to fight with. Kendal had beenaccustomed to live in other men's lives. Was he only just beginning tolive his own?

But, however it was, he was at least conscious during this waiting timethat life was full of some hidden savour; that his thoughts were neveridle, never vacant; that, as he lay flat among the fern in his moments ofrest, following the march of the clouds as they sailed divinely over therich breadth and colour of the commons, a whole brood of images nestledat his heart, or seemed to hover in the sunny air before him, --visionsof a slender form fashioned with Greek suppleness and majesty, of a softand radiant presence, of looks all womanliness, and gestures all grace, of a smile like no other he had ever seen for charm, of a quick impulsivegait! He followed that figure through scene after scene; he saw primrosesin its hand, and the pale spring blue above it; he recalled it standingtense and still with blanched cheek and fixed appealing eye, while allround the June woods murmured in the breeze; he surrounded it inimagination with the pomp and circumstance of the stage, and realised itas a centre of emotion to thousands. And then from memories he would passon to speculations, from the scenes he knew to those he could only guessat, from the life of which he had seen a little to the larger andunexplored life beyond. 

And so the days went on, and though he was impatient and restless, yetindoors his work was congenial to him, and out of doors the sun wasbright, and all the while a certain little god lay hidden, speaking noarticulate word, but waiting with a mischievous patience for the finaloverthrow of one more poor mortal. 

At last the old postmistress, whom he had almost come to regard ascherishing a personal grudge against him, ceased to repulse him, and, after his seven years of famine, the years of abundance set in. For thespace of three weeks letters from Venice lay waiting for him almost everyalternate morning, and the heathery slopes between the farm and thevillage grew familiar with the spectacle of a tall thin man in a roughtweed suit struggling, as he walked, with sheets of foreign paper whichthe wind was doing its best to filch away from him. 

The following extracts from these letters contain such portions of themas are necessary to our subject:--

 * * * * *

'CASA MINGHETTI 2, GRAND CANAL, 'VENICE, _August_ 6. 

'MY DEAR EUSTACE--I can only write you a very scrappy letter to-day, forwe are just settling into our apartment, and the rooms are strewn in themost distracting way with boxes, books, and garments; while my maid, Félicie, and the old Italian woman, Caterina, who is to cook and managefor us, seem to be able to do nothing--not even to put a chair straight, or order some bread to keep us from starving--without consulting me. Paul, taking advantage of a husband's prerogative, has gone off to_flâner_ on the Piazza, while his women-folk make life tolerable at home;which is a very unfair and spiteful version of his proceedings, for hehas really gone as much on my business as on his own. I sent him--feelinghis look of misery, as he sat on a packing-case in the middle of thischaos, terribly on my mind--to see if he could find the English consul(whom he knows a little), and discover from him, if possible, where yourfriends are. It is strange, as you say, that Miss Bretherton should nothave written to me; but I incline to put it down to our old Jacques athome, who is getting more and more imbecile with the weight of years andinfirmities, and is quite capable of forwarding to us all the letterswhich are not worth posting, and leaving all the important ones piled upin the hall to await our return. It is provoking, for, if the Brethertonparty are not going to stay long in Venice, we may easily spend all ourtime in looking for each other; which will, indeed, be a lame andimpotent conclusion. However, I have hopes of Paul's cleverness. 

'And now, four o'clock! There is no help for it, my dear Eustace. I mustgo and instruct Caterina how not to poison us in our dinner to-night. Shelooks a dear old soul, but totally innocent of anything but Italianbarbarities in the way of cooking. And Félicie also is well-meaning butignorant, so, unless I wish to have Paul on my hands for a week, I mustbe off. This rough picnicking life, in Venice of all places, is a curiouslittle experience; but I made up my mind last time we were here that wewould venture our precious selves in no more hotels. The heat, themosquitoes, the horrors of the food, were too much. Here we have agarden, a kitchen, a cool sitting-room; and if I choose to feed Paul on_tisane_ and milk-puddings, who is to prevent me?

'.... Paul has just come in, with victory written on his brow. The Englishconsul was of no use; but, as he was strolling home, he went into St. Mark's, and there, of course, found them! In the church were apparentlyall the English people who have as yet ventured to Venice; and these, ormost of them, seemed to be following in the wake of a little party offour persons--two ladies, a gentleman, and a lame girl walking with acrutch. An excited English tourist condescended to inform Paul that itwas "the great English actress, Miss Bretherton, " who was creating allthe commotion. Then, of course, he went up to her--he was provoked thathe could hardly see her in the dim light of St. Mark's--introducedhimself, and described our perplexities. Of course, she had written. Iexpected as much. Jacques must certainly be pensioned off! Paul thoughtthe other three very inferior to her, though the uncle was civil, andtalked condescendingly of Venice as though it were even good enough to beadmired by a Worrall. It is arranged that the beauty is to come and seeme to-morrow if, after Caterina has operated upon us during two meals, weare still alive. Good-night, and good-bye. '

 * * * * *

'VENICE, _August_ 7. 

'Well, I have seen her! It has been a blazing day. I was sitting in thelittle garden which separates one half of our rooms from the other, whileCaterina was arranging the _déjeûner_ under the little acacia arbour inthe centre of it. Suddenly Félicie came out from the house, and behindher a tall figure in a large hat and a white dress. The figure held outboth hands to me in a cordial, un-English way, and said a number ofpleasant things, rapidly, in a delicious voice; while I, with the dazzleof the sun in my eyes so that I could hardly make out the features, stoodfeeling a little thrilled by the advent of so famous a person. In a fewmoments, however, as it seemed to me, we were sitting, under the acacias, she was helping me to cut up the melon and arrange the figs, as if we hadknown one another for months, and I was experiencing one of those suddenrushes of liking which, as you know, are a weakness of mine. She stayedand took her meal with its. Paul, of course, was fascinated, and for oncehas not set her down as a _réputation surfaite_. 

'Her beauty has a curious air of the place; and now I remember that hermother was Italian--Venetian actually, was it not? That accounts for it;she is the Venetian type spiritualised. At the foundation of her face, asit were, lies the face of the Burano lace-maker; only the original typehas been so refined, so chiselled and smoothed away, that, to speakfancifully, only a beautiful ghost of it remains. That large statelinessof her movement, too, is Italian. You may see it in any Venetian street, and Veronese has fixed it in art. 

'While we were sitting in the garden who should be announced but EdwardWallace? I knew, of course, from you that he might be here about thistime, but in the hurry of our settling in I had quite forgotten hisexistence, so that the sight of his trim person bearing down upon us wasa surprise. He and the Bretherton party, however, had been going abouttogether for several days, so that he and she had plenty of gossip incommon. Miss Bretherton's enthusiasm about Venice is of a very naive, hot, outspoken kind. It seems to me that she is a very susceptiblecreature. She lives her life fast, and crowds into it a greater number ofsensations than most people. All this zest and pleasure must consume avast amount of nervous force, but it makes her very refreshing to peopleas _blasés_ as Paul and I are. My first feeling about her is very muchwhat yours was. Personally, there seems to be all the stuff in her ofwhich an actress is made; will she some day stumble upon the discovery ofhow to bring her own individual flame and force to bear upon her art? Ishould think it not unlikely, and, altogether, I feel as though I shouldtake a more hopeful view of her intellectually than you do. You see, mydear Eustace, you men never realise how clever we women are, how fast welearn, and how quickly we catch up hints from all quarters under heavenand improve upon them. An actress so young and so sympathetic as IsabelBretherton must still be very much of an unknown quantity dramatically. Iknow you think that the want of training is fatal, and that popularitywill stereotype her faults. It may be so; but I am inclined to think, from my first sight of her, that she is a nature that will gather fromlife rather what stimulates it than what dulls and vulgarises it. Altogether, when I compare my first impressions of her with the image ofher left by your letters, I feel that I have been pleasantly surprised. Only in the matter of intelligence. Otherwise it has, of course, beenyour descriptions of her that have planted and nurtured in me that strongsense of attraction which blossomed into liking at the moment of personalcontact. '

 * * * * *

'_August_ 10. 

'This afternoon we have been out in the gondola belonging to thismodest establishment, with our magnificent gondolier, Piero, and hisboy to convey us to the Lido. I got Miss Bretherton to talk to me abouther Jamaica career. She made us all laugh with her accounts of theblood-and-thunder pieces in which the audiences at the Kingston theatrerevelled. She seems generally to have played the Bandit's Daughter, theSmuggler's Wife, or the European damsel carried off by Indians, or someother thrilling elemental personage of the kind. The _White Lady_ was, apparently, her first introduction to a more complicated order of play. It is extraordinary, when one comes to think of it, how little positivedramatic knowledge she must have! She knows some Shakespeare, I think--atleast, she mentions two or three plays--and I gather from something she. Said that she is now making the inevitable study of Juliet that everyactress makes sooner or later; but Sheridan, Goldsmith, and, of course, all the French people, are mere names to her. When I think of the minuteexhaustive training our Paris actors go through, and compare it with sucha state of nature as hers, I am amazed at what she has done! For, afterall, you know, she must be able to act to some extent; she must know agreat deal more of her business than you and I suspect, or she could notget on at all. '

 * * * * *

'_August_ 16. 

'It is almost a week, I see, since I wrote to you last. During that timewe have seen a great deal more of Miss Bretherton, sometimes in companywith her belongings, sometimes without them, and my impressions of herhave ripened very fast. Oh, my dear Eustace, you have been hasty, --allthe world has been hasty! Isabel Bretherton's _real_ self is only nowcoming to the front, and it is a self which, as I say to myself withastonishment, not even your keen eyes have ever seen--hardly suspectedeven. Should I, myself a woman, have been as blind to a woman'scapabilities, I wonder? Very likely! These sudden rich developments ofyouth are often beyond all calculation. 

'Mr. Wallace's attitude makes me realise more than I otherwise could thepast and present condition of things. He comes and talks to me withamazement of the changes in her tone and outlook, of the girl'ssharpening intellect and growing sensitiveness, and as he recallsincidents and traits of the London season--confessions or judgments orblunders of hers, and puts them beside the impression which he sees herto be making on Paul and myself--I begin to understand from his talk andhis bewilderment something of the real nature of the case. Intellectually, it has been "the ugly duckling" over again. Under all thecrude, unfledged imperfection of her young performance, you people whohave watched her with your trained critical eyes seem to me never to havesuspected the coming wings, the strange nascent power, which is only nowasserting itself in the light of day. 

'"What has Eustace been about?" said Paul to me last night, after we hadall returned from rambling round and round the moonlit Piazza, and he hadbeen describing to me his talk with her. "He ought to have seen fartherahead. That creature is only just beginning to live--and it will be alife worth having! He has kindled it, too, as much as anybody. Of coursewe have not seen her act yet, and ignorant--yes, she is certainlyignorant, --though not so much as I imagined. But as for natural power anddelicacy of mind, there can be no question at all about them!"

'"I don't know that Eustace did question them, " I said; "he thoughtsimply that she had no conception of what her art really required of her, and never would have because of her popularity. "

'To which Paul replied that, as far as he could make out, nobody thoughtmore meanly of her popularity than she did, and he has been talking agreat deal to her about her season. 

'"I never saw a woman at a more critical or interesting point ofdevelopment, " he exclaimed at last, striding up and down, and so absorbedin the subject that I could have almost laughed at his eagerness. "Something or other, luckily for her, set her on the right track threemonths ago, and it is apparently a nature on which nothing is lost. Onecan see it in the way in which she takes Venice: there isn't a scrap ofher--little as she knows about it--that isn't keen and interested andwide-awake!"

'"Well, after all, " I reminded him as he was settling down to his books, "we know nothing about her as an actress. "

'"We shall see, " he said; "I will find out something about that toobefore long. "'

 * * * * *

'_August_ 17-19. 

'And so he has!

'Paul has been devoting himself more and more to the beauty, Mr. Wallaceand I looking on with considerable amusement and interest; and thisafternoon, finding it intolerable that Miss Bretherton has not even abowing acquaintance with any of his favourite plays, Augier, Dumas, Victor Hugo, or anything else, he has been reading aloud to us in thegarden, running on from scene to scene and speech to speech, translatingas he went--she in rapt attention, and he gesticulating and spouting, and, except for an occasional queer rendering that made us laugh, gettingon capitally with his English. She was enchanted; the novelty and theexcitement of it absorbed her; and every now and then she would stop Paulwith a little imperious wave of her hand, and repeat the substance of aspeech after him with an impetuous _élan_, an energy, a comprehension, which drew little nods of satisfaction out of him, and sometimes produceda strong and startling effect upon myself and Mr. Wallace. However, Mr. Wallace might stare as he liked; the two people concerned were totallyunconscious of the rest of us, until at last, after the great death-scenein the _Nuit Blanche_, Paul threw down the book almost with a sob, andshe, rising in a burst of feeling, held out her white arms towards animaginary lover, and with extraordinary skill and memory repeated thesubstance of the heroine's last speeches:--

'"_Achille, beloved! my eyes are dim--the mists of death are gathering. OAchille! the white cottage by the river--the nest in the reeds--your faceand mine in the water--the blue heaven below us in the stream--O joy, quick! those hands, those lips! But listen, listen! it is the cruel windrising, rising: it chills me to the bone, it chokes, it stifles me! Icannot see the river, and the cottage is gone, and the sun. O Achille, itis dark, so dark! Gather me close, beloved!--closer, closer! O death iskind--tender, like your touch! I have no fears--none!"_

'She sank back into her chair. Anything more pathetic, more noble thanher intonation of those words, could not have been imagined. Desforêtsherself could not have spoken them with a more simple, a more piercingtenderness. I was so confused by a multitude of conflicting feelings--myown impressions and yours, the realities of the present position and thepossibilities of her future--that I forgot to applaud her. It was thefirst time I had had any glimpse at all of her dramatic power, and, roughand imperfect as the test was, it seemed to me enough. I have not been sodevoted to the _Français_, and to some of the people connected withit, for ten years, for nothing! One gets a kind of insight from longhabit which, I think, one may trust. Oh, you blind Eustace, how could youforget that for a creature so full of primitive energy, so rich in the_stuff_ of life, nothing is irreparable! Education has passed her by. Well, she will go to find her education. She will make a teacher out ofevery friend, out of every sensation. Incident and feeling, praise anddispraise, will all alike tend to mould the sensitive plastic materialinto shape. So far she may have remained outside her art; the art, nodoubt, has been a conventional appendage, and little more. Training wouldhave given her good conventions, whereas she has only picked up bad andimperfect ones. But no training could have given her what she willevidently soon develop for herself, that force and flame of imaginationwhich fuses together instrument and idea in one great artistic whole. Shehas that imagination. You can see it in her responsive ways, her quicksensitive emotion. Only let it be roused and guided to a certain height, and it will overleap the barriers which have hemmed it in, and pouritself into the channels made ready for it by her art. 

'There, at least, you have my strong impression. It is, in many ways, atvariance with some of my most cherished principles; for both you and Iare perhaps inclined to overrate the value of education, whethertechnical or general, in its effect on the individuality. And, of course, a better technical preparation would have saved Isabel Bretherton animmense amount of time; would have prevented her from contracting a hostof bad habits--all of which she will have to unlearn. But the root of thematter is in her; of that I am sure; and whatever weight of hostilecircumstance may be against her, she will, if she keeps her health--as towhich I am sometimes, like you, a little anxious--break through it alland triumph. 

'But if you did not understand her quite, you have enormously helped her;so much I will tell you for your comfort. She said to me yesterdayabruptly--we were alone in our gondola, far out on the lagoon--"Did yourbrother ever tell you of a conversation he and I had in the woods atNuneham about Mr. Wallace's play?"

'"Yes, " I answered with outward boldness, but a little inwardtrepidation; "I have not known anything distress him so much for a longtime. He thought you had misunderstood him. "

'"No, " she said quietly, but as it seemed to me with an undercurrent ofemotion in her voice; "I did not misunderstand him. He meant what hesaid, and I would have forced the truth from him, whatever happened. Iwas determined to make him show me what he felt. That London season wassometimes terrible to me. I seemed to myself to be living in twoworlds--one a world in which there was always a sea of faces opposite tome, or crowds about me, and a praise ringing in my ears which was enoughto turn anybody's head, but which after a while repelled me as if therewas something humiliating in it; and then, on the other side, a littleinner world of people I cared for and respected, who looked at me kindly, and thought for me, but to whom as an actress I was just of no account atall! It was your brother who first roused that sense in me; it was sostrange and painful, for how could I help at first believing in all thehubbub and the applause?"

'"Poor child!" I said, reaching out my hand for one of hers. "Did Eustacemake himself disagreeable to you?"

'"It was more, I think, " she answered, as if reflecting, "the standard healways seemed to carry about with him than anything connected with my ownwork. At least, of course, I mean before that Nuneham day. Ah, thatNuneham day! It cut deep. "

'She turned away from me, and leant over the side of the boat, so that Icould not see her face. 

'"You forced it out of Eustace, you know, " I said, trying to laugh ather, "you uncompromising young person! Of course, he flattered himselfthat you forgot all about his preaching the moment you got home. Menalways make themselves believe what they want to believe. "

'"Why should he want to believe so?" she replied quickly. "I had halfforeseen it, I had forced it from him, and yet I felt it like a blow! Itcost me a sleepless night, and some--well, some very bitter tears. Notthat the tears were a new experience. How often, after all that noise atthe theatre, have I gone home and cried myself to sleep over theimpossibility of doing what I wanted to do, of moving those hundreds ofpeople, of making them feel, and of putting my own feeling into shape!But that night, and with my sense of illness just then, I saw myself--itseemed to me quite in the near future--grown old and ugly, a forgottenfailure, without any of those memories which console people who have beengreat when they must give up. I felt myself struggling against such aweight of ignorance, of bad habits, of unfavourable surroundings. How wasI ever to get free and to reverse that judgment of Mr. Kendal's? My verysuccess stood in my way, How was 'Miss Bretherton' to put herself toschool?"

'"But now, " I said to her warmly, "you have got free; or, rather, you areon the way to freedom. "

'She thought a little bit without speaking, her chin resting on her hand, her elbow on her knee. We were passing the great red-brown mass of theArmenian convent. She seemed to be drinking in the dazzling harmonies ofblue and warm brown and pearly light. When she did speak again it wasvery slowly, as though she were trying to give words to a number ofcomplex impressions. 

'"Yes, " she said; "it seems to me that I am different; but I can't tellexactly how or why. I see all sorts of new possibilities, new meaningseverywhere: that is one half of it! But the other, and the greater, half is--how to make all these new feelings and any new knowledge whichmay come to me tell on my art. " And then she changed altogether with oneof those delightful swift transformations of hers, and her face rippledover with laughter. "At present the chief result of the difference, whatever it may be, seems to be to make me most unmanageable at home. Iam for ever disagreeing with my people, saying I can't do this and Iwon't do that. I am getting to enjoy having my own way in the mostabominable manner. " And then she caught my hand, that was holding hers, between both her own, and said half laughing and half in earnest--

'"Did you ever realise that I don't know any single language besides myown--not even French? That I can't read any French book or any Frenchplay?"

'"Well, " I said, half laughing too, "it is very astonishing. And you knowit can't go on if you are to do what I think you will do. French youpositively must learn, and learn quickly. I don't mean to say that wehaven't good plays and a tradition of our own; but for the moment Franceis the centre of your art, and you cannot remain at a distance from it!The French have organised their knowledge; it is available for all whocome. Ours is still floating and amateurish--"

'And so on. You may imagine it, my dear Eustace; I spare you any more ofit verbatim. After I had talked away for a long time and brought it allback to the absolute necessity that she should know French and becomeacquainted with French acting and French dramatic ideals, she pulled meup in the full career of eloquence, by demanding with a little practicalair, a twinkle lurking somewhere in her eyes--

'"Explain to me, please; how is it to be done?"

'"Oh, " I said, "nothing is easier. Do you know anything at all?"

'"Very little. I once had a term's lessons at Kingston. "

'"Very well, then, " I went on, enjoying this little comedy of a neglectededucation; "get a French maid, a French master, and a novel: I willprovide you with _Consuelo_ and a translation to-morrow. "

'"As for the French maid, " she answered dubiously, shaking her head, "Idon't know. I expect my old black woman that I brought with me fromJamaica would ill-treat her--perhaps murder her. But the master can bemanaged and the novel. Will none of you laugh at me if you see metrailing a French grammar about?"

'And so she has actually begun to-day. She makes a pretence of keepingher novel and a little dictionary and grammar in a bag, and hides themwhen any one appears. But Paul has already begun to tease her about hernew and mysterious occupation, and I foresee that he will presently spendthe greater part of his mornings in teaching her. I never saw anybodyattract him so much; she is absolutely different from anything he hasseen before; and, as he says, the mixture of ignorance and genius inher--yes, genius; don't be startled!--is most stimulating to theimagination. '

 * * * * *

'_August_ 22. 

'During the last few days I have not been seeing so much of MissBretherton as before. She has been devoting herself to her family, andPaul and I have been doing our pictures. We cannot persuade her to takeany very large dose of galleries; it seems to me that her thoughts areset on one subject--and one subject only--and while she is in this firststage of intensity, it is not likely that anything else will have achance. 

'It is amusing to study the dissatisfaction of the uncle and aunt withthe turn things have taken since they left London. Mr. Worrall has beenevidently accustomed to direct his niece's life from top to bottom--tochoose her plays for her, helped by Mr. Robinson; to advise her as to herfellow-actors, and her behaviour in society; and all, of course, with ashrewd eye to the family profit, and as little regard as need be to anyfantastical conception of art. 

'Now, however, Isabel has asserted herself in several unexpected ways. She has refused altogether to open her autumn season with the play whichhad been nearly decided on before they left London--a flimsy spectacularperformance quite unworthy of her. As soon as possible she will makeimportant changes in the troupe who are to be with her, and at thebeginning of September she is coming to stay three weeks with us inParis, and, in all probability (though the world is to know nothing ofit), Perrault of the Conservatoire, who is a great friend of ours, willgive her a good deal of positive teaching. This last arrangement isparticularly exasperating to Mr. Worrall. He regards it as sure to beknown, a ridiculous confession of weakness on Isabel's part, and so on. However, in spite of his wrath and the aunt's sullen or tearfuldisapproval, she has stood firm, and matters are so arranged. '

 * * * * *

'_Saturday night, August_ 25. 

'This evening we persuaded her at last to give us some scenes of Juliet. How I wish you could have been here! It was one of those experienceswhich remain with one as a sort of perpetual witness to the poetry whichlife holds in it, and may yield up to one at any moment. It was in ourlittle garden; the moon was high above the houses opposite, and thenarrow canal running past our side railing into the Grand Canal was ashining streak of silver. The air was balmy and absolutely still; no moreperfect setting to Shakespeare or to Juliet could have been imagined. Paul sat at a little table in front of the rest of us; he was to readRomeo and the Nurse in the scenes she had chosen, while in the backgroundwere the Worralls and Lucy Bretherton (the little crippled sister), Mr. Wallace, and myself. She did the balcony scene, the morning scene withRomeo, the scene with the nurse after Tybalt's death, and the scene ofthe philtre. There is an old sundial in the garden, which caught themoonbeams. She leaned her arms upon it, her eyes fixed upon the throbbingmoonlit sky, her white brocaded dress glistening here and there in thepale light--a vision of perfect beauty. And when she began her sighingappeal--

"O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?"

--it seemed to me as if the night--the passionate Italian night--hadfound its voice--the only voice which fitted it. 

'Afterwards I tried as much as possible to shake off the impressionspeculiar to the scene itself to think of her under the ordinaryconditions of the stage, to judge her purely as an actress. In the lovescenes there seemed hardly anything to find fault with. I thought I couldtrace in many places the influence of her constant dramatic talks andexercises with Paul. The flow of passion was continuous and electric, butmarked by all the simpleness, all the sweetness, all the young winsomeextravagance which belong to Juliet. The great scene with the Nurse hadmany fine things in it; she has evidently worked hard at it line by line, and that speech of Juliet's, with its extraordinary dramaticcapabilities--

"Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?"--

was given with admirable variety and suppleness of intonation. The drearysweetness of her

"_Banished!_ that one word _banished!_"

still lives with me, and her gestures as she paced restlessly along thelittle strip of moonlit path. The speech before she takes the potion wasthe least satisfactory of all; the ghastliness and horror of it arebeyond her resources as yet; she could not infuse them with that terriblebeauty which Desforêts would have given to every line. But where is theEnglish actress that has ever yet succeeded in it?

We were all silent for a minute after her great cry--

"Romeo, Romeo, Romeo, I drink to thee!"--

had died upon our ears. And then, while we applauded her, she cameforward listlessly, her beautiful head drooping, and approached Paul likea child that has said its lesson badly. 

'"I can't do it, that speech; I can't do it!"

'"It wants more work, " said Paul; "you'll get it. But the rest wasadmirable. You must have worked very hard!"

'"So I have, " she said, brightening at the warmth of his praise. "ButDiderot is wrong, wrong, wrong! When I could once reach the feeling ofthe Tybalt speech, when I could once _hate_ him for killing Tybalt in thesame breath in which I _loved_ him for being Romeo, all was easy; gestureand movement came to me; I learnt them, and the thing was done. "

'The reference, of course, meant that Paul had been reading to her hisfavourite _Paradoxe sur le Comédien_, and that she had been stimulated, but not converted, by the famous contention that the actor should be themere "cold and tranquil spectator, " the imitator of other men's feelings, while possessing none of his own. He naturally would have argued, but Iwould not have it, and made her rest. She was quite worn out with theeffort, and I do not like this excessive fatigue of hers. I often wonderwhether the life she is leading is not too exciting for her. This issupposed to be her holiday, and she is really going through morebrain-waste than she has ever done in her life before! Paul is throwinghis whole energies into one thing only, the training of Miss Bretherton;and he is a man of forty-eight, with an immense experience, and she agirl of twenty-one, with everything to learn, and as easily excited as heis capable of exciting her. I really must keep him in check. 

'Mr. Wallace, when we had sent her home across the canal--their apartmentis on the other side, farther up towards the railway station--could notsay enough to me of his amazement at the change in her. 

'"What have you done to her?" he asked. "I can hardly recognise the oldMiss Bretherton at all. Is it really not yet four months since yourbrother and I went to see her in the _White Lady_? Why, you havebewitched her!"

'"We have done something, I admit, " I said; "but the power you seedeveloped in her now was roused in her when months ago she first came incontact with the new world and the new ideal which you and Eustacerepresented to her. "

'There, my dear Eustace, have I given you your due? Oh, Miss Brethertonsays so many kind things about you! I'll take especial pains to tell yousome of them next time I write. '

 * * * * *

WALLACE TO KENDAL. 

'VENICE, _August_ 27. 

'MY DEAR KENDAL--This has been a day of events which, I believe, willinterest you as much as they did me. I told Madame de Châteauvieux that Ishould write to you to-night, and my letter, she says, must do in placeof one from her for a day or two. We have been to Torcello to-day--yoursister, M. De Châteauvieux, Miss Bretherton, and I. The expedition itselfwas delightful, but that I have no time to describe. I only want to tellyou what happened when we got to Torcello. 

'But first, you will, of course, know from your sister's letters--shetells me she writes to you twice a week--how absorbed we have all been inthe artistic progress of Miss Bretherton. I myself never saw such achange, such an extraordinary development in any one. How was it that youand I did not see farther into her? I see now, as I look back upon herold self, that the new self was there in germ. But I think perhaps it mayhave been the vast disproportion of her celebrity to her performance thatblinded us to the promise in her; it was irritation with the public thatmade us deliver an over-hasty verdict on her. 

'However that may be, I have been making up my mind for some days pastthat the embassy on behalf of _Elvira_, which I thrust upon you, andwhich you so generously undertook, was a blunder on my part which itwould be delightful to repair, and which no artistic considerationswhatever need prevent me from repairing. You cannot think how divine shewas in Juliet the other night. Imperfect and harsh, of course, hereand there, but still a creature to build many and great hopes upon, ifever there was one. She is shaking off trick after trick; yourbrother-in-law is merciless to them whenever they appear, and she is forever working with a view to his approval, and also, I think, from twoor three things she has said, with a memory of that distant standard ofcriticism which she believes to be embodied in you!

'M. De Châteauvieux has devoted himself to her; it is a pretty sight tosee them together. Your sister and she, too, are inseparable, and Madamede Châteauvieux's quiet, equable refinement makes a good contrast toMiss Bretherton's mobility. She will never lose the imprint of herfriendship with these two people; it was a happy thought which led you tobring them together. 

'Well, we went to Torcello, and I watched for an opportunity of gettingher alone. At last Madame de Châteauvieux gave me one; she carried offher husband, Ruskin in hand, to study the mosaics, and Miss Brethertonand I were left sitting under the outer wall of San Fosca till theyshould come back. We had been talking of a hundred things--not of actingat all; of the pomegranates, of which she had a scarlet mass in her lap, of the gray slumberous warmth of the day, or the ragged children whopestered us for coppers--and then suddenly, I asked her whether she wouldanswer me a personal question: Was there any grudge in her mind towardsme for anything I had said and done in London, or caused others to sayand do for me?

'She was much startled, and coloured a good deal, but she said verysteadily: "I feel no sort of grudge; I never had any cause. " "Well, then, " I went on, throwing myself down on the grass before her that Imight really see her expression, "if you bear me no grudge, if you feelkindly towards me, will you help me to undo a great mistake of mine?"

'She looked at me with parted lips and eyes which seemed to be trying tofind out from my face what I meant. "Will you, " I said, hurrying on;"will you take from me _Elvira_, and do what you like with it?" And then, do you know what happened? Her lips quivered, and I thought she was onthe point of tears, but suddenly the nervousness of each of us seemed tostrike the other, and we both laughed--she long and helplessly, as if shecould not help herself. 

'Presently she looked up, with her great eyes swimming in tears, andtried to impress on me that I was speaking hastily, that I had an idealfor that play she could never promise to reach, that it was my friendshipfor her that made me change my mind, that there might be practicaldifficulties now that so many arrangements had been made, and so on. ButI would not listen to her. I had it all ready; I had an actor to proposeto her for Macias, and even the costumes in my mind, ready to sketch forher, if need were. Forbes, I suggested, might and would direct thesetting of the piece; no one could do it with more perfect knowledgeor a more exquisite taste; and for her, as we both knew, he would turnscene-painter, if necessary. And so I rambled on, soothing her shakenfeeling and my own until she had let me beguile her out of her attitudeof reluctance and shrinking into one at least of common interest. 

'But by the time the others came back I had not got a direct consent outof her, and all the way home she was very silent. I, of course, gotanxious, and began to think that my blunder had been irreparable; but, atany rate, I was determined not to let the thing linger on. So that, whenthe Châteauvieux asked me to stay and sup with them and her, I supped, and afterwards in the garden boldly brought it out before them all, andappealed to your sister for help. I knew that both she and her husbandwere acquainted with what had happened at Oxford, and I supposed thatMiss Bretherton would know that they were, so that it was awkward enough. Only that women, when they please, have such tact, such an art ofsmoothing over and ignoring the rough places of life, that one often withthem gets through a difficult thing without realising how difficult itis. M. De Châteauvieux smoked a long time and said nothing, then he askedme a great many questions about the play, and finally gave no opinion. Iwas almost in despair--she said so little--until, just as I was goingaway with _Elvira's_ fate still quite unsettled, she said to me with asmile and a warm pressure of the hand, "To-morrow come and see me, and Iwill tell you yes or no!"

'And to-day I have been to see her, and the night has brought good luck!For _Elvira_, my dear Kendal, will be produced on or about the 20thNovember, in this year of grace, and Isabel Bretherton will play theheroine, and your friend is already plunged in business, and aglow withhope and expectation. How I wish--how we all wish--that you were here! Ifeel more and more penitent towards you. It was you who gave the impulseof which the results are ripening, and you ought to be here with us now, playing in the body that friend's part which we all yield you so readilyin spirit. "Tell Mr. Kendal, " were almost her last words to me, "that Icannot say how much I owe to his influence and his friendship. He firstopened my eyes to so many things. He was so kind to me, even when hethought least of me. I hope I shall win a word of praise from him yet!"There! I trust that will rouse a little pleasant conceit in you. Shemeant it, and it is true. I must go off and work at many things. To-morrow or next day, after some further talk with her, I shall set offhomewards, look up Forbes and begin operations. She will be in town inabout three weeks from now--as you know she is going to stay first withyour sister in Paris--and then we shall have hard work till about themiddle of November, when I suppose the play will be produced. This willbe more than a fortnight later than she intended to open, and Mr. Worrallwill probably be furious over the delay, but she has developed a will ofher own lately. 

'_Au revoir_ then. You must have had a peaceful summer with your booksand your heather. I wish I had anything like the same digestion for workthat you have; I never saw a man get as much pleasure out of his books asyou do. To me, I confess, that work is always work, and idleness a joy!

'However, no more idleness for me for a good while to come. How grand shewill be in that last act!--Where were my eyes last spring?--I wish therewere a chance of her seeing much that is interesting in Paris. However, flat as September generally is, she will get some Molière at the_Français_, and your sister will take care that she sees the rightpeople. Perrault, I hear, is to give her lessons--under the rose. Happyman!'

 * * * * *

Kendal read this letter on a glowing August morning as he walked homewardalong the side of the pond, where the shade of the fir-trees was awelcome protection against the rising heat, and the air was fragrant withthe scent of the ling, which was just out in all its first faint flush ofbeauty. He threw himself down among it after he had finished the sheets, and stared for long at the sunlit motionless water, his hat drawn forwardover his brows. So this was the outcome of it all. Isabel Bretherton wasabout to become a great actress, --Undine had found her soul!

It seemed to him, as he lay there buried in the ling, that during thepast three weeks he had lived through a whole drama of feeling--a dramawhich had its beginning, its complications, its climax. While it had beengoing on he had been only half-conscious of its bearings, half-consciousof himself. Wallace's letter had made him sensible of the situation, asit concerned himself, with a decisive sharpness and completeness. Therewas no possibility of any further self-delusion: the last defences wereovercome, the last veil between himself and the pursuing force which hadovertaken him had fallen, and Kendal, with a shiver of pain, foundhimself looking straight into the wide, hungry eyes of Love! Oh, was thislove, --this sore desire, this dumb craving, this restlessness of thewhole being?

The bees hummed among the heather, every now and then a littlebrown-streaked lizard rustled faintly beside him, a pair of kingfishersflashed across the pond. But he saw and heard nothing, responsive asevery sense in him commonly was to the details of the wild life abouthim. His own miserable reverie absorbed him. What was it that had madethe charm of those early weeks in July immediately after his parting withher? What was it which had added zest to his work, and enchantment to thesummer beauty of the country, and, like a hidden harmony dimly resonantwithin him, had kept life tuneful and delightful? He could put words toit now. It had been nothing less than a settled foresight, a deepconviction, of _Isabel Bretherton's failure_! What a treachery! Butyes, --the vision perpetually before his eyes had been the vision of adying fame, a waning celebrity, a forsaken and discrowned beauty! Andfrom that abandonment and that failure he had dimly foreseen the riseand upspringing of new and indescribable joy. He had seen her, consciousof defeat and of the inexorable limits of her own personality, turningto the man who had read her truly and yet had loved her, surely, fromthe very beginning, and finding in his love a fresh glory and anall-sufficient consolation. This had been the inmost truth, the centre, the kernel of all his thought, of all his life. He saw it now with sharpdistinctness, --now that every perception was intensified by pain andlonging. 

Then, as he went over the past, he saw how this consciousness had beengradually invaded and broken up by his sister's letters. He rememberedthe incredulous impatience with which he had read the earlier ones. So, Marie thought him mistaken! 'Isabel Bretherton would be an actressyet'--'she had genius, after all'--'she was learning, growing, developingevery day. ' Absurd! _He_, had been able to keep his critical estimate ofthe actress and his personal admiration of the woman separate from oneanother. But evidently Marie's head had been confused, misled, by herheart. And then, little by little, his incredulity had yielded, and hispoint of view had changed. Instead of impatience of Marie's laxity ofjudgment, what he had been fiercely conscious of for days was jealousy ofPaul de Châteauvieux--jealousy of his opportunities, his influence, hisrelation towards that keen sweet nature. That, too, had been one of hisdreams of the future, --the dream of tutoring and training her youngunformed intelligence. He had done something towards it; he had, as itwere, touched the spring which had set free all this new and unexpectedstore of power. But, if he had planted, others had watered, and otherswould reap. In this great crisis of her fortunes he had been nothing toher. Other voices and other hands had guided and directed her. Herkindly, grateful messages only stung and tortured him. They seemed to himthe merest friendly commonplace. In reality her life had passed out ofhis ken; her nature had flowered into a new perfection, and he had notbeen there to see or to help. She would never connect him with theincidents or the influences which had transformed existence to her, andwould probably irrevocably change the whole outline of her future. Oncehe had wounded and startled her, and had despaired for awhile of undoingthe impression made upon her. But now he felt no quick anxiety, no fearhow things might turn, only a settled flat consciousness of division, ofa life that had once been near to his swept away from him for ever, ofdiverging roads which no kindly fate would ever join again. 

For, by the end of this time of solitary waiting, his change of attitudewas complete. It was evident to him that his anticipation of her failure, potent as it had been over his life, had never been half so real, half sovivid, as this new and strange foreboding of her true success. Marie mustbe right. He had been a mere blind hair-splitting pedant, judging IsabelBretherton by principles and standards which left out of count the inbornenergy, the natural power of growth, of such a personality as hers. Andthe more he had once doubted the more he now believed. Yes, she would begreat--she would make her way into that city of the mind, in which hehimself had made his dwelling-place; she, too, would enter upon theworld's vast inheritance of knowledge. She would become, if only herphysical frame proved equal to the demands upon it, one of that littleband of interpreters, of ministers of the idea, by whom the intellectuallife of a society is fed and quickened. Was he so lost in his own selfishcovetous need as not to rejoice?

Oh, but she was a woman, she was beautiful, and he loved her! Do what hewould, all ideal and impersonal considerations fell utterly away fromhim. Day by day he knew more of his own heart; day by day the philosophergrew weaker in him, and the man's claim fiercer. Before him perpetuallywere two figures of a most human and practical reality. He saw a greatactress, absorbed in the excitement of the most stimulating of lives, herpower ripening from year to year, her fame growing and widening withtime; and beside this brilliant vision he saw himself, the quiet man ofletters, with the enthusiasms of youth behind him, the calm of middle-agebefore him. What possible link could there be between them?

At last Wallace's letter cleared still further the issues of theconflict; or rather, it led to Kendal's making a fatalist compact withhimself. He was weary of the struggle, and it seemed to him that he mustsomehow or other escape from the grip in which his life was held. He mustsomehow deaden this sense, this bitter sense of loss, if it were only bypostponing the last renunciation. He would go back to his work and forcehimself not to hate it. It was his only refuge, and he must cling to itfor dear life. And he would not see her again till the night of the firstperformance of _Elvira_. She would be in London in a month's time, but hewould take care to be out of reach. He would not meet those glorious eyesor touch that hand again till the die was cast, --upon the fate of_Elvira_ he staked his own. The decision brought him a strange kind ofpeace, and he went back to his papers and his books like a man who hasescaped from the grasp of some deadly physical ill into a period ofcomparative ease and relief. 

CHAPTER VII

It was a rainy November night. A soft continuous downpour was soaking theLondon streets, without, however, affecting their animation or thenocturnal brightness of the capital, for the brilliance of the gas-lampswas flashed back from innumerable patches of water, and every ray oflight seemed to be broken by the rain into a hundred shimmeringreflections. It was the hour when all the society of which an autumnalLondon can boast is in the streets, hurrying to its dinner or itsamusements, and when the stream of diners-out, flowing through thedifferent channels of the west, is met in all the great thoroughfares bythe stream of theatre-goers setting eastward. 

The western end of D---- Street was especially crowded, and so was theentrance to a certain narrow street leading northwards from it, in whichstood the new bare buildings of the _Calliope_. Outside the theatreitself there was a dense mass of carriages and human beings, only kept inorder by the active vigilance of the police, and wavering to and fro withkaleidoscopic rapidity. The line of carriages seemed interminable, and, after those who emerged from them had run the gauntlet of the dripping, curious, good-tempered multitude outside, they had to face the sternerordeal of the struggling well-dressed crowd within, surging up the doublestaircase of the newly-decorated theatre. The air inside was full of thehum of talk, and the whole crowd had a homogeneous, almost a family air, as though the contents of one great London _salon_ had been poured intothe theatre. Everybody seemed to know everybody else; there werepoliticians, and artists, and writers of books, known and unknown; therewere fair women and wise women and great ladies; and there was that largesubstratum of faithful, but comparatively nameless, persons on whom asuccessful manager learns to depend with some confidence on any firstnight of importance. 

And this was a first night of exceptional interest. So keen, indeed, hadbeen the competition for tickets that many of those present had as vagueand confused an idea of how they came to be among the favoured multitudepouring into the _Calliope_ as a man in a street panic has of the devicesby which he has struggled past the barrier which has overthrown hisneighbour. Miss Bretherton's first appearance in _Elvira_ had been thesubject of conversation for weeks past among a far larger number ofLondon circles than generally concern themselves with theatrical affairs. Among those which might be said to be within a certain literary andartistic circumference, people were able to give definite grounds for thepublic interest. The play, it was said, was an unusually good one, andthe progress of the rehearsals had let loose a flood of rumours to theeffect that Miss Bretherton's acting in it would be a great surprise tothe public. Further, from the intellectual centre of things, it was onlyknown that the famous beauty had returned to the scene of her triumphs;and that now, as in the season, one of the first articles of the socialdecalogue laid it down as necessary that you should, first of all, seeher in the theatre, and, secondly, know her--by fair means if possible, if not, by crooked ones--in society. 

It was nearly a quarter to eight. The orchestra had taken their places, and almost every seat was full. In one of the dress-circle boxes satthree people who had arrived early, and had for some time employedthemselves in making a study of the incoming stream through theiropera-glasses. They were Eustace Kendal, his sister, Madame deChâteauvieux, and her husband. The Châteauvieux had travelled overfrom Paris expressly for the occasion, and Madame de Châteauvieux, hergray-blue eyes sparkling with expectation and all her small delicatefeatures alive with interest and animation, was watching for the risingof the heavy velvet curtain with an eagerness which brought down upon herthe occasional mockery of her husband, who was in reality, however, little less excited than herself. It was but three weeks since they hadparted with Isabel Bretherton in Paris, and they were feeling on thisfirst night something of the anxiety and responsibility which parentsfeel when they launch a child upon whom they have expended their bestefforts into a critical world. 

As for Eustace, he also had but that afternoon arrived in London. He hadbeen paying a long duty-visit to some aged relatives in the North, andhad so lengthened it out, in accordance with the whim which had takenpossession of him in Surrey, that he had missed all the preparations for_Elvira_, and had arrived upon the scene only at the moment when thefinal _coup_ was to be delivered. Miss Bretherton had herself sent him awarm note of invitation, containing an order for the first night and anappeal to him to come and 'judge me as kindly as truth will let you. ' Andhe had answered her that, whatever happened, he would be in his place inthe _Calliope_ on the night of the 20th of November. 

And now here he was, wearing outwardly precisely the same aspect ofinterested expectation as those around him, and all the time consciousinwardly that to him alone, of all the human beings in that vast theatre, the experience of the evening would be so vitally and desperatelyimportant, that life on the other side of it would bear the mark of itfor ever. It was a burden to him that his sister suspected nothing of hisstate of feeling; it would have consoled him that she should know it, butit seemed to him impossible to tell her. 

'There are the Stuarts, ' he said, bending down to her as the orchestrastruck up, 'in the box to the left. Forbes, I suppose, will join themwhen it begins. I am told he has been working like a horse for this play. Every detail in it, they say, is perfect, artistically and historically, and the time of preparation has been exceptionally short. Why did sherefuse to begin again with the _White Lady_, to give herself more time?'

'I cannot tell you, except that she had a repugnance to it which couldnot be got over. I believe her associations with the play were so painfulthat it would have seemed an evil omen to her to begin a new season withit. '

'Was she wise, I wonder?'

'I think she did well to follow her fancy in the matter, and she herselfhas had plenty of time. She was working at it all the weeks she was withus, and young Harting, too, I think had notice enough. Some of thesmaller parts may go roughly to-night, but they will soon fall intoshape. '

'Poor Wallace!' said Kendal; 'he must be wishing it well over. I neversaw a house better stocked with critics. '

'Here he is, ' cried Madame de Châteauvieux, betraying her suppressedexcitement in her nervous little start. 'Oh, Mr. Wallace, how do you do?and how are things going?'

Poor Wallace threw himself into his seat, looking the picture of miseryso far as his face, which Nature had moulded in one of her cheerfullestmoods, was capable of it. 

'My dear Madame de Châteauvieux, I have no more notion than the man inthe moon. Miss Bretherton is an angel, and without Forbes we should havecollapsed a hundred times already, and that's about all I know. As forthe other actors, I suppose they will get through their parts somehow, but at present I feel like a man at the foot of the gallows. There goesthe hell; now for it. '

The sketch for the play of _Elvira_ had been found among the papers of ayoung penniless Italian who had died, almost of starvation, in his Romangarret, during those teeming years after 1830, when poets grew on everyhedge and the romantic passion was abroad. The sketch had appeared in alittle privately-printed volume which Edward Wallace had picked up bychance on the Paris quays. He had read it in an idle hour in a railway, had seen its capabilities, and had forthwith set to work to develop thesketch into a play. But, in developing it, he had carefully preserved thecharacter of the original conception. It was a conception strictly of theRomantic time, and the execution of it presented very little of thatvariety of tone which modern audiences have learnt to expect. The playtold one rapid breathless story of love, jealousy, despair, and death, and it told it directly and uninterruptedly, without any lighterinterludes. Author and adapter alike had trusted entirely to the tragicforce of the situation and the universality of the motives appealed to. The diction of the piece was the diction of Alfred de Vigny or of theschool of Victor Hugo. It was, indeed, rather a dramatic love-poem than aplay, in the modern sense, and it depended altogether for its successupon the two characters of Macias and Elvira. 

In devising the character of Macias the Italian author had made use of atraditional Spanish type, which has its historical sources, and hasinspired many a Spanish poet from the fifteenth century downwards. Maciasis knight, poet, and lover; his love is a kind of southern madness whichwithers every other feeling in its neighbourhood, and his tragic death isthe only natural ending to a career so fierce and uncontrolled. Elvira, with whom Macias is in love, the daughter of Nuno Fernandez, is embodiedgentleness and virtue, until the fierce progress of her fate has taughther that men are treacherous and the world cruel. For her love had beenprosperous and smooth until, by a series of events, it had been broughtinto antagonism with two opposing interests--those of her father and of acertain Fernan Perez, the tool and favourite of the powerful Duke ofVillena. The ambition and selfish passion of these two men are enlistedagainst her. Perez is determined to marry her; her father is determinedto sweep Macias out of the path of his own political advancement. Theintrigue devised between the two is perfectly successful. Macias isenticed away; Elvira, forced to believe that she is deserted andbetrayed, is half driven, half entrapped, into a marriage with Perez; andMacias, returning to claim her against a hundred obstacles, meets thewedding party on their way back to the palace of the Duke. The rest ofthe play represented, of course, the struggle between the contendingforces thus developed. In plan and mechanism the story was one of acommon romantic type, neither better nor worse than hundreds of others ofwhich the literary archives of the first half of the present century arefull. It required all the aid that fine literary treatment could give itto raise it above the level of vulgar melodrama and turn it into tragedy. But fortune had been kind to it; the subject had been already handled inthe Italian sketch with delicacy and a true tragic insight, and EdwardWallace had brought all the resources of a very evenly-trained andcritical mind to bear upon his task. It could hardly have been foreseenthat he would be attracted by the subject, but once at work upon it hehad worked with enthusiasm. 

The curtain drew up on the great hall of the Villena Palace. Everythingthat antiquarian knowledge could do had been brought to bear upon thesurroundings of the scene; the delicate tilework of the walls and floor, the leather hangings, the tapestries, the carved wood and brass work of aSpanish palace of the fifteenth century, had been copied with lavishmagnificence; and the crowded expectant house divided its attention andapplause during the first scene between the beauty and elaboration of itssetting and the play of the two tolerable actors who represented Elvira'sfather and the rival of Macias, Fernan Perez. 

Fernan Perez, having set the intrigue on foot which is to wreck the loveof Macias and Elvira, had just risen from his seat, when Wallace, who waswatching the stage in a torment of mingled satisfaction and despair, touched Madame de Châteauvieux's arm. 

'_Now_!' he said. 'That door to the left. '

Kendal, catching the signal, rose from his seat behind Madame deChâteauvieux and bent forward. The great door at the end of the palacehad slowly opened, and gliding through it with drooping head and handsclasped before her came Elvira, followed by her little maid Beatriz. Thestorm which greeted her appearance was such as thrilled the pulses of theoldest _habitué_ in the theatre. Tears came to Madame de Châteauvieux'seyes, and she looked up at her brother. 

'What a scene! It is overpowering--it is too much for her! I wish theywould let her go on!'

Kendal made no answer, his soul was in his eyes; he had no senses for anybut one person. _She_ was there, within a few yards of him, in all thesovereignty of her beauty and her fame, invested with the utmost romancethat circumstances could bestow, and about, if half he heard were true, to reap a great artistic, no less than a great personal triumph. Had hefelt towards her only as the public felt it would have been an experiencebeyond the common run, and as it was--oh, this aching, intolerable senseof desire, of separation, of irremediable need! Was that her voice? Hehad heard that tone of despair in it before--under over-arching woods, when the June warmth was in the air! That white outstretched hand hadonce lain close clasped in his own; those eyes had once looked with apassionate trouble into his. Ah, it was gone for ever, nothing would everrecall it--that one quick moment of living contact! In a deeper sensethan met the ear, she was on the stage and he among the audience. To theend his gray life would play the part of spectator to hers, or else shewould soon have passed beyond his grasp and touch, just as Elvira wouldhave vanished in a little while from the sight of the great audiencewhich now hung upon her every movement. 

Then from the consciousness of his own private smart he was swept out, whether he would or no, into the general current of feeling which wasstirring the multitude of human beings around him, and he found himselfgradually mastered by considerations of a different order altogether. Wasthis the actress he had watched with such incessant critical revolt sixmonths before? Was this the half-educated girl, grasping at resultsutterly beyond her realisation, whom he remembered?

It seemed to him impossible that this quick artistic intelligence, thisnervous understanding of the demands made upon her, this faculty inmeeting them, could have been developed by the same Isabel Brethertonwhose earlier image was so distinctly graven on his memory. And yet histrained eye learned after a while to decipher in a hundred indicationsthe past history of the change. He saw how she had worked, and where; theinfluences which had been brought to bear upon her were all familiar tohim; they had been part of his own training, and they belonged, as heknew, to the first school of dramatic art in Europe--to the school whichkeeps alive from generation to generation the excellence and fame of thebest French drama. He came to estimate by degrees all that she had done;he saw also all she had still to do. In the spring she had been anactress without a future, condemned by the inexorable logic of things tosee her fame desert her with the first withering of her beauty. Now shehad, as it were, but started towards her rightful goal, but her feet werein the great high-road, and Kendal saw before her, if she had butstrength to reach it, the very highest summit of artistic success. 

The end of the first act was reached; Elvira, returning from theperformance of the marriage ceremony in the chapel of the palace, hademerged hand-in-hand with her husband, and, followed by her weddingtrain, upon the great hall. She had caught sight of Macias standingblanched and tottering under the weight of the incredible news which hadjust been given to him by the Duke. She had flung away the hateful handwhich held her, and, with a cry, instinct with the sharp and terribledespair of youth, she had thrown herself at the feet of her lover. 

When the curtain fell, Edward Wallace could have had few doubts--if hehad ever cherished any--of the success of his play. He himself escapedbehind the scenes as soon as Miss Bretherton's last recall was over, and the box was filled in his absence with a stream of friends, and aconstant murmur of congratulation, which was music in the ears of Madamede Châteauvieux, and, for the moment, silenced in Kendal his ownthrobbing and desolate consciousness. 

'There never was a holiday turned to such good account before, ' agray-haired dramatic critic was saying to her, a man with whose keen, good-natured face London had been familiar for the last twenty years. 'What magic has touched the beauty, Madame de Châteauvieux? Last springwe all felt as though one fairy godmother at least had been left out atthe christening. And now it would seem as though even she had repented ofit, and brought her gift with the rest. Well, well, I always felt therewas something at the bottom in that nature that might blossom yet. Mostpeople who are younger at the trade than I would not hear of it. It wascommonly agreed that her success would last just as long as the firstfreshness of her beauty, and no more. And _now_--the English stage haslaid its hold at last upon a great actress. '

Madame de Châteauvieux's smiling reply was broken by the reappearance ofWallace, round whom the buzz of congratulation closed with fresh vigour. 

'How is she?' asked Madame de Châteauvieux, laying a hand on his arm. 'Tired?'

'Not the least! But, of course, all the strain is to come. It is amazing, you know, this reception. It's almost more trying than the acting. Forbesin the wings, looking on, is a play in himself!'

In another minute the hubbub had swept out again, and the house hadsettled into silence. 

Macias was the central figure of the second act. In the great scene ofexplanation between himself and Elvira, after he had forced his way intoher apartment, his fury of jealous sarcasm, broken by flashes of the oldabsolute trust, of the old tender worship, had been finely conceived, andwas well rendered by the promising young actor, whom Wallace had himselfchosen for the part, Elvira, overwhelmed by the scorn and despair of herlover, and, conscious of the treachery which has separated them, is yetfull of a blind resolve to play the part she has assumed to the bitterend, to save her own name and her father's from dishonour, and tointerpose the irrevocable barrier of her marriage vow between herself andMacias. Suddenly they are interrupted by the approach of the Duke and ofFernan Perez. Elvira throws herself between her husband and her lover, and, having captured the sword of Macias, hands it to the Duke. Macias isarrested after a tumultuous scene, and is led away, shaking off Elvira'sefforts to save him with bitter contempt, and breaking loose from herwith the prophecy that in every joy of the future and every incident ofher wedded life, the spectre of his murdered love will rise before her, and 'every echo and every breeze repeat the fatal name, Macias. '

During the rapid give and take of this trying scene Kendal saw with akind of incredulous admiration that Isabel Bretherton never once lostherself, that every gesture was true, every word struck home. Herextraordinary grace, her marvellous beauty were all subordinated to, forgotten almost in the supreme human passion speaking through her. Macias, in the height of his despair while he was still alone with her, had flung her his sword, declaring that he would go forth and seek hisdeath an unarmed and defenceless man. Then, when he becomes conscious ofthe approach of his rival, the soldier's instinct revives in him; hecalls for his sword; she refuses it, and he makes a threatening steptowards her. 

'_Mac_. My sword, Elvira. 

_Elvira_. Never!

_Beatriz_. Ah! they are here. It is too late!

_Elvira_. Go! No blood shall flow for me. Come no nearer--or I sheathe itin this breast. '

All the desperate energy of a loving woman driven to bay was in herattitude as she repelled Macias, whereas in the agony of her lastclinging appeal to him, as his guards lead him off, every trace of hermomentary heroism had died away. Faint and trembling, recoiling fromevery harsh word of his as from a blow, she had followed him towards thedoor, and in her straining eyes and seeking, outstretched hands as shewatched him disappear, there was a pathos so true, so poignant, that itlaid a spell upon the audience, and the curtain fell amid a breathlesssilence, which made the roar that almost instantly followed doublynoticeable. 

But it was in the third act that she won her highest triumph. The actopened with a scene between Elvira and her husband, in which she imploredhim, with the humility and hopelessness of grief, to allow her to retirefrom the world and to hide the beauty which had wrought such ruin fromthe light of day. He, in whom jealousy has taken fierce root, refuseswith reproach and insult, and in the full tide of her passionate reactionagainst his tyranny, the news is brought her by Beatriz that Fernan, inhis determination to avoid the duel with Macias on the morrow, which theDuke, in accordance with knightly usage, has been forced to grant, hasdevised means for assassinating his rival in prison. Naturally, her wholesoul is thrown into an effort to save her lover. She bribes his guards. She sends Beatriz to denounce the treachery of her husband to the Duke, and, finally, she herself penetrates into the cell of Macias, to warn himof the fate that threatens him and to persuade him to fly. 

It was, indeed, a dramatic moment when the gloom of Macias's cell wasfirst broken by the glimmer of the hand-lamp, which revealed to the vastexpectant audience the form of Elvira standing on the threshold, searching the darkness with her shaded eyes; and in the great love scenewhich followed the first sharp impression was steadily deepened word byword and gesture after gesture by the genius of the actress. Elvira findsMacias in a mood of calm and even joyful waiting for the morrow. Hishonour is satisfied; death and battle are before him, and the proudCastilian is almost at peace. The vision of Elvira's pale beauty and hisquick intuition of the dangers she has run in forcing her way to himproduce a sudden revulsion of feeling towards her, a flood of passionatereconciliation; he is at her feet once more; he feels that she is true, that she is his. She, in a frenzy of fear, cannot succeed for all herefforts in dimming his ecstasy of joy or in awakening him to thenecessity of flight, and at last he even resents her terror for him, herentreaties that he will forget her and escape. 

'Great heaven!' he says, turning from her in despair, 'it was not love, it was only pity that brought her here. ' Then, broken down by the awfulpressure of the situation, her love resists his no longer, but rather shesees in the full expression of her own heart the only chance ofreconciling him to life, and of persuading him to take thought for hisown safety. 

'_Elvira. _ See, Macias! these tears--each one is yours, is wept for you!Oh, if to soften that proud will of yours this hapless woman must needsopen all her weak heart to you, if she must needs tell you that she livesonly in your life and dies in your death, her lip will brace itself evento that pitiful confession! Ah me! these poor cheeks have been soblanched with weeping, they have no blushes left. '

To her this supreme avowal is the only means of making him believe herreport of his danger, and turn towards flight; but in him it produces ajoy which banishes all thought of personal risk, and makes separationfrom her worse than death. When she bids him fly, he replies by one word, 'Come!' and not till she has promised to guide him to the city gates andto follow him later on his journey will he move a step towards freedom. And then, when her dear hand is about to open to him the door of hisprison, it is too late. Fernan and his assassins are at hand, the stairsare surrounded, and escape is cut off. Again, in these last moments, whenthe locked door still holds between them and the death awaiting them, hermood is one of agonised terror, not for herself, but for him; while he, exalted far above all fear, supports and calms her. 

'_Macias_. Think no more of the world which has destroyed us! We owe itnothing--nothing! Come, the bonds which linked us to it are for everbroken! Death is at the door; _we are already dead_! Come, and make deathbeautiful: tell me you love, love, love me to the end!'

Then, putting her from him, he goes out to meet his enemies. There is aclamour outside, and he returns wounded to death, pursued by Fernan andhis men. He falls, and Elvira defends him from her husband with a lookand gesture so terrible that he and the murderers fall back before her asthough she were some ghastly avenging spirit. Then, bending over him, shesnatches the dagger from the grasp of the dying man, saying to him, witha voice into which Isabel Bretherton threw a wealth of pitifultenderness, 'There is but one way left, beloved. Your wife that shouldhave been, that is, saves herself and you--_so_!'

And in the dead silence that followed, her last murmur rose upon the airas the armed men, carrying torches, crowded round her. 'See, Macias, thetorches--how they shine! _Bring more--bring more--and light--ourmarriage festival_!'

 * * * * *

'Eustace! Eustace! there, now they have let her go! Poor child, poorchild! how is she to stand this night after night? Eustace, do you hear?Let us go into her now--quick, before she is quite surrounded. I don'twant to stay, but I must just see her, and so must Paul. Ah, Mr. Wallaceis gone already, but he described to me how to find her. This way!'

And Madame de Châteauvieux, brushing the tears from her eyes with onehand, took Kendal's arm with the other, and hurried him along the narrowpassages leading to the door on to the stage, M. De Châteauvieuxfollowing them, his keen French face glistening with a quiet but intensesatisfaction. 

As for Kendal, every sense in him was covetously striving to hold and fixthe experiences of the last half-hour. The white muffled figure standingin the turret door, the faint lamp light streaming on the bent head andupraised arm--those tones of self-forgetful passion, drawn straight, asit were, from the pure heart of love--the splendid energy of that lastdefiance of fate and circumstance--the low vibrations of her dyingwords--the power of the actress and the personality of the woman, --allthese different impressions were holding wild war within him as hehastened on, with Marie clinging to his arm. And beyond the littlestage-door the air seemed to be even more heavily charged withexcitement than that of the theatre. For, as Kendal emerged with hissister, his attention was perforce attracted by the little crowd ofpersons already assembled round the figure of Isabel Bretherton, and, ashis eye travelled over them, he realised with a fresh start the fullcompass of the change which had taken place. To all the more eminentpersons in that group Miss Bretherton had been six months before anignorant and provincial beauty, good enough to create a social craze, andnothing more. Their presence round her at this moment, their homage, theemotion visible everywhere, proved that all was different, that she hadpassed the barrier which once existed between her and the world whichknows and thinks, and had been drawn within that circle ofindividualities which, however undefined, is still the vital circle ofany time or society, for it is the circle which represents, more or lessbrilliantly and efficiently, the intellectual life of a generation. 

Only one thing was unchanged--the sweetness and spontaneity of thatrich womanly nature. She gave a little cry as she saw Madame deChâteauvieux enter. She came running forward, and threw her arms roundthe elder woman and kissed her; it was almost the greeting of a daughterto a mother. And then, still holding Madame de Châteauvieux with onehand, she held out the other to Paul, asking him how much fault he had tofind, and when she was to take her scolding; and every gesture had a glowof youth and joy in it, of which the contagion was irresistible. She hadthrown off the white head-dress she had worn during the last act, and herdelicately-tinted head and neck rose from the splendid wedding-gown ofgold-embroidered satin--vision of flowerlike and aerial beauty. 

Fast as the talk flowed about her, Kendal noticed that every one seemedto be, first of all, conscious of her neighbourhood, of her dressrustling past, of her voice in all its different shades of gaiety orquick emotion. 

'Oh, Mr. Kendal, ' she said, turning to him again after their firstgreeting--was it the magnetism of his gaze which had recalled hers?--'ifyou only knew what your sister has been to me! How much I owe to her andto you! It was kind of you to come to-night. I should have been sodisappointed if you hadn't!'

Then she came closer to him, and said archly, almost in his ear, 'Have you forgiven me?'

'Forgiven you? For what?'

'For laying hands on Elvira, after all. You must have thought me a rashand headstrong person when you heard of it. Oh, I worked so hard at her, and all with the dread of you in my mind!'

This perfect friendly openness, this bright _camaraderie_ of hers, wereso hard to meet!

'You have played Elvira, ' he said, 'as I never thought it would be playedby anybody; and I was blind from first to last. I hoped you had forgottenthat piece of pedantry on my part. '

'One does not forget the turning-points of one's life, ' she answered witha sudden gravity. 

Kendal had been keeping an iron grip upon himself during the past hours, but, as she said this, standing close beside him, it seemed to himimpossible that his self-restraint should hold much longer. Thosewonderful eyes of hers were full upon him; there was emotion inthem, --evidently the Nuneham scene was in her mind, as it was inhis, --and a great friendliness, even gratitude, seemed to look outthrough them. But it was as though his doom were written in the verycandour and openness of her gaze, and he rushed desperately into speechagain, hardly knowing what he was saying. 

'It gives me half pain, half pleasure, that you should speak of it so. Ihave never ceased to hate myself for that day. But you have travelled farindeed since the _White Lady_--I never knew any one do so much in soshort a time!'

She smiled--did her lip quiver? Evidently his praise was very pleasant toher, and there must have been something strange and stirring to herfeeling in the intensity and intimacy of his tone. Her bright look caughthis again, and he believed for one wild moment that the eyelids sank andfluttered. He lost all consciousness of the crowd; his whole soul seemedconcentrated on that one instant. Surely she must feel it, or love isindeed impotent!

But no, --it was all a delusion! she moved away from him, and theestranging present rushed in again between them. 

'It has been M. De Châteauvieux's doing, almost all of it, ' she saideagerly, with a change of voice, 'and your sister's. Will you come andsee me some time and talk about some of the Paris people? Oh, I amwanted! But first you must be introduced to Macias. Wasn't he good? Itwas such an excellent choice of Mr. Wallace's. There he is, -and there ishis wife, that pretty little dark woman. '

Kendal followed her mechanically, and presently found himself talkingnothings to Mr. Harting, who, gorgeous in his Spanish dress, wasreceiving the congratulations which poured in upon him with a pleasantmixture of good manners and natural elation. A little farther on hestumbled upon Forbes and the Stuarts, Mrs. Stuart as sparkling and freshas ever, a suggestive contrast in her American crispness and prettinessto the high-bred distinction of Madame de Châteauvieux, who was standingnear her. 

'Well, my dear fellow, ' said Forbes, catching hold of him, 'how is thatcritical demon of yours? Is he scotched yet?'

'He is almost at his last gasp, ' said Kendal, with a ghostly smile, and areckless impulse to talk which seemed to him his salvation. 'He was neveras vicious a creature as you thought him, and Miss Bretherton has had nodifficulty in slaying him. But that hall was a masterpiece, Forbes! Howhave your pictures got on with all this?'

'I haven't touched a brush since I came back from Switzerland, except tomake sketches for this thing. Oh, it's been a terrible business! Mr. Worrall's hair has turned gray over the expenses of it; however, she andI would have our way, and it's all right--the play will run for twelvemonths, if she chooses, easily. '

Near by were the Worralls, looking a little sulky, as Kendal fancied, inthe midst of this great inrush of the London world, which was sweepingtheir niece from them into a position of superiority and independencethey were not at all prepared to see her take up; Nothing, indeed, couldbe prettier than her manner to them whenever she came across them, but itwas evident that she was no longer an automaton to be moved at their willand pleasure, but a woman and an artist, mistress of herself and of herfate. Kendal fell into conversation on the subject with Mrs. Stuart, whowas as communicative and amusing as usual, and who chattered away to himtill he suddenly saw Miss Bretherton signalling to him with her arm inthat of his sister. 

'Do you know, Mr. Kendal, ' she said as he went up to her, 'you mustreally take Madame de Châteauvieux away out of this noise and crowd? Itis all very well for her to preach to me. Take her to your rooms andget her some food. How I wish I could entertain you here; but with thiscrowd it is impossible. '

'Isabel, my dear Isabel, ' cried Madame de Châteauvieux, holding her, 'can't you slip away too, and leave Mr. Wallace to do the honours? Therewill be nothing left of you to-morrow. '

'Yes, directly, directly! only I feel as if sleep were a thing that didnot exist for me. But you must certainly go. Take her, Mr. Kendal;doesn't she look a wreck? I will tell M. De Châteauvieux and sendhim after you. '

She took Marie's shawl from Kendal's arm and put it tenderly round her;then she smiled down into her eyes, said a low 'good-night, best andkindest of friends!' and the brother and sister hurried away, Kendaldropping the hand which had been cordially stretched out to himself. 

'Do you mind, Eustace?' said Madame de Châteauvieux, as they walkedacross the stage. 'I ought to go, and the party ought to break up. But itis a shame to carry you off from so many friends. '

'Mind? Why, I have ordered supper for you in my rooms, and it is justmidnight. I hope these people will have the sense to go soon. Now then, for a cab. '

They alighted at the gate of the Temple, and, as they walked across thequadrangle under a sky still heavy with storm-clouds, Madame deChâteauvieux said to her brother with a sigh: 'Well, it has been a greatevent. I never remember anything more exciting, or more successful. Butthere is one thing, I think, that would make me happier than a hundredElviras, and that is to see Isabel Bretherton the wife of a man sheloved!' Then a smile broke over her face as she looked at herbrother. 

'Do you know, Eustace, I quite made up my mind from those first lettersof yours in May, in spite of your denials, that you were very deeplytaken with her? I remember quite seriously discussing the pros and consof it with myself. '

The words were said so lightly, they betrayed so clearly the speaker'sconviction that she had made a foolish mistake, that they stung Kendal tothe quick. How could Marie have known? Had not his letters for the lastthree months been misleading enough to deceive the sharpest eyes? And yethe felt unreasonably that she ought to have known--there was a blindclamour in him against the bluntness of her sisterly perception. 

His silence was so prolonged that Madame de Châteauvieux was startled byit. She slipped her hand into his arm. 'Eustace!' Still no answer. 'HaveI said anything to annoy you--Eustace? Won't you let your old sister haveher dreams?'

But still it seemed impossible for him to speak. He could only lay hishand over hers with a brotherly clasp. By this time they were at the footof the stairs, and he led the way up, Madame de Châteauvieux following ina tumult of anxious conjecture. When they reached his rooms he put hercarefully into a chair by the fire, made her take some sandwiches, andset the kettle to boil in his handy bachelor way, that he might make hersome tea, and all the time he talked about various nothings, till at lastMarie, unable to put up with it any longer, caught his hand as he wasbending over the fire. 

'Eustace, ' she exclaimed, 'be kind to me, and don't perplex me likethis. --Oh, my poor old boy, are you in love with Isabel Bretherton?'

'He drew himself to his full height on the rug, and gazed steadily intothe fire, the lines of his mobile face settling into repose. 

'Yes, ' he said, as though to himself; 'I love her. I believe I have lovedher from the first moment. '

Madame de Châteauvieux was tremblingly silent, her thoughts travellingback over the past with lightning rapidity. Could she remember one word, one look of Isabel Bretherton's, of which her memory might serve to throwthe smallest ray of light on this darkness in which Eustace seemed to bestanding? No, not one. Gratitude, friendship, esteem--all these had beenthere abundantly, but nothing else, not one of those many signs by whichone woman betrays her love to another! She rose and put her arm round herbrother's neck. They had been so much to one another for nearly fortyyears; he had never wanted anything as a child or youth that she had nottried to get for him. How strange, how intolerable, that this toy, thisboon, was beyond her getting!

Her mute sympathy and her deep distress touched him, while, at the sametime, they seemed to quench the last spark of hope in him. Had he countedupon hearing something from her whenever he should break silence whichwould lighten the veil over the future? It must have been so, otherwisewhy this sense of fresh disaster?

'Dear Marie, ' he said to her, kissing her brow as she stood beside him, 'you must be as good to me as you can. I shall probably be a good dealout of London for the present, and my books are a wonderful help. Afterall, life is not all summed up in one desire, however strong. Otherthings are real to me--I am thankful to say. I shall live it down. '

'But why despair so soon?' she cried, rebelling against this heavyacquiescence of his and her own sense of hopelessness. 'You are a man anywoman might love. Why should she not pass from the mere friendlyintellectual relation to another? Don't go away from London. Stay and seeas much of her as you can. '

Kendal shook his head. 'I used to dream, ' he said huskily, 'of a timewhen failure should have come, when she would want some one to step inand shield her. Sometimes I thought of her protected in my arms againstthe world. But now!'

She felt the truth of his unspoken argument--of all that his toneimplied. In the minds of both the same image gathered shape anddistinctness. Isabel Bretherton in the halo of her great success, in allthe intensity of her new life, seemed to her and to him to stand afaroff, divided by an impassable gulf from this simple, human craving, whichwas crying to her, unheard and hopeless, across the darkness. 

CHAPTER VIII

A month after the first performance of _Elvira_ Kendal returned to townon a frosty December afternoon from the Surrey lodgings on which he hadnow established a permanent hold. He mounted to his room, found hisletters lying ready for him, and on the top of them a telegram, which, ashis man-servant informed him, had arrived about an hour before. He tookit up carelessly, opened it, and bent over it with a start of anxiety. It was from his brother-in-law. '_Marie is very ill. Doctors muchalarmed. Can you come to-night_?' He put it down in stupefaction. Marieill! the doctors alarmed! Good heavens! could he catch that eveningtrain? He looked at his watch, decided that there was time, and plunged, with his servant's help, into all the necessary preparations. An hour anda half later he was speeding along through the clear cold moonlight toDover, realising for the first time, as he leant back alone in hiscompartment, the full meaning of the news which had hurried him off. Allhis tender affection for his sister, and all his stifling sense ofsomething unlucky and untoward in his own life, which had been so strongin him during the past two months, combined to rouse in him the blackestfears, the most hopeless despondency. Marie dead, --what would the worldhold for him! Books, thought, ideas--were they enough? Could a man liveby them if all else were gone? For the first time Kendal felt a doubtwhich seemed to shake his nature to its depths. 

During the journey his thoughts dwelt in a dull sore way upon thepast. He saw Marie in her childhood, in her youth, in her richmaturity. He remembered her in the schoolroom spending all her sparetime over contrivances of one kind or another for his amusement. Hehad a vision of her going out with their mother on the night of herfirst ball, and pitying him for being left behind. He saw her tenderface bending over the death-bed of their father, and through a hundredincidents and memories--all beautiful, all intertwined with that lovelyself-forgetfulness which was characteristic of her, his mind travelleddown to an evening scarcely a month before, when her affection had oncemore stood, a frail warm barrier, between him and the full bitterness ofa great renunciation. Oh Marie, Marie!

It was still dark when he reached Paris, and the gray winter light wasonly just dawning when he stopped at the door of his brother-in-law'shouse in one of the new streets near the Champs Elysées. M. DeChâteauvieux was standing on the stairs, his smoothly-shaven, clear-cutface drawn and haggard, and a stoop in his broad shoulders which Kendalhad never noticed before. Kendal sprang up the steps and wrung his hand. M. De Châteauvieux shook his head almost with a groan, in answer to thebrother's inquiry of eye and lip, and led the way upstairs into theforsaken _salon_, which looked as empty and comfortless as though itsmistress had been gone from it years instead of days. Arrived there, thetwo men standing opposite to each other in the streak of dull light madeby the hasty withdrawal of a curtain, Paul said, speaking in a whisper, with dry lips:

'There is no hope--the pain is gone; you would think she was better, but the doctors say she will just lie there as she is lying nowtill--till--the end. '

Kendal staggered over to a chair and tried to realise what he had heard, but it was impossible, although his journey had seemed to him one longpreparation for the worst. 'What is it--how did it happen?' he asked. 

'Internal chill. She was only taken ill the day before yesterday, and thepain was frightful till yesterday afternoon; then it subsided, and Ithought she was better--she herself was so cheerful and so thankful forthe relief--but when the two doctors came in again, it was to tell methat the disappearance of the pain meant only the worst--meant thatnothing more can be done--she may go at any moment. '

There was a silence. M. De Châteauvieux walked up and down with thenoiseless step which even a few hours of sickness develop in the watcher, till he came and stood before his brother-in-law, saying in the samepainful whisper, 'You must have some food, then I will tell her you arehere. '

'No, no; I want no food, --any time will do for that. Does she expect me?'

'Yes; you won't wait? Then come. ' He led the way across a littleanteroom, lifted a curtain, and knocked. The nurse came, there was alittle parley, and Paul went in, while Eustace waited outside, consciousof the most strangely trivial things, of the passers-by in the street, ofa wrangle between two _gamins_ on the pavement opposite, of themisplacement of certain volumes in the bookcase beside him, till thedoor opened again, and M. De Châteauvieux drew him in. 

He stepped over the threshold, his whole being wrought up to he knew notwhat solemn pageant of death and parting, and the reality within startledhim. The room was flooded with morning light, a frosty December sun wasstruggling through the fog, the curtains had just been drawn back, andthe wintry radiance rested on the polished brass of the bed, on thebright surfaces of wood and glass with which the room was full, on thelittle tray of tea-things which the nurse held, and on his sister's faceof greeting as she lay back smiling among her pillows. There was such acheerful home peace and brightness in the whole scene--in the cracklingwood fire, in the sparkle of the tea-things and the fragrance of the tea, and in the fresh white surroundings of the invalid; it seemed to himincredible that under all this familiar household detail there should belying in wait that last awful experience of death. 

Marie kissed him with grateful affectionate words spoken almost in herusual voice, and then, as he sat beside her holding her hands, shenoticed that he looked pale and haggard. 

'Has he had some breakfast, Paul? Oh, poor Eustace, after that longjourney! Nurse, let him have my cup, there is some tea left; let me seeyou drink it, dear; it's so pleasant just to look after you once more. '

He drank it mechanically, she watching him with her loving eyes, whileshe took one hand from him and slipped it into that of her husband as hesat beside her on the bed. Her touch seemed to have meaning in it, forPaul rose presently and went to the far end of the large room; the nursecarried away the tea-things, and the brother and sister were practicallyalone. 

'Dear Eustace, ' she began, after a few pathetic moments of silence, inwhich look and gesture took the place of speech, 'I have so longed to seeyou. It seemed to me in that awful pain that I must die before I couldgather my thoughts together once more, before I could get free enoughfrom my own wretched self to say to my two dear ones all I wished to say. But now it is all gone, and I am so thankful for this moment of peace. I made Dr. De Chavannes tell me the whole truth. Paul and I have alwayspromised one another that there should never be any concealment betweenus when either of us came to die, and I think I shall have a few hoursmore with you. '

She was silent a little; the voice had all its usual intonations, but itwas low and weak, and it was necessary for her from time to time togather such strength as might enable her to maintain the calm of hermanner. Eustace, in bewildered misery, had hidden his face upon herhands, which were clasped in his, and every now and then she felt thepressure of his lips upon her fingers. 

'There are many things I want to say to you, ' she went on. 'I will try toremember them in order. Will you stay with Paul a few days--after--? willyou always remember to be good to him? I know you will. My poor Paul, ohif I had but given you a child!'

The passion of her low cry thrilled Eustace's heart. He looked up and sawon her face the expression of the hidden yearning of a lifetime. Itstruck him as something awful and sacred; he could not answer it exceptby look and touch, and presently she went on after another pause:

'His sister will come to him very likely--his widowed sister. She has agirl he is fond of. After a while he will take pleasure in her. --Then Ihave thought so much of you and of the future. So often last night Ithought I saw you and _her_, and what you ought to do seemed to growplain to me. Dear Eustace, don't let anything I say now ever be a burdento you--don't let it fetter you ever--but it is so strong in me you mustlet me say it all. She is not in love with you, Eustace--at least, Ithink not. She has never thought of you in that way; but there iseverything there which ought to lead to love. You interest her deeply;the thought of you stands to her as the symbol of all she wants to reach;and then she knows what you have been to all those who trusted you. Sheknows that you are good and true. I want you to try and carry it fartherfor her sake and yours. ' He looked up and would have spoken, but she puther soft hand over his mouth. 'Wait one moment. Those about her are notpeople to make her happy--at any time if things went wrong--if she brokedown--she would be at their mercy. Then her position--you know whatdifficulties it has--it makes my heart ache sometimes to think of it. Shewon my love so. I felt like a mother to her. I long to have her here now, but I would not let Paul send; and if I could think of her safe withyou--in those true hands of yours. Oh, you will try, darling?' Heanswered her huskily and brokenly, laying his face to hers on the pillow. 

'I would do anything you asked. But she is so likely to love and marry. Probably there is some one--already. How could it not be with her beautyand her fame? Anybody would be proud to marry her, and she has such aquick eager nature. 

'There is no one!' said Marie, with deep conviction in the whisperedwords. 'Her life has been too exciting--too full of one interest. Shestayed with me; I got to know her to the bottom. She would not havehidden it. Only say you will make one trial and I should be content. '

And then her innate respect for another's individuality, her shrinkingfrom what might prove to be the tyranny of a dying wish interposed, andshe checked herself. 'No, don't promise; I have no right--no one has anyright. I can only tell you my feeling--my deep sense that there ishope--that there is nothing against you. Men--good men--are so oftenover-timid when courage would be best. Be bold, Eustace; respect yourown love; do not be too proud to show it--to offer it!' Her voice diedaway into silence, only Eustace still felt the caressing touch of thethin fingers clasped round his. It seemed to him as if the life stillleft in her were one pure flame of love, undimmed by any thought ofself, undisturbed by any breath of pain. Oh, this victory of the spiritover the flesh, of soul over body, which humanity achieves and renewsfrom day to day and from age to age, in all those nobler and finerpersonalities upon whom the moral life of the world depends! How it burnsits testimony into the heart of the spectator! How it makes him thrillwith the apprehension which lies at the root of all religion--theapprehension of an ideal order--the divine suspicion

'That we are greater than we know!'

How it impresses itself upon us as the only miracle which will bear ourleaning upon, and stand the strain of human questioning! It was borne inupon Eustace, as he sat bowed beside his dying sister, that through thisfragile body and this failing breath the Eternal Mind was speaking, andthat in Marie's love the Eternal Love was taking voice. He said so to herbrokenly, and her sweet eyes smiled back upon him a divine answer ofpeace and faith. 

Then she called faintly, 'Paul!' The distant figure came back; and shelaid her head upon her husband's breast, while Eustace was gently drawnaway by the nurse. Presently, he found himself mechanically taking foodand mechanically listening to the low-voiced talk of the kindlywhite-capped woman who was attending to him. Every fact, everyimpression, was misery, --these details so unexpected, so irrevocable, socharged with terrible meaning, which the nurse was pouring out uponhim, --that presence in the neighbouring room of which his every nerve wasconscious, --and in front of him, like a frowning barrier shutting off theview of the future, the advancing horror of death! Yesterday, at the sametime, he had been walking along the sandy Surrey roads, delighting in thelast autumn harmonies of colour, and conscious of the dawn of a period ofrest after a period of conflict, of the growth within him of a temper ofquiet and rational resignation to the conditions of life and of his ownindividual lot, over the development of which the mere fact of hissister's existence had exercised a strong and steadying influence. Life, he had persuaded himself, was for him more than tolerable, even withoutlove and marriage. The world of thought was warm and hospitable to him;he moved at ease within its friendly familiar limits; and in the world ofpersonal relations, one heart was safely his, the sympathy and trust andtenderness of one human soul would never fail him at his need. And nowthis last tender bond was to be broken with a rough, incrediblesuddenness. The woman he loved with passion would never be his; for noteven now, fresh from contact with his sister's dying hope, could he raisehimself to any flattering vision of the future; and the woman he loved, with that intimate tenacity of affection which is the poetry of kinship, was to be taken from him by this cruel wastefulness of premature death. Could any man be more alone than he would be? And then suddenly aconsciousness fell upon him which made him ashamed. In the neighbouringroom his ear was caught now and then by an almost imperceptible, murmurof voices. What was his loss, his agony, compared to theirs?

When he softly returned into the room he found Marie lying as thoughasleep upon, her husband's arm. It seemed to him that since he had lefther there had been a change. The face was more drawn, the look ofexhaustion more defined. Paul sat beside her, his eyes riveted upon her. He scarcely seemed to notice his brother-in-law's entrance; it was asthough he were rapidly losing consciousness of every fact but one; andnever had Kendal seen any countenance so grief-stricken, so pinched withlonging. But Marie heard the familiar step. She made a faint movementwith her hand towards him, and he resumed his old place, his head bowedupon the bed. And so they sat through the morning, hardly moving, interchanging at long intervals a few words--those sad sacred words whichwell from the heart in the supreme moments of existence--words which, inthe case of such natures as Marie de Châteauvieux, represent the intimatetruths and fundamental ideas of the life that has gone before. There wasnothing to hide, nothing to regret. A few kindly messages, a few womanlycommissions, and every now and then a few words to her husband, as simpleas the rest, but pregnant with the deepest thoughts and touching thevastest problems of humanity, --this was all. Marie was dying as she hadlived--bravely, tenderly, simply. 

Presently they roused her to take some nourishment, which she swallowedwith difficulty. It gave her a momentary strength. Kendal heard himselfcalled, and looked up. She had opened the hand lying on the bed, and hesaw in it a small miniature case, which she moved towards him. 

'Take it, ' she said--oh, how faintly!--'to her. It is the only memento Ican think of. She has been ill, Eustace: did I tell you? I forget. Ishould have gone--but for this. It is too much for her, --that life. Itwill break her down. You can save her and cherish her--you will. It seemsas if I saw you--together!'

Then her eyes fell and she seemed to sleep--gently wandering now andthen, and mentioning in her dying dream names and places which made thereality before them more and more terrible to the two hushed listeners, so different were the associations they called up. Was this whitenerveless form, from which mind and breath were gently ebbing away, allthat fate had grudgingly left to them, for a few more agonised moments, of the brilliant, high-bred woman who had been but yesterday the centreof an almost European network of friendships and interests! Love, loss, death, --oh, how unalterable is this essential content of life, embroiderit and adorn it as we may!

Kendal had been startled by her words about Isabel Bretherton. He had notheard of any illness; it could hardly be serious, for he vaguelyremembered that in the newspapers he had tried to read on the journey hiseye had caught the familiar advertisement of the _Calliope_. It must havehappened while he was in Surrey. He vaguely speculated about it now andthen as he sat watching through the afternoon. But nothing seemed tomatter very much to him--nothing but Marie and the slow on-coming ofdeath. 

At last when the wintry light was fading, when the lamps were being litoutside, and the bustle of the street seemed to penetrate in littleintermittent waves of sound into the deep quiet of the room, MarieRaised herself and, with a fluttering sigh, withdrew her hand softly fromher brother, and laid her arm round her husband's neck. He stooped toher--kissed the sweet lips and the face on which the lines of middle agehad hardly settled--caught a wild alarm from her utter silence, calledthe nurse and Kendal, and all was over. 

CHAPTER IX

The morning of Marie's funeral was sunny but bitterly cold; it was one ofthose days when autumn finally passes into winter, and the last memory ofthe summer warmth vanishes from the air. It had been the saddest, dreariest laying to rest. The widowed sister, of whom Marie had spoken inher last hours, had been unable to come, and the two men had gone throughit all alone, helped only by the tearful, impulsive sympathy and thepractical energy of the maid who had been with Marie ever since hermarriage, and was as yet hardly capable of realising her mistress'sdeath. 

It was she who, while they were away, had done her best to throw a littleair of comfort over the forsaken _salon_. She had kindled the fire, watered the plants, and thrown open the windows to the sunshine, findingin her toil and movement some little relief from her own heart-ache andoppression. When Paul came back, and with numb, trembling fingers hadstripped himself of his scarf and his great-coat, he stepped over thethreshold into the _salon_, and it seemed to him as though the sunlightand the open windows and the crackling blaze of the fire dealt him asudden blow. He walked up to the windows, and, shuddering, drew them downand closed the blinds, Félicie watching him anxiously from the landingthrough the half-open door. Then he had thrown himself into a chair; andKendal, coming softly upstairs after him, had gently closed the door fromthe outside, said a kind word to Félicie, and himself slipped noiselesslydown again and out into the Champs Elysées. There he had paced up anddown for an hour or more under the trees, from which a few frosty leaveswere still hanging in the December air. 

He himself had been so stunned and bewildered by the loss which hadfallen upon him, that, when he found himself alone and out of doorsagain, he was for a while scarcely able to think consecutively about it. He walked along conscious for some time of nothing but a sort of dumbphysical congeniality in the sunshine, in the clear blue and white of thesky, in the cheerful distinctness and sharpness of every outline. Andthen, little by little, the cheated grief reasserted itself, the numbedsenses woke into painful life, and he fell into broken musings on thepast, or into a bitter wonder over the precarious tenure by which menhold those good things whereon, so long as they are still their own, theyare so quick to rear an edifice of optimist philosophy. A week before, his sister's affection had been to him the one sufficient screen betweenhis own consciousness and the desolate threatening immensities of thoughtand of existence. The screen had fallen, and the darkness seemed to berushing in upon him. And still, life had to be lived, work to be gotthrough, duties to be faced. How is it done? he kept vaguely wondering. How is it that men live on to old age and see bond after bond broken, andpossession after possession swept away, and still find the yearstolerable and the sun pleasant, still cherish in themselves thatinexhaustible faith in an ideal something which supplies from century tocentury the invincible motive power of the race?

Presently--by virtue of long critical and philosophical habit--his mindbrought itself to bear more and more steadily upon his own position; hestepped back, as it were, from himself and became his own spectator. Theintrospective temper was not common with him; his mind was naturallyturned outward--towards other people, towards books, towards intellectualinterests. But self-study had had its charm for him of late, and, amongstother things, it was now plain to him that up to the moment of his firstmeeting with Isabel Bretherton his life had been mostly that of anonlooker--a bystander. Society, old and new, men and women of the pastand of the present, the speculative achievements of other times and ofhis own, --these had constituted a sort of vast drama before his eyes, which he had watched and studied with an ever-living curiosity. But hisinterest in his particular _rôle_ had been comparatively weak, and inanalysing other individualities he had run some risk of losing his own. 

Then love came by, and the half-dormant personality within him had beenseized upon and roused, little by little, into a glowing, although arepressed and hidden energy. He had learnt in his own person what itmeans to crave, to thirst, to want. And now, grief had followed and hadpinned him more closely than ever to his special little part in the humanspectacle. The old loftiness, the old placidity of mood, were gone. Hehad loved, and lost, and despaired. Beside those great experiences howtrivial and evanescent seemed all the interests of the life that wentbefore them! He looked back over his intercourse with Isabel Bretherton, and the points upon which it had turned seemed so remote from him, soinsignificant, that for the moment he could hardly realise them. Theartistic and aesthetic questions which had seemed to him so vital sixmonths before had faded almost out of view in the fierce neighbourhood ofsorrow and passion. His first relation to her had been that of one whoknows to one who is ignorant; but that puny link had dropped, and he wasgoing to meet her now, fresh from the presence of death, loving her as aman loves a woman, and claiming from her nothing but pity for his grief, balm for his wound, --the answer of human tenderness to human need. 

How strange and sad that she should be still in ignorance of his loss andhers! In the early morning after Marie's death, when he woke up from afew heavy hours of sleep, his mind had been full of her. How was the newsto be broken to her? He himself did not feel that he could leave hisbrother-in-law. There was a strong regard and sympathy between them; andhis presence in the house of mourning would undoubtedly be useful to Paulfor a while; besides, there were Marie's words--'Will you stay with him afew days--after--?'--which were binding on him. He must write, then; butit was only to be hoped that no newspaper would bring her the news beforehis letter could reach. 

However, as the day wore on, Paul came noiselessly out of the quiet roomwhere the white shrouded form seemed still to spread a tender presenceround it, and said to Eustace with dry, piteous lips:

'I have remembered Miss Bretherton; you must go to her to-morrow, after--the funeral'

'I can't bear the thought of leaving you, ' said Kendal, laying abrotherly hand on his shoulder, 'Let me write to-day. '

Paul shook his head. 'She has been ill. Any way it will be a great shock;but if you go it will be better. '

Kendal resisted a little more, but it seemed as if Marie's motherlycarefulness over the bright creature who had charmed her had passed intoPaul. He was saying what Marie would have said, taking thought as shewould have taken it for one she loved, and it was settled as he wished. 

When his long pacing in the Champs Elysées was over Kendal went back tofind Paul busy with his wife's letters and trinkets, turning them overWith a look of shivering forlornness, as though the thought of theuncompanioned lifetime to come were already closing upon him like somedeadly chill in the air. Beside him lay two miniature cases open; one ofthem was the case which Eustace had received from his sister's hand onthe afternoon before her death, and both of them contained identicalportraits of Marie in her first brilliant womanhood. 

'Do you remember them?' Paul said in his husky Voice, pointing themout to him. 'They were done when you were at college and she wastwenty-three. Your mother had two taken--one for herself and one for yourold aunt Marion. Your mother left me hers when she died, and your aunt'scopy of it came back to us last year. Tell Miss Bretherton its history. She will prize it. It is the best picture still. '

Kendal made a sign of assent and took the case. Paul rose and stoodbeside him, mechanically spreading out his hands to the fire. 

'To-morrow, as soon as you are gone, I shall go off to Italy. There aresome little places in the south near Naples that she was very fond of. Ishall stay about there for a while. As soon as I feel I can, I shall comeback to the Senate and my work. It is the only thing left me, --she was sokeen about it. ' His voice sank into a whisper, and a long silence fellupon them. Women in moments of sorrow have the outlet of tears andcaresses; men's great refuge is silence; but the silence may be chargedwith sympathy and the comfort of a shared grief. It was so in this case. 

The afternoon light was fading, and Kendal was about to rise and makesome necessary preparations for his journey, when Paul detained him, looking up at him with sunken eyes which seemed to carry in them all thehistory of the two nights just past. 'Will you ever ask her what Mariewished?' The tone was the even and passionless tone of one who for themoment feels none of the ordinary embarrassments of intercourse; Kendalmet it with the same directness. 

'Some day I shall ask her, or at least I shall let her know; but it willbe no use. '

Paul shook his head, but whether in protest or agreement Kendal couldhardly tell. Then he went back to his task of sorting the letters, andlet the matter drop. It seemed as if he were scarcely capable of takingan interest in it for its own sake, but simply as a wish, a charge ofMarie's. 

Kendal parted from him in the evening with an aching heart, and washaunted for hours by the memory of the desolate figure returning slowlyinto the empty house, and by a sharp prevision of all the lonely nightsand the uncomforted morrows which lay before the stricken man. 

But, as Paris receded farther and farther behind him, and the sea drewnearer, and the shores of the country which held Isabel Bretherton, itwas but natural that even the grip upon him of this terrible andstartling calamity should relax a little, and that he should realisehimself as a man seeking the adored woman, his veins still beating withthe currents of youth, and the great unguessed future still before him. He had left Marie in the grave, and his life would bear the scar of thatloss for ever. But Isabel Bretherton was still among the living, thewarm, the beautiful, and every mile brought him nearer to the electricjoy of her presence. He took a sad strange pleasure in making thecontrast between the one picture and the other as vivid as possible. Death and silence on the one side--oh, how true and how irreparable! Buton the other, he forced on his imagination till it drew for him animage of youth and beauty so glowing that it almost charmed the sting outof his grief. The English paper which he succeeded in getting at Calaiscontained the announcement: 'Miss Bretherton has, we are glad to say, completely recovered from the effects of the fainting fit which so muchalarmed the audience at the _Calliope_ last week. She was able to play_Elvira_ as usual last night, and was greeted by a large and sympathetichouse. ' He read it, and turned the page hastily, as if what the paragraphsuggested was wholly distasteful to him. He refused altogether to thinkof her as weak or suffering; he shrank from his own past misgivings, hisown prophecies about her. The world would be a mere dark prison-house ifher bright beauty were over-clouded! She was not made for death, and sheshould stand to him as the image of all that escapes and resists anddefies that tyrant of our years, and pain, his instrument and herald. 

He reached London in the midst of a rainy fog. The endless black streetsstretched before him in the dreary December morning like so many roadsinto the nether regions; the gas-lamps scattered an unseasonable lightthrough the rain and fog; it was the quintessence of murky, cheerlesswinter. 

He reached his own rooms, and found his man up and waiting for him, and ameal ready. It was but three days since he had been last there, the opentelegram was still lying on the table. One of his first acts was to putit hastily out of sight. Over his breakfast he planned his embassy toMiss Bretherton. The best time to find her alone, he imagined, would beabout mid-day, and in the interval he would put his books and papers torights. They lay scattered about--books, proofs, and manuscript. As hisorderly hands went to work upon them, he was conscious that he had neverbeen so remote from all that they represented. But his nature wasfaithful and tenacious, and under the outward sense of detachment therewas an inward promise of return. 'I will come back to you, ' seemed to bethe cry of his thought. 'You shall be my only friends. But first I mustsee her, and all my heart is hers!'

The morning dragged away, and at half-past eleven he went out, carryingthe little case with him. As he stood outside the Bayswater house, inwhich she had settled for the winter, he realised that he had never yetbeen under her roof, never yet seen her at home. It was his own fault. She had asked him in her gracious way, on the first night of _Elvira_, tocome and see her. But, instead of doing so, he had buried himself in hisSurrey lodging, striving to bring the sober and austere influences of thecountry to bear upon the feverish indecision of his mood. Perhaps hisdisappearance and silence had wounded her; after all, he knew that hehad some place in her thoughts. 

The servant who opened the door demurred to his request to see MissBretherton. 'The doctor says, sir, that at home she must keep quiet; shehas not seen any visitors just lately. ' But Kendal persisted, and hiscard was taken in, while he waited the result. The servant hurried alongthe ground-floor passage, knocked at the door at the farther end, went infor a moment, and came out beckoning to him. He obeyed with a beatingheart, and she threw open the door for him. 

Inside stood Isabel Bretherton, with eager surprise and pleasure in herwhole attitude. She had just risen from her chair, and was comingforward; a soft white cashmere shawl hung around her; her dress, of somedark rich stuff, fell with the flowing, stately lines peculiar to it; herface was slightly flushed, and the brilliancy of her colour, of her hair, of her white, outstretched hand, seemed to Kendal to take all the chilland gloom out of the winter air. She held some proof sheets of a new playin her hand, and the rest lay piled beside her on a little table. 

'How kind of you, Mr. Kendal, ' she said, advancing with her quickimpulsive step towards him. 'I thought you had forgotten us, and I havebeen wanting your advice so badly! I have just been complaining of you alittle in a letter to Madame de Châteauvieux! She--'

Then she suddenly stopped, checked and startled by his face. He wasalways colourless and thin, but the two nights he had just passed throughhad given him an expression of haggard exhaustion. His black eyes seemedto have lost the keenness which was so remarkable in them, and hisprematurely gray hair gave him almost a look of age in spite of thelightness and pliancy of the figure. 

He came forward, and took her hand nervously and closely in his own. 

'I have come to bring you sad news, ' he said gently, and seekinganxiously word by word how he might soften what, after all, could not besoftened. 'M. De Châteauvieux sent me to you at once, that you shouldnot hear in any other way. But it must be a shock to you--for you lovedher!'

'Oh!' she cried, interrupting him, speaking in short, gasping words, andanswering not so much his words as his look. 'She is ill--she is indanger--something has happened?'

'I was summoned on Wednesday, ' said Kendal, helpless after all in thegrip of the truth which would not be managed or controlled. 'When I gotthere she had been two days ill, and there was no hope. '

He paused; her eyes of agonised questioning implored him to go on. 'I waswith her six hours--after I came she had no pain--it was quite peaceful, and--she died in the evening. '

She had been watching him open-eyed, every vestige of colour fading fromcheek and lip; when he stopped, she gave a little cry. He let go herhand, and she sank into a chair near, so white and breathless that he wasalarmed. 

'Shall I get you water--shall I ring?' he asked after a moment or two, bending over her. 

'No, ' she whispered with difficulty; 'let me alone--just for a minute. '

He left her side, and stood leaning against the mantelpiece, waitinganxiously. She struggled against the physical oppression which had seizedupon her, and fought it down bravely. But he noticed with a pang now thatthe flush was gone, that she looked fragile and worn, and, as his thoughtwent back for a moment to the Surrey Sunday and her young rounded beautyamong the spring green, he could have cried out in useless rebellionagainst the unyielding physical conditions which press upon and imprisonthe flame of life. 

At last the faintness passed off, and she sat up, her hands clasped roundher knees, and the tears running fast over her cheeks. Her grief was likeherself--frank, simple, expressive. 

'Will you tell me more about it? Oh, I cannot believe it! Why, only lastweek when I was ill she talked of coming to me! I have just been writingto her--there is my letter. I feel as if I could not bear it; she waslike a mother to me in Paris. Oh, if I could have seen her!'

'You were one of her chief thoughts at the last, ' said Kendal, muchmoved. And he went on to tell her the story of Marie's dying hours, describing that gentle withdrawal from life with a manly tenderness offeeling and a quick memory for all that could soften the impression of itto the listener. And then he brought out the miniature and gave it toher, and she accepted it with a fresh burst of sorrow, putting it to herlips, studying it and weeping over it, with an absolute spontaneity andself-abandonment which was lovely because it was so true. 

'Oh, poor M. De Châteauvieux!' she cried after a long pause, looking upto him. 'How will he live without her? He will feel himself so forsaken!'

'Yes, ' said Kendal huskily; 'he will be very lonely, but--one must learnto bear it. '

She gazed at him with quick startled sympathy, and all her womanly natureseemed to rise into her upturned face and yearning eyes. It was as thoughher attention had been specially recalled to him; as though hisparticular loss and sorrow were brusquely brought home to her. And thenshe was struck by the strangeness and unexpectedness of such a meetingbetween them. He had been to her a judge, an authority, an embodiedstandard. His high-mindedness had won her confidence; his affection forhis sister had touched and charmed her. But she had never been consciousof any intimacy with him. Still less had she ever dreamt of sharing acommon grief with him, of weeping at his side. And the contrast betweenher old relation with him and this new solemn experience, rushing in uponher, filled her with emotion. The memory of the Nuneham day woke again inher--of the shock between her nature and his, of her overwhelming senseof the intellectual difference between them, and then of the thrill whichhis verdict upon _Elvira_ had stirred in her. The relation which she hadregarded as a mere intellectual and friendly one, but which had been farmore real and important to her than even she herself had ever guessed, seemed to have transformed itself since he had entered the room intosomething close and personal. His last words had called up in her a sharpimpression of the man's inmost nature as it was, beneath the polishedscholarly surface. They had appealed to her on the simplest, commonest, human ground; she felt them impulsively as a call from him to her, andher own heart overflowed. 

She rose, and went near to him, bending towards him like a spirit ofhealing, her whole soul in her eyes 'Oh, I am so sorry for you!' sheexclaimed, and again the quick tears dropped. 'I know it is no commonloss to you. You were so much more to each other than brother and sisteroften are. It is terrible for you. '

His whole man was stirred by her pity, by the eager expansiveness of hersympathy. 

'Say it again!' he murmured, as their eyes met; 'say it again. It is sosweet--from you!'

There was a long pause; she stood as if fascinated, her hands fallingslowly beside her. Her gaze wavered till the eyelids fell, and she stoodabsolutely motionless, the tears still on her cheek. The strangeintoxicating force of feeling, set in motion by sorrow and pity, and theunsuspected influence of his love, was sweeping them out into deepwaters. She could hardly breathe, but as he watched her all the manhoodin him rose, and from the midst of grief put forward an imperious claimto the beloved and beautiful woman before him. He came forward a step, took the cold, unresisting hands, and, bending before her, pressed themto his lips, while her bewildered eyes looked down upon him. 

'Your pity is heavenly, ' he said brokenly; 'but give me more, give memore! I want your love!'

She gave a little start and cry, and, drawing away her hands from him, sank back on her chair. Her thoughts went flying back to the past--to thestretches of Surrey common, to the Nuneham woods, and all she had everseen or imagined of his feelings towards her. She had never, neversuspected him of loving her. She had sent him her friendly messages fromVenice in the simplest good faith; she had joined in his sister'spraises of him without a moment's self-consciousness. His approval of herplay in _Elvira_ had given her the same frank pleasure that a master'sgood word gives to a pupil--and all the time he had loved her--loved her!How strange! how incredible!

Kendal followed, bent over her, listened, but no word came. She was, indeed, too bewildered and overwhelmed to speak. The old bitter fear andcertainty began to assert itself against the overmastering impulse whichhad led him on. 

'I have startled you--shocked you, ' he cried. 'I ought not to havespoken--and at such a time. It was your pity overcame me--your sweetwomanly kindness. I have loved you, I think, ever since that firstevening after the _White Lady_. At least, when I look back upon myfeeling, I see that it was love from the beginning. After that day atNuneham I knew that it was love; but I would not acknowledge it; I foughtagainst it. It seemed to me that you would never forget that I had beenharsh, that I had behaved rather like an enemy than a friend. But you didforget--you showed me how noble a woman could be, and every day after weparted in July I loved you more. I thought of you all the summer when Iwas buried in the Country--my days and nights were full of you. Then whenyour great success came--it was base of me--but all the time while I wassending my congratulations to you through my sister at Venice, I wasreally feeling that there was no more hope for me, and that some cruelforce was carrying you away from me. Then came _Elvira_--and I seemed togive you up for ever. '

Her hands dropped from her face, and her great hazel eyes were fixed uponhim with that intent look he remembered long ago when she had asked himfor the 'truth' about herself and her position. But there was no pain init now; nothing but wonder and a sweet moved questioning. 

'Why?' The word was just breathed through her parted lips. 

Kendal heard it with a start--the little sound loosed his speech and madehim eloquent. 

'Why? Because I thought you must inevitably be absorbed, swallowed up bythe great new future before you; because my own life looked so gray anddull beside yours. I felt it impossible you should stoop from your heightto love me, to yield your bright self to me, to give me heart for heart. So I went away that I might not trouble you. And then'--his voice sanklower still--'came the summons to Paris, and Marie on her death-bed triedto make me hope. And just now your pity drew the heart out of my lips. Let me hear you forgive me. '

Every word had reached its mark. She had realized at last something ofthe depth, the tenacity, the rich, illimitable promise of the passionwhich she had roused. The tenderness of Marie seemed to encompass them, and a sacred pathetic sense of death and loss drew them together. Herrespect, her reverence, her interest had been yielded long ago; did thistroubled yearning within mean something more, something infinitelygreater?

She raised herself suddenly, and, as he knelt beside her, he felt herwarm breath on his cheek, and a tear dropped on his hands, which her ownwere blindly and timidly seeking. 

'Oh!' she whispered, or rather sobbed, 'I never dreamt of it. I neverthought of anything like this. But--do not leave me again. I could notbear it. '

Kendal bowed his head upon the hands nestling in his, and it seemed tohim as if life and time were suspended, as if he and she were standingwithin the 'wind-warm space' of love, while death and sorrow andparting--three grave and tender angels of benediction--kept watch andward without. 

THE END