diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 13432-0.txt | 5541 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/13432-8.txt | 5930 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/13432-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 132899 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/13432.txt | 5930 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/13432.zip | bin | 0 -> 132803 bytes |
8 files changed, 17417 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/13432-0.txt b/13432-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a1ef46d --- /dev/null +++ b/13432-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5541 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13432 *** + + MISS BRETHERTON + + BY MRS. HUMPHRY WARD + + 1888 + + + + +PREFATORY NOTE + +It ought to be stated that the account of the play _Elvira_, given in +Chapter VII. of the present story, is based upon an existing play, the +work 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 been +made on this little book since its appearance, that I may perhaps be +allowed a few words of answer to them in the shape of a short preface to +this new edition. It has been supposed that because the book describes a +London world, which is a central and conspicuous world with interests and +activities of a public and prominent kind, therefore all the characters +in it are drawn from real persons who may be identified if the seeker is +only clever enough. This charge of portraiture is constantly brought +against the novelist, and it is always a difficult one to meet; but one +may begin by pointing out that, in general, it implies a radical +misconception of the story-teller's methods of procedure. An idea, a +situation, is suggested to him by real life, he takes traits and +peculiarities from this or that person whom he has known or seen, but +this is all. When he comes to write--unless, of course, it is a case of +malice and bad faith--the mere necessities of an imaginative effort +oblige him to cut himself adrift from reality. His characters become to +him the creatures of a dream, as vivid often as his waking life, but +still a dream. And the only portraits he is drawing are portraits of +phantoms, of which the germs were present in reality, but to which he +himself has given voice, garb, and action. + +So the present little sketch was suggested by real life; the first hint +for it was taken from one of the lines of criticism--not that of the +author--adopted towards the earliest performances of an actress who, +coming among us as a stranger a year and a half ago, has won the respect +and admiration of us all. The share in dramatic success which, in this +country at any rate, belongs to physical gift and personal charm; the +effect of the public sensitiveness to both, upon the artist and upon art; +the difference between French and English dramatic ideals; these were the +various thoughts suggested by the dramatic interests of the time. They +were not new, they had been brought into prominence on more than one +occasion during the last few years, and, in a general sense, they are +common to the whole history of dramatic art. In dealing with them the +problem of the story-teller was twofold--on the one hand, to describe the +public in its two divisions of those who know or think they know, and +those whose only wish is to feel and to enjoy; and on the other hand, to +draw such an artist as should embody at once all the weakness and all the +strength involved in the general situation. To do this, it was necessary +to exaggerate and emphasise all the criticisms that had ever been brought +against beauty in high dramatic place, while, at the same time, charm and +loveliness were inseparable from the main conception. And further, it was +sought to show that, although the English susceptibility to physical +charm--susceptibility greater here, in matters of art, than it is in +France--may have, and often does have, a hindering effect upon the +artist, still, there are other influences in a great society which are +constantly tending to neutralise this effect; in other words, that even +in England an actress may win her way by youth and beauty, and still +achieve by labour and desert another and a greater fame. + +These were the ideas on which this little sketch was based, and in +working them out the writer has not been conscious of any portraiture of +individuals. Whatever attractiveness she may have succeeded in giving to +her heroine is no doubt the shadow, so to speak, of a real influence so +strong that no one writing of the English stage at the present moment can +easily escape it; but otherwise everything is fanciful, the outcome, and +indeed, too much the outcome, of certain critical ideas. And in the +details of the story there has been no chronicling of persons; all the +minor and subsidiary figures are imaginary, devised so as to illustrate +to the best of the writer's ability the various influences which are +continually brought to bear upon the artist in the London of to-day. +There are traits and reminiscences of actual experience in the +book,--what story was ever without them? But no living person has been +drawn, and no living person has any just reason to think himself or +herself aggrieved by any sentence which it contains. + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +It was the day of the private view at the Royal Academy. The great +courtyard of Burlington House was full of carriages, and a continuous +stream of guests was pressing up the red-carpeted stairs, over which +presided some of the most imposing individuals known to the eyes of +Londoners, second only to Her Majesty's beefeaters in glory of scarlet +apparel. Inside, however, as it was not yet luncheon-time, the rooms were +but moderately filled. It was possible to see the pictures, to appreciate +the spring dresses, and to single out a friend even across the Long +Gallery. The usual people were there: Academicians of the old school and +Academicians of the new; R.A.'s coming from Kensington and the 'regions +of culture,' and R.A.'s coming from more northerly and provincial +neighbourhoods where art lives a little desolately and barely, in want of +the graces and adornings with which 'culture' professes to provide her. +There were politicians still capable--as it was only the first week of +May--of throwing some zest into their amusements. There were art-critics +who, accustomed as they were by profession to take their art in large and +rapid draughts, had yet been unable to content themselves with the one +meagre 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 few +supplementary jottings taken in the intervals of conversation with their +lady friends. There were the great dealers betraying in look and gait +their profound, yet modest, consciousness that upon them rested the +foundations of the artistic order, and that if, in a superficial +conception of things, the star of an Academician differs from that of the +man who buys his pictures in glory, the truly philosophic mind assesses +matters differently. And, most important of all, there were the women, +old and young, some in the full freshness of spring cottons, as if the +east wind outside were not mocking the efforts of the May sun, and others +still wrapped in furs, which showed a juster sense of the caprices of the +English climate. Among them one might distinguish the usual shades and +species: the familiar country cousin, gathering material for the +over-awing of such of her neighbours as were unable to dip themselves +every year in the stream of London; the women folk of the artist world, +presenting greater varieties of type than the women of any other class +can boast; and lastly, a sprinkling of the women of what calls itself +'London Society,' as well dressed, as well mannered, and as well provided +with 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, making +every now and then hasty references to his catalogue, but in general +eyeing all he saw with the look of one in whom familiarity with the sight +before him had bred weariness, if not contempt. He was a handsome man, +with a broad brow and a pleasant gentleness of expression. The eyes were +fine and thoughtful, and there was a combination of intellectual force +with great delicacy of line in the contour of the head and face which was +particularly attractive, especially to women of the more cultivated and +impressionable sort. His thin grayish hair was rather long--not of that +pronounced length which inevitably challenges the decision of the +bystander as to whether the wearer be fool or poet, but still long enough +to fall a little carelessly round the head and so take off from the +spruce conventional effect of the owner's irreproachable dress and +general London air. + +Mr. Eustace Kendal--to give the person we have been describing his +name--was not apparently in a good temper with his surroundings. He was +standing with a dissatisfied expression before a Venetian scene drawn by +a brilliant member of a group of English artists settled on foreign soil +and 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 these +men--success and the amount of money there is going. The man who painted +this didn't get any pleasure out of it. But it's the same all round. It +is money and luxury and the struggle to live which are driving us all on +and killing the artist's natural joy in his work. And presently, as that +odd little Frenchman said to me last year, we shall have dropped +irretrievably into the "lowest depth of mediocrity."' + +'Kendal!' said an eager voice close to his ear, while a hand was laid on +his arm, 'do you know that girl?' + +Kendal turned in astonishment and saw a short oldish man, in whom he +recognised a famous artist, standing by, his keen mobile face wearing an +expression 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 know +her by sight! It's Miss Bretherton, the actress. Did you ever see such +beauty? I must get somebody to introduce me to her. There's nothing worth +looking at since she came in. But, by ill luck, nobody here seems to know +her.' + +Eustace Kendal, to whom the warm artist's temperament of his friend was +well known, turned with some amusement towards the picture named, and +noticed that flutter in the room which shows that something or some one +of interest is present. People trying to look unconcerned, and catalogue +in hand, were edging towards the spot where the lady in black stood, +glancing alternately at her and at the pictures, in the manner of those +equally determined to satisfy their curiosity and their sense of +politeness. The lady in question, meanwhile, conscious that she was being +looked at, but not apparently disturbed by it, was talking to another +lady, the only person with her, a tall, gaunt woman, also dressed in +black and gifted abundantly with the forbidding aspect which beauty +requires in its duenna. + +Kendal could see nothing more at first than a tall, slender figure, a +beautiful head, and a delicate white profile, in flashing contrast with +its black surroundings, and with lines of golden brown hair. But in +profile and figure there was an extraordinary distinction and grace which +reconciled him to his friend's eagerness and made him wish for the +beauty's next movement. Presently she turned and caught the gaze of the +two men full upon her. Her eyes dropped a little, but there was nothing +ill-bred or excessive in her self-consciousness. She took her companion's +arm with a quiet movement, and drew her towards one of the striking +pictures of the year, some little way off. The two men also turned and +walked 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 that +face light up, else I shall go home--one may as well. These daubs are not +worth the trouble of considering now!' + +'See what it is to be an "ideal painter,"' said Kendal, laughing. 'At +home one paints river goddesses, and tree-nymphs, and such like remote +creatures, 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're +not to be met with like that every day. _Je me connais en beauté_, my +dear fellow, and I never saw such perfection, both of line and colour, as +that. It is extraordinary; it excites one as an artist. Look, is that +Wallace 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 a +beaming smile and bright emphatic movements of the head, and the three +strolled on. + +'Yes, that is Edward Wallace,--very much in it, apparently. That is the +way Americans have. They always know everybody it's desirable to know. +But now's your chance, Forbes. Stroll carelessly past them, catch +Wallace's eye, and the thing is done.' + +Mr. Forbes had already dropped Kendal's arm, and was sauntering across +the room towards the chatting trio. Kendal watched the scene from a +distance with some amusement; saw his friend brush carelessly past the +American, look back, smile, stop, and hold out his hand; evidently a +whisper passed between them, for the next moment Mr. Forbes was making a +low bow to the beauty, and immediately afterwards Kendal saw his fine +gray head and stooping shoulders disappear into the next room, side by +side with Miss Bretherton's erect and graceful figure. + +Kendal betook himself once more to the pictures, and, presently finding +some acquaintances, made a rapid tour of the rooms with them, parting +with them at the entrance that he might himself go back and look at two +or three things in the sculpture room which he had been told were +important and promising. There he came across the American, Edward +Wallace, who at once took him by the arm with the manner of an old friend +and a little burst of laughter. + +'So you saw the introduction? What a man is Forbes! He is as young still +as 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 which +would have been awkward if it had been anybody else but such a +gentlemanly maniac as Forbes, and has almost made her promise to sit to +him. Miss Bretherton was a little bewildered, I think. She is so new to +London that she doesn't know who's who yet in the least. I had to take +her aside and explain to her Forbes's honours; then she fired up--there +is a naïve hero-worship about her just now that she is fresh from a +colony--and made herself as pleasant to him as a girl could be. I +prophesy Forbes will think of nothing else for the season.' + +'Well, she's a brilliant creature,' said Kendal. 'It's extraordinary how +she shone out beside the pretty English girls about her. It is an +intoxicating possession for a woman, such beauty as that; it's like +royalty; it places the individual under conditions quite unlike those of +common mortals. I suppose it's that rather than any real ability as an +actress that has made her a success? I noticed the papers said as +much--some more politely than others.' + +'Oh, she's not much of an actress; she has no training, no _finesse_. But +you'll see, she'll be the great success of the season. She has wonderful +grace 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-hearted +creature. 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 worth +calling a training. Her manager, Robinson, talks of her attempting all +the great parts; but it's absurd. She talks very naïvely and prettily +about "her art"; but really she knows no more about it than a baby, and +it is perhaps part of her charm that she is so unconscious of her +ignorance.' + +'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 is +that our feelings should be touched a little, but whether by the art or +the artist doesn't matter. She has not been long playing in London, has +she?' + +'Only a few weeks. It's only about two months since she landed from +Jamaica. She has a curious history, if you care to hear it; I don't think +I've seen you at all since I made friends with her?' + +'No,' said Kendal; 'I was beginning to suspect that something absorbing +had 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 busy +that 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, the +National Gallery, and so forth. She is very keen about everything, and +the 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 far +from Kingston, and he married an Italian, one of your fair Venetian +type--a strange race-combination; I suppose it's the secret of the +brilliancy and out-of-the-wayness of the girl's beauty. Her mother died +when 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 to +be made out of her. She had already shown a turn for reciting, and had +performed at various places--in the schoolroom belonging to the estate, +and so on. The father didn't encourage her fancy for it, naturally, being +Scotch and Presbyterian. However, he died of fever, and then the child at +sixteen fell into her uncle's charge. He seems to have seen at once +exactly what line to take. To put it cynically, I imagine he argued +something like this: "Beauty extraordinary--character everything that +could be desired--talent not much. So that the things to stake on are the +beauty and the character, and let the talent take care of itself." +Anyhow, he got her on to the Kingston theatre--a poor little place +enough--and he and the aunt, that sour-looking creature you saw with her, +looked after her like dragons. Naturally, she was soon the talk of +Kingston: what with her looks and her grace and the difficulty of coming +near her, the whole European society, the garrison, Government House, and +all, were at her feet. Then the uncle played his cards for a European +engagement. You remember that Governor Rutherford they had a little time +ago? the writer of that little set of drawing-room plays--_Nineteenth +Century Interludes_, I think he called them? It was his last year, and he +started for home while Isabel Bretherton was acting at Kingston. He came +home full of her, and, knowing all the theatrical people here, he was +able to place her at once. Robinson decided to speculate in her, +telegraphed out for her, and here she is, uncle, aunt, and invalid sister +into the bargain.' + +'Oh, she has a sister?' + +'Yes; a little, white, crippled thing, peevish--cripples generally +are--but full of a curious force of some hidden kind. Isabel is very good +to her, and rather afraid of her. It seems to me that she is afraid of +all her belongings. I believe they put upon her, and she has as much +capacity as anybody I ever knew for letting herself be trampled upon.' + +'What, that splendid, vivacious creature!' said Kendal incredulously. 'I +think I'd back her for holding her own.' + +'Ah, well, you see,' said the American, with the quiet superiority of a +three weeks' acquaintance, 'I know something of her by now, and she's not +quite what you might think her at first sight. However, whether she is +afraid 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 London +tries her. The piece they have chosen for her is a heavy one, and then of +course 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 a +little bored with the subject of Miss Bretherton, and turning, eye-glass +in 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's +next Friday. She will be there at afternoon tea. I told Agnes I should +ask anybody I liked. I warned her--you know her little weaknesses!--that +she had better be first in the field: a month hence, it will be +impossible to get hold of Miss Bretherton at all.' + +'Then I'll certainly come, and do my worshipping before the crowd +collects,' said Kendal, adding, as he half-curiously shifted his +eye-glass so as to take in Wallace's bronzed, alert countenance, 'How did +you 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 to +see Mrs. Stuart; it's ages since I saw her last.' + +The American nodded cordially to him, and walked away. He was one of +those pleasant, ubiquitous people who know every one and find time for +everything--a well-known journalist, something of an artist, and still +more of a man of the world, who went through his London season with some +outward grumbling, but with a real inward zest such as few popular +diners-out are blessed with. That he should have attached himself to the +latest star was natural enough. He was the most discreet and profitable +of cicerones, with a real talent for making himself useful to nice +people. His friendship for Miss Bretherton gave her a certain stamp in +Kendal's eyes, for Wallace had a fastidious taste in personalities and +seldom made a mistake. + +Kendal himself walked home, busy with very different thoughts, and was +soon established at his writing-table in his high chambers overlooking an +inner court of the Temple. It was a bright afternoon; the spring sunshine +on 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 and +orange surface of the tiles. Below, the court was half in shadow, and +utterly quiet and deserted. To the left there was a gleam of green, +atoning for its spring thinness and scantiness by a vivid energy of +colour; while straight across the court, beyond the rich patchwork of the +roofs and the picturesque outlines of the chimneys, a delicate piece of +white stone-work rose into air--the spire of one of Wren's churches, as +dainty, as perfect, and as fastidiously balanced as the hand of man could +leave it. + +Inside, the room was such as fitted a studious bachelor of means. The +book-cases on the walls held old college classics and law-books +underneath, and above a miscellaneous literary library, of which the +main bulk was French, while the side-wings, so to speak, had that +tempting miscellaneous air--here a patch of German, there an island +of Italian; on this side rows of English poets, on the other an +abundance of novels of all languages--which delights the fond heart of +the book-lover. The pictures were mostly autotypes and photographs from +subjects of Italian art, except in one corner, where a fine little +collection of French historical engravings completely covered the wall, +and drew a visitor's attention by the brilliancy of their black and +white. On the writing-table were piles of paper-covered French books, +representing for the most part the palmy days of the Romantics, though +every here and there were intervening strata of naturalism, balanced in +their turn by recurrent volumes of Sainte-Beuve. The whole had a studious +air. The books were evidently collected with a purpose, and the piles of +orderly MSS. lying on the writing-table seemed to sum up and explain +their surroundings. + +The only personal ornament of the room was a group of photographs on the +mantelpiece. Two were faded and brown, and represented Kendal's parents, +both of whom had been dead some years. The other was a large cabinet +photograph 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 Eustace +Kendal, and she was indeed his elder and only sister, the wife of a +French senator, and her brother's chief friend and counsellor. Madame de +Châteauvieux was a very noticeable person, and her influence over Eustace +had been strong ever since their childish days. She was a woman who would +have justified a repetition in the present day of Sismondi's enthusiastic +estimate of the women of the First Empire. She had that _mélange du +meilleur ton_, 'with the purest elegance of manner, and a store of varied +information, with vivacity of impression and delicacy of feeling, which,' +as he declared to Madame d'Albany, 'belongs only to your sex, and is +found in its perfection only in the best society of France.' + +In the days when she and Eustace had been the only children of a +distinguished and wealthy father, a politician of some fame, and +son-in-law to the Tory premier of his young days, she had always led and +influenced her brother. He followed her admiringly through her London +seasons, watching the impression she made, triumphing in her triumphs, +and at home discussing every new book with her and sharing, at least in +his college vacations, the secretary's work for their father, which she +did excellently, and with a quick, keen, political sense which Eustace +had never seen in any other woman. She was handsome in her own refined +and delicate way, especially at night, when the sparkle of her white neck +and arms and the added brightness of her dress gave her the accent and +colour she was somewhat lacking in at other times. Naturally, she was in +no want of suitors, for she was rich and her father was influential, but +she said 'No' many times, and was nearly thirty before M. de +Châteauvieux, the first secretary of the French Embassy, persuaded her to +marry him. Since then she had filled an effective place in Parisian +society. Her husband had abandoned diplomacy for politics, in which his +general tendencies were Orleanist, while in literature he was well known +as a constant contributor to the _Revue des Deux Mondes_. He and his wife +maintained an interesting, and in its way influential, _salon_, which +provided a meeting ground for the best English and French society, and +showed off at once the delicate quality of Madame de Châteauvieux's +intelligence and the force and kindliness of her womanly tact. + +Shortly after her marriage the father and mother died, within eighteen +months of each other, and Eustace found his lot in life radically +changed. He had been his father's secretary after leaving college, which +prevented his making any serious efforts to succeed at the bar, and in +consequence his interest, both of head and heart, had been more +concentrated than is often the case with a young man within the walls of +his home. He had admired his father sincerely, and the worth of his +mother's loquacious and sometimes meddlesome tenderness he never realised +fully till he had lost it. When he was finally alone, it became necessary +for him to choose a line in life. His sister and he divided his father's +money between them, and Eustace found himself with a fortune such as in +the eyes of most of his friends constituted a leading of Providence +towards 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 that +without the stimulus of the father's presence, Eustace's interest in +politics was less real than his interest in letters, nor did the times +seem to her propitious to that philosophic conservatism which might be +said to represent the family type of mind. So she stirred him up to +return to some of the projects of his college days when he and she were +first bitten with a passion for that great, that fascinating French +literature which absorbs, generation after generation, the interests of +two-thirds of those who are sensitive to the things of letters. She +suggested a book to him which took his fancy, and in planning it +something of the old zest of life returned to him. Moreover, it was a +book which required him to spend a part of every year in Paris, and the +neighbourhood of his sister was now more delightful to him than ever. + +So, after a time, he settled down contentedly in his London chambers with +his books about him, and presently found that glow of labour stealing +over him which is at once the stimulus and the reward of every true son +of knowledge. His book reconciled him to life again, and soon he was as +often seen in the common haunts of London society as before. He dined +out, he went to the theatre, he frequented his club like other men, and +every year he spent three of the winter months in Paris, living in the +best 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 in +the studios of some of the more eminent of French artists, a fastidious +critical temper, which was rapidly becoming more and more exacting, more +and more master of the man. + +Now, on this May afternoon, as he settled himself down to his work, it +would have given any of those who liked Eustace Kendal--and they were +many--pleasure to see how the look of fatigue with which he had returned +from his round of the Academy faded away, how he shook back the tumbling +gray locks from his eyes with the zest and the eagerness of one setting +forth to battle, and how, as time passed on and the shadows deepened on +the white spire opposite, the contentment of successful labour showed +itself in the slow unconscious caress which fell upon the back of the +sleeping cat curled up in the chair beside him, or in the absent but +still kindly smile with which he greeted the punctual entrance of the +servant, who at five o'clock came to put tea and the evening paper beside +him and to make up the fire, which crackled on with cheery companionable +sounds through the lamp-lit evening and far into the night. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +Two or three days afterwards, Kendal, in looking over his +engagement-book, in which the entries were methodically kept, noticed +'Afternoon tea, Mrs. Stuart's, Friday,' and at once sent off a note to +Edward Wallace, suggesting that they should go to the theatre together on +Thursday evening to see Miss Bretherton, 'for, as you will see,' he +wrote, 'it will be impossible for me to meet her with a good conscience +unless I have done my duty beforehand by going to see her perform.' To +this the American replied by a counter proposal. 'Miss Bretherton,' he +wrote, 'offers my sister and myself a box for Friday night; it will hold +four or five; you must certainly be of the party, and I shall ask +Forbes.' + +Kendal felt himself a little entrapped, and would have preferred to see +the 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 mind +as possible. + +On Friday afternoon, after a long and fruitful day's work, he found +himself driving westward towards the old-fashioned Kensington house of +which Mrs. Stuart, with her bright, bird-like, American ways, had +succeeded in making a considerable social centre. His mind was still full +of his work, phrases of Joubert or of Stendhal seemed to be still +floating about him, and certain subtleties of artistic and critical +speculation were still vaguely arguing themselves out within him as he +sped westward, drawing in the pleasant influences of the spring sunshine, +and delighting his eyes in the May green which was triumphing more and +more every day over the grayness of London, and would soon have reached +that lovely short-lived pause of victory which is all that summer can +hope to win amid the dust and crowd of a great city. + +Kendal was in that condition which is proper to men possessed of the true +literary temperament, when the first fervour of youth for mere living is +gone, when the first crude difficulties of accumulation are over, and +when the mind, admitted to regions of an ampler ether and diviner air +than any she has inhabited before, feels the full charm and spell of +man's vast birthright of knowledge, and is seized with subtler +curiosities and further-reaching desires than anything she has yet been +conscious of. The world of fact and of idea is open, and the explorer's +instruments are as perfect as they can be made. The intoxication of +entrance is full upon him, and the lassitude which is the inevitable +Nemesis of an unending task, and the chill which sooner or later descends +upon every human hope, are as yet mere names and shadows, counting for +nothing in the tranquil vista of his life, which seems to lie spread out +before him. It is a rare state, for not many men are capable of the +apprenticeship which leads to it, and a breath of hostile circumstance +may put an end to it; but in its own manner and degree, and while it +lasts, it is one of the golden states of consciousness, and a man +enjoying it feels this mysterious gift of existence to have been a kindly +boon from some beneficent power. + +Arrived at Mrs. Stuart's, Kendal found a large gathering already filling +the pleasant low rooms looking out upon trees at either end, upon which +Mrs. Stuart had impressed throughout the stamp of her own keen little +personality. She was competent in all things--competent in her criticism +of a book, and more than competent in all that pertained to the niceties +of house management. Her dinner-parties, of which each was built up from +foundation to climax with the most delicate skill and unity of plan; her +pretty dresses, in which she trailed about her soft-coloured rooms; her +energy, her kindliness, and even the evident but quite innocent pursuit +of social perfection in which she delighted--all made her popular; and it +was not difficult for her to gather together whom she would when she +wished to launch a social novelty. On the present occasion she was very +much in her element. All around her were people more or less +distinguished in the London world; here was an editor, there an artist; a +junior member of the Government chatted over his tea with a foreign +Minister, and a flow of the usual London chatter of a superior kind was +rippling through the room when Kendal entered. + +Mrs. Stuart put him in the way of a chair and of abundant chances of +conversation, and then left him with a shrug of her shoulders and a +whisper, 'The beauty is shockingly late! Tell me what I shall do if all +these people are disappointed.' In reality, Mrs. Stuart was beginning to +be restless. Kendal had himself arrived very late, and, as the talk +flowed faster, and the room filled fuller of guests eager for the new +sensation which had been promised them, the spirits of the little hostess +began to sink. The Minister had surreptitiously looked at his watch, and +a tiresome lady friend had said good-bye in a voice which might have been +lower, and with a lament which might have been spared. Mrs. Stuart set +great store upon the success of her social undertakings, and to gather a +crowd of people to meet the rising star of the season, and then to have +to send them home with only tea and talk to remember, was one of those +failures which no one with any self-respect should allow themselves to +risk. + +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, but +depressing condolences of the barrister standing by her, who was +describing to her the 'absurd failure' of a party to meet the leading +actress of the _Comédie Française_, to which he had been invited in the +previous season, when the sound of wheels was heard outside. Mrs. Stuart +made a quick step forward, leaving her Job's comforter planted in the +middle of his story; the hum of talk dropped in an instant, and the crowd +about the door fell hastily back as it was thrown open and Miss +Bretherton entered. + +What a glow and radiance of beauty entered the room with her! She came in +rapidly, her graceful head thrown eagerly back, her face kindling and her +hands outstretched as she caught sight of Mrs. Stuart. There was a vigour +and splendour of life about her that made all her movements large and +emphatic, and yet, at the same time, nothing could exceed the delicate +finish of the physical structure itself. What was indeed characteristic +in her was this combination of extraordinary perfectness of detail, with +a flash, a warmth, a force of impression, such as often raises the lower +kinds of beauty into excellence and picturesqueness, but is seldom found +in connection with those types where the beauty is, as it were, +sufficient in and by itself, and does not need anything but its own +inherent harmonies of line and hue to impress itself on the beholders. + +There were some, indeed, who maintained that the smallness and delicacy +of her features was out of keeping with her stature and her ample gliding +motions. But here, again, the impression of delicacy was transformed half +way into one of brilliancy by the large hazel eyes and the vivid +whiteness of the skin. Kendal watched her from his corner, where his +conversation with two musical young ladies had been suddenly suspended by +the arrival of the actress, and thought that his impression of the week +before had been, if anything, below the truth. + +'She comes into the room well, too,' he said to himself critically; 'she +is not a mere milkmaid; she has some manner, some individuality. Ah, now +Fernandez'--naming the Minister--'has got hold of her. Then, I suppose, +Rushbrook (the member of the Government) will come next, and we commoner +mortals in our turn. What absurdities these things are!' + +His reflections, however, were stopped by the exclamations of the girls +beside him, who were already warm admirers of Miss Bretherton, and wild +with enthusiasm at finding themselves in the same room with her. They +discovered 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 crowded +state of the theatre and on the plaudits which greeted Miss Bretherton's +first appearance in the ballroom scene in the first act, and they allowed +themselves--being aesthetic damsels robed in sober greenish-grays--a +gentle lament over the somewhat violent colouring of one of the actress's +costumes, while all the time keeping their eyes furtively fixed on the +gleaming animated profile and graceful shoulders over which, in the +entrance of the second drawing-room, the Minister's gray head was +bending. + +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 poor +professionals, you know, must dine at four. That made me late, and now I +find I am such a long way from home that six is the latest moment I can +stay.' So that Mrs. Stuart was put to it to get through all the +introductions she had promised. But she performed her task without +flinching, killing remorselessly each nascent conversation in the bud, +giving artist, author, or member of Parliament his proper little sentence +of introduction, and at last beckoning to Eustace Kendal, who left his +corner feeling society to be a foolish business, and wishing the ordeal +were over. + +Miss Bretherton smiled at him as she had smiled at all the others, and he +sat 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 have +the pleasure for the first time of making one of your admirers.' + +'I hope it will please you,' she said, with a shyness that was still +bright and friendly. 'You will be sure to come and see me afterwards? I +have been arranging it with Mrs. Stuart. I am never fit to talk to +afterwards, I get so tired. But it does one good to see one's friends; it +makes 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 all +such a new experience after that little place Kingston. I should have my +head turned, I think,' she added, with a happy little laugh, 'but that +when one cares about one's art one is not likely to think too much of +one's self. I am always despairing over what there is still to do, and +what one may have done seems to make no matter.' + +She spoke with a pretty humility, evidently meaning what she said, and +yet there was such a delightful young triumph in her manner, such an +invulnerable consciousness of artistic success, that Kendal felt a secret +stir of amusement as he recalled the criticisms which among his own set +he had most commonly heard applied to her. + +'Yes, indeed,' he answered pleasantly. 'I suppose every artist feels the +same. We all do if we are good for anything--we who scribble as well as +you who act.' + +'Oh yes,' she said, with kindly, questioning eyes, 'you write a great +deal? I know; Mr. Wallace told me. He says you are so learned, and that +your book will be splendid. It must be grand to write books. I should +like 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 in +such a rage when all your own grand ideas are spoilt because the leading +gentleman won't do anything different from what he has been used to, or +the next lady wants to show off, or the stage manager has a grudge +against you! Something always happens.' + +'Apparently the only thing that always happens to you is success,' said +Kendal, rather hating himself for the cheapness of the compliment. 'I +hear wonderful reports of the difficulty of getting a seat at the +_Calliope_; and his friends tell me that Mr. Robinson looks ten years +younger. Poor man! it is time that fortune smiled on him.' + +'Yes, indeed; he had a bad time last year. That Miss Harwood, the +American actress, that they thought would be such a success, didn't come +off at all. She didn't hit the public. It doesn't seem to me that the +English public is hard to please. At that wretched little theatre in +Kingston I wasn't nearly so much at my ease as I am here. Here one can +always do one's best and be sure that the audience will appreciate it. I +have all sorts of projects in my head. Next year I shall have a theatre +of 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, and +nothing 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 the +room. Miss Bretherton was going. She came forward in her long flowing +black garments, holding Mrs. Stuart by the hand, the crowd dividing as +she 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. The +actress suddenly stooped to her, lifted her up with the ease of physical +strength into the midst of her soft furs and velvets, and kissed her with +a gracious queenliness. The child threw its little white arms around her, +smiled upon her, and smoothed her hair, as though to assure itself that +the fairy princess was real. Then it struggled down, and in another +minute the bright vision was gone, and the crowded room seemed to have +grown suddenly dull and empty. + +'That was prettily done,' said Edward Wallace to Kendal as they stood +together looking on. 'In another woman those things would be done for +effect, but I don't think she does them for effect. It is as though she +felt herself in such a warm and congenial atmosphere, she is so sure of +herself 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 knows +of her own deficiencies, she is really modest--' + +'Very possibly,' said Kendal; 'it is a curious study, a character taken +so much _au naturel_, and suddenly transported into the midst of such a +London triumph as this. I have certainly been very much attracted, and +feel inclined to quarrel with you for having run her down. I believe I +shall 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 to +be said for her as an actress. But as a human being she is very nearly +perfection.' + +The afternoon guests departed, and just as the last had gone, Mr. Forbes +was announced. He came in in a bad temper, having been delayed by +business, and presently sat down to dinner with Mrs. Stuart and Wallace +and Kendal in a very grumbling frame of mind. Mr. Stuart, a young and +able lawyer, in the first agonies of real success at the bar, had sent +word 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 with +you two carping fellows,' he began, combatively, over his soup. 'She +won'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 will +see I shall behave like an angel. I shall allow myself no unpleasant +remarks, 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; and +I 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 a +judicial 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 our +mouths on the subject of Miss Bretherton.' + +'Hawes does his best,' said Forbes, with a touch of obstinacy. 'He looks +well, he strides well, he is a fine figure of a man with a big bullying +voice; I don't know what more you want in a German prince. It is this +everlasting hypercriticism which spoils all one's pleasure and frightens +all the character out of the artists!' + +At which Mrs. Stuart laughed, and, woman-like, observed that she supposed +it was only people who, like Forbes, had succeeded in disarming the +critics, who could afford to scoff at them,--a remark which drew a funny +little bow, half-petulant, half-pleased, out of the artist, in whom one +of the strongest notes of character was his susceptibility to the +attentions of women. + +'You've seen her already, I believe,' said Wallace to Forbes. 'I think +Miss 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't +want to whittle away the few pleasures that this dull life can provide me +with by this perpetual discontent with what's set before one. Why can't +you 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 of +life in her, give me every sort of artistic pleasure. What a curmudgeon I +should be--what a grudging, ungrateful fellow, if, after all she has done +to delight me, I should abuse her because she can't speak out her +tiresome speeches--which are of no account, and don't matter, to my +impression at all,--as well as one of your thin, French, snake-like +creatures who have nothing but their _art_, as you call it; nothing but +what they have been carefully taught, nothing but what they have +laboriously learnt with time and trouble, to depend upon!' + +Having delivered himself of this tirade, the artist threw himself back in +his chair, tossed back his gray hair from his glowing black eyes, and +looked 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. You +are praising her for qualities which are not properly dramatic at all. In +your studio they would be the only thing that a man need consider; on the +stage they naturally come second.' + +'Ah, well,' said Forbes, falling to upon his dinner again at a gentle +signal from Mrs. Stuart that the carriage would soon be round, 'I knew +very well how you and Wallace would take her. You and I will have to +defend each other, Mrs. Stuart, against those two shower-baths, and when +we go to see her afterwards I shall be invaluable, for I shall be able to +save Kendal and Wallace the humbug of compliments.' + +Whereupon the others protested that they would on no account be deprived +of their share of the compliments, and Wallace especially laid it down +that a man would be a poor creature who could not find smooth things to +say upon any conceivable occasion to Isabel Bretherton. Besides, he saw +her every day, and was in excellent practice. Forbes looked a little +scornful, but at this point Mrs. Stuart succeeded in diverting his +attention to his latest picture, and the dinner flowed on pleasantly till +the 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 the +stage--too close, indeed, for purposes of seeing well. The house was +already crowded, and Kendal noticed, as he scanned the stalls and boxes +through his opera-glass, that it contained a considerable sprinkling of +notabilities of various kinds. It was a large new theatre, which hitherto +had enjoyed but a very moderate share of popular favour, so that the +brilliant and eager crowd with which it was now filled was in itself a +sufficient testimony to the success of the actress who had wrought so +great a transformation. + +'What an experience this is for a girl of twenty-one,' whispered Kendal +to Mrs. Stuart, who was comfortably settled in the farther corner of the +box, 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 man +or woman's individuality, that it must call every power into action, and +strike sparks out of the dullest.' + +'Yes; but how seldom it is so!' + +'Well, in England, at any rate, the fact is, their training is so +imperfect they daren't let themselves go. It's only when a man possesses +the lower secrets of his art perfectly that he can aim at the higher. But +the band is nearly through the overture. Just tell me before the curtain +goes 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 legend +of the White Lady.' + +'What? the warning phantom of the Hohenzollerns?' + +Mrs. Stuart nodded. 'A Crown-Prince of Prussia is in love with the +beautiful Countess Hilda von Weissenstein. Reasons of State, however, +oblige him to throw her over and to take steps towards marriage with a +Princess of Würtemberg. They have just been betrothed when the Countess, +mad with jealousy, plays the part of the White Lady and appears to the +Princess, 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 White +Lady is really the _raison d'etre_ of the piece. But hush! there is the +signal. Make up your mind to be bored by the Princess; she is one of the +worst sticks I ever saw!' + +The first scene represented the ballroom at the Schloss, or rather the +royal anteroom, beyond which the vista of the ballroom opened. The +Prussian and Würtemberg royalties had not yet arrived, with the exception +of the Prince Wilhelm, on whose matrimonial prospects the play was to +turn. He was engaged in explaining the situation to his friend, Waldemar +von Rothenfels, the difficulties in which he was placed, his passion for +the Countess Hilda, the political necessities which forced him to marry a +daughter of the House of Würtemberg, the pressure brought to bear upon +him by his parents, and his own despair at having to break the news to +the Countess. + +The story is broken off by the arrival of the royalties, including the +pink-and-white maiden who is to be Prince Wilhelm's fate, and the royal +quadrille begins. The Prince leads his Princess to her place, when it is +discovered 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 the +dazzling figure in its trailing, pearl-embroidered robes appeared in the +doorway 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 to +display the peculiar gifts of the actress. The quadrille was a stately +spectacular display, in which splendid dress and stirring music and the +effects of rhythmic motion had been brought freely into play for the +delight of the beholders. Between the figures there was a little +skilfully-managed action, mostly in dumb show. The movements of the +jealous beauty and of her faithless lover were invested throughout with +sufficient dramatic meaning to keep up the thread of the play. But it was +not the dramatic aspect of the scene for which the audience cared, it was +simply for the display which it made possible of Isabel Bretherton's +youth and grace and loveliness. They hung upon her every movement, and +Kendal found himself following her with the same eagerness of eye as +those about him, lest any phase of that embodied poetry should escape +him. + +In this introductory scene, the elements which went to make up the spell +she exercised over her audience were perfectly distinguishable. Kendal's +explanation of it to himself was that it was based upon an exceptional +natural endowment of physical perfection, informed and spiritualised by +certain moral qualities, by simplicity, frankness, truth of nature. There +was a kind of effluence of youth, of purity, of strength, about her which +it was impossible not to feel, and which evidently roused the +enthusiastic sympathy of the great majority of those who saw her. + +Forbes was sitting in the front of the box with Mrs. Stuart, his shaggy +gray head and keen lined face attracting considerable attention in their +neighbourhood. He was in his most expansive mood; the combativeness of an +hour before had disappeared, and the ardent susceptible temperament of +the man was absorbed in admiration, in the mere sensuous artist's delight +in a stirring and beautiful series of impressions. When the white dress +disappeared through the doorway of the ballroom, he followed it with a +sigh of regret, and during the scene which followed between the Prince +and his intended bride, he hardly looked at the stage. The Princess, +indeed, was all that Mrs. Stuart had pronounced her to be; she was +stiffer and clumsier than even her Teutonic _rôle_ could justify, and she +marched laboriously through her very proper and virtuous speeches, +evidently driven on by an uneasy consciousness that the audience was only +eager to come to the end of them and of her. + +In the little pause which followed the disappearance of the +newly-betrothed pair into the distant ballroom, Mrs. Stuart leant +backward over her chair and said to Kendal: + +'Now then, Mr. Kendal, prepare your criticisms! In the scene which is +just coming Miss Bretherton has a good deal more to do than to look +pretty!' + +'Oh, but you forget our compact!' said Kendal. 'Remember you are to be +the judge of our behaviour at the end. It is not the part of a judge to +tempt 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 like +in, so long as you let Mr. Forbes perform his devotions undisturbed.' + +At this Forbes half turned round, and shook his great mane, under which +gleamed a countenance of comedy menace, at the two men behind him. But in +another instant the tones of Isabel Bretherton's voice riveted his +attention, and the eyes of all those in the box were once more turned +towards the stage. + +The scene which followed was one of the most meritorious passages in the +rather heavy German play from which the _White Lady_ had been adapted. It +was intended to show the romantic and passionate character of the +Countess, and to suggest that vein of extravagance and daring in her +which was the explanation of the subsequent acts. In the original the +dialogue had a certain German force and intensity, which lost nothing of +its occasional heaviness in the mouth of Hawes, the large-boned +swaggering personage who played the Prince. An actress with sufficient +force of feeling, and an artistic sense subtle enough to suggest to her +the necessary modulations, could have made a great mark in it. But the +first words, almost, revealed Isabel Bretherton's limitations, and before +two minutes were over Kendal was conscious of a complete collapse of that +sympathetic relation between him and the actress which the first scene +had produced. In another sentence or two the spell had been irrevocably +broken, and he seemed to himself to have passed from a state of +sensitiveness to all that was exquisite and rare in her to a state of +mere irritable consciousness of her defects. It was evident to him that +in a scene of great capabilities she never once rose beyond the tricks of +an elementary elocution, that her violence had a touch of commonness in +it which was almost vulgarity, and that even her attitudes had lost half +their charm. For, in the effort--the conscious and laboured effort of +acting--her movements, which had exercised such an enchantment over him +in the first scene, had become mere strides and rushes, never indeed +without grace, but often without dignity, and at all times lacking in +that 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 to +watch her. Edward Wallace, who had seen her some two or three times in +the part, was perfectly conscious of the change, and had been looking out +for 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 the +box. 'Where did she get those tiresome tricks she has, that see-saw +intonation she puts on when she wants to be pathetic, and that absurd +restlessness which spoils everything? It's a terrible pity. Sometimes I +think I catch a gleam of some original power at the bottom, but there is +such a lack of intelligence--in the artist's sense. It is a striking +instance of how much and how little can be done without education.' + +'It is curiously bad, certainly,' said Kendal, while the actress's +denunciations of her lover were still ringing through the theatre. 'But +look at the house! What folly it is ever to expect a great dramatic art +in England. We have no sense for the rudiments of the thing. The French +would no more tolerate such acting as this because of the beauty of the +actress than they would judge a picture by its frame. However, if men +like Forbes leave their judgment behind them, it's no wonder if commoner +mortals follow suit.' + +'There!' said Wallace, with a sigh of relief as the curtain fell on the +first act, 'that's done with. There are two or three things in the second +act that are beautiful. In her first appearance as the White Lady she is +as wonderful as ever, but the third act is a nuisance--' + +'No whispering there,' said Forbes, looking round upon them. 'Oh, I know +what you're after, Edward, perfectly. I hear it all with one ear.' + +'That,' said Wallace, moving up to him, 'is physically impossible. Don't +be so pugnacious. We leave you the front of the box, and when we appear +in your territory our mouths are closed. But in our own domain we claim +the rights of free men.' + +'Poor girl!' said Forbes, with a sigh. 'How she manages to tame London as +she does is a marvel to me! If she were a shade less perfect and +wonderful than she is, she would have been torn to pieces by you critics +long ago. You have done your best as it is, only the public won't listen +to you. Oh, don't suppose I don't see all that you see. The critical +poison's in my veins just as it is in yours, but I hold it in check--it +shan't master me. I will have my pleasure in spite of it, and when I come +across anything in life that makes me _feel_, I will protect my feeling +from it with all my might.' + +'We are dumb,' said Kendal, with a smile; 'otherwise I would pedantically +ask you to consider what are the feelings to which the dramatic art +properly and legitimately appeals.' + +'Oh, hang your dramatic art,' said Forbes, firing up; 'can't you take +things simply and straightforwardly? She is there--she is doing her best +for you--there isn't a movement or a look which isn't as glorious as that +of 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 are +yourselves! Well, it's your loss, not hers.' + +'My dear Mr. Forbes,' said Mrs. Stuart, with her little judicial +peace-making air, 'we shall all go away contented. You will have had your +sensation, 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 Miss +Bretherton with your eyes, and yet, as Edward will get hold of me on the +way home, I shan't go to bed without having experienced all the joys of +criticism! Oh! but now hush, and listen to this music. It is one of the +best 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 most +satisfactory feature in the performance, broke into some weird +Mendelssohnian music, and when the note of plaintiveness and mystery had +been well established, the curtain rose upon the great armoury of the +castle, a dim indistinguishable light shining upon its fretted roof and +masses of faintly gleaming steel. The scene which followed, in which the +Countess Hilda, disguised as the traditional phantom of the +Hohenzollerns, whose appearance bodes misfortune and death to those who +behold it, throws herself across the path of her rival in the hope of +driving her and those interested in her by sheer force of terror from the +castle and from Berlin, had been poetically conceived, and it furnished +Miss Bretherton with an admirable opportunity. As the White Lady, gliding +between rows of armed and spectral figures on either hand, and startling +the Princess and her companion by her sudden apparition in a gleam of +moonlight across the floor, she was once more the representative of all +that is most poetical and romantic in physical beauty. Nay, more than +this; as she flung her white arms above her head, or pointed to the +shrinking and fainting figure of her rival while she uttered her wailing +traditional prophecy of woe, her whole personality seemed to be invested +with a dramatic force of which there had been no trace in the long and +violent scene with the Prince. It was as though she was in some sort +capable of expressing herself in action and movement, while in all the +arts of speech she was a mere crude novice. At any rate, there could be +no doubt that in this one scene she realised the utmost limits of the +author's ideal, and when she faded into the darkness beyond the moonlight +in which she had first appeared, the house, which had been breathlessly +silent during the progress of the apparition, burst into a roar of +applause, in which Wallace and Kendal heartily joined. + +'Exquisite!' said Kendal in Mrs. Stuart's ear, as he stood behind her +chair. 'She was romance itself! Her acting should always be a kind of +glorified and poetical pantomime; she would be inimitable so.' + +Mrs. Stuart looked up and smiled agreement. 'Yes, that scene lives with +one. If everything else in the play is poor, she is worth seeing for that +alone. _Remember it_!' + +The little warning was in season, for the poor White Lady had but too +many after opportunities of blurring the impression she had made. In the +great situation at the end of the second act, in which the Countess has +to give, in the presence of the Court, a summary of the supposed story of +the White Lady, her passion at once of love and hatred charges it with a +force and meaning which, for the first time, rouses the suspicions of the +Prince as to the reality of the supposed apparition. In the two or three +fine and dramatic speeches which the situation involved, the actress +showed the same absence of knowledge and resources as before, the same +powerlessness to create a personality, the same lack of all those quicker +and more delicate perceptions which we include under the general term +'refinement,' and which, in the practice of any art, are the outcome of +long and complex processes of education. There, indeed, was the bald, +plain fact--the whole explanation of her failure as an artist lay in her +lack both of the lower and of the higher kinds of education. It was +evident that her technical training had been of the roughest. In all +technical respects, indeed, her acting had a self-taught, provincial air, +which showed you that she had natural cleverness, but that her models had +been of the poorest type. And in all other respects--when it came to +interpretation or creation--she was spoilt by her entire want of that +inheritance from the past which is the foundation of all good work in the +present. For an actress must have one of the two kinds of knowledge: she +must have either the knowledge which comes from a fine training--in +itself the outcome of a long tradition--or she must have the knowledge +which comes from mere living, from the accumulations of personal thought +and experience. Miss Bretherton had neither. She had extraordinary beauty +and charm, and certainly, as Kendal admitted, some original quickness. He +was 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 on +the physical side, seemed to him to have no future in her. 'It will be +checked,' 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 that +only. The whole pressure of her success is and will be that way.' + +Miss Bretherton's inadequacy, indeed, became more and more visible as the +play was gradually and finely worked up to its climax in the last act. In +the final scene of all, the Prince, who by a series of accidents has +discovered the Countess Hilda's plans, lies in wait for her in the +armoury, where he has reason to know she means to try the effect of a +third and last apparition upon the Princess. She appears; he suddenly +confronts her; and, dragging her forward, unveils before himself and the +Princess the death-like features of his old love. Recovering from the +shock of detection, the Countess pours out upon them both a fury of +jealous passion, sinking by degrees into a pathetic, trance-like +invocation of the past, under the spell of which the Prince's anger melts +away, and the little Princess's terror and excitement change into eager +pity. Then, when she sees him almost reconquered, and her rival weeping +beside her, she takes the poison phial from her breast, drinks it, and +dies 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. The +scene was so obviously beyond Miss Bretherton's resources that even the +enthusiastic house, Kendal fancied, cooled down during the progress of +it. There were signs of restlessness, there was even a little talking in +some of the back rows, and at no time during the scene was there any of +that breathless absorption in what was passing on the stage which the +dramatic 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 on +something unsound, and one feels that disaster is not far off. The whole +thing impresses me most painfully. She has some capacity, of course; if +only the conditions had been different--if she had been born within a +hundred miles of the Paris Conservatoire, if her youth had been passed in +a society of more intellectual weight,--but, as it is, this very applause +is ominous, for the beauty must go sooner or later, and there is nothing +else.' + +'You remember Desforêts in this same theatre last year in _Adrienne +Lecouvreur_?' said Wallace. 'What a gulf between the right thing and the +wrong! But come, we must do our duty;' and he drew Kendal forward towards +the front of the box, and they saw the whole house on its feet, clapping +and shouting, and the curtain just being drawn back to let the White Lady +and the Prince appear before it. She was very pale, but the storm of +applause which greeted her seemed to revive her, and she swept her +smiling glance round the theatre, until at last it rested with a special +gleam of recognition on the party in the box, especially on Forbes, who +was outdoing himself in enthusiasm. She was called forward again and +again, until at last the house was content, and the general exit began. + +The instant after her white dress had disappeared from the stage, a +little page-boy knocked at the door of the box with a message that 'Miss +Bretherton 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 themselves +in the wings, the great stage, on which the scenery was being hastily +shifted, lying to their right. The lights were being put out; only a few +gas-jets were left burning round a pillar, beside which stood Isabel +Bretherton, her long phantom dress lying in white folds about her, her +uncle and aunt and her manager standing near. Every detail of the +picture--the spot of brilliant light bounded on all sides by dim, +far-reaching vistas of shadow, the figures hurrying across the back of +the stage, the moving ghost-like workmen all around, and in the midst +that white-hooded, languid figure--revived in Kendal's memory whenever in +after days his thoughts went wandering back to the first moment of real +contact between his own personality and that of Isabel Bretherton. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +A few days after the performance of the _White Lady_, Kendal, in the +course of his weekly letter to his sister, sent her a fairly-detailed +account 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 such +as might balance the impression of her artistic defects, which I suppose +this account of mine cannot but leave on you. When I came away that night +after our conversation with her I had entirely forgotten her failure as +an actress, and it is only later, since I have thought over the evening +in detail, that I have returned to my first standpoint of wonder at the +easy toleration of the English public. When you are actually with her, +talking to her, looking at her, Forbes's attitude is the only possible +and reasonable one. What does art, or cultivation, or training matter!--I +found myself saying, as I walked home, in echo of him,--so long as Nature +will only condescend once in a hundred years to produce for us a creature +so perfect, so finely fashioned to all beautiful uses! Let other people +go through the toil to acquire; their aim is truth: but here is beauty in +its quintessence, and what is beauty but three parts of truth? Beauty is +harmony with the universal order, a revelation of laws and perfections of +which, in our common groping through a dull world, we find in general +nothing to remind us. And if so, what folly to ask of a human creature +that 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 of +life, and cross-examine it for its credentials instead of raising our +altar and sacrificing to it with grateful hearts! + +'That was my latest impression of Friday night. But, naturally, by +Saturday morning I had returned to the rational point of view. The mind's +morning climate is removed by many degrees from that of the evening; and +the critical revolt which the whole spectacle of the _White Lady_ had +originally roused in me revived in all its force. I began, indeed, to +feel as if I and humanity, with its long laborious tradition, were on one +side, holding our own against a young and arrogant aggressor--namely, +beauty, in the person of Miss Bretherton! How many men and women, I +thought, have laboured and struggled and died in the effort to reach a +higher and higher perfection in one single art, and are they to be +outdone, eclipsed in a moment, by something which is a mere freak of +nature, something which, like the lilies of the field, has neither toiled +nor spun, and yet claims the special inheritance and reward of those who +have! It seemed to me as though my feeling in her presence of the night +before, as if the sudden overthrow of the critical resistance in me had +been a kind of treachery to the human cause. Beauty has power enough, I +found myself reflecting with some fierceness,--let us withhold from her a +sway and a prerogative which are not rightfully hers; let us defend +against her that store of human sympathy which is the proper reward, not +of her facile and heaven-born perfections, but of labour and +intelligence, of all that is complex and tenacious in the workings of the +human spirit. + +'And then, as my mood cooled still further, I began to recall many an +evening at the _Français_ with you, and one part after another, one actor +after another, recurred to me, till, as I realised afresh what dramatic +intelligence and dramatic training really are, I fell into an angry +contempt for our lavish English enthusiasms. Poor girl! it is not her +fault if she believes herself to be a great actress. Brought up under +misleading conditions, and without any but the most elementary education, +how is she to know what the real thing means? She finds herself the rage +within 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 cannot +harmonise all my different impressions of her. Let me begin again. Why is +it 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 impress +themselves upon you. I felt this very strongly two or three times after +the play on Friday night. In her talk with Forbes, for instance, whom she +has altogether in her toils, and whom she plays with as though he were +the gray-headed Merlin and she an innocent Vivien, weaving harmless +spells about him. And then, from this mocking war of words and looks, +this gay camaraderie, in which there was not a scrap of coquetry or +self-consciousness, she would pass into a sudden outburst of anger as to +the impertinence of English rich people--the impertinence of rich +millionaires who have tried once or twice to "order" her for their +evening parties as they would order their ices, or the impertinence of +the young "swell about town" who thinks she has nothing to do behind the +scenes but receive his visits and provide him with entertainment. And, as +the quick impetuous words came rushing out, you felt that here for once +was a woman speaking her real mind to you, and that with a flashing eye +and curving lip, an inborn grace and energy which made every word +memorable. If she would but look like that or speak like that on the +stage! But there, of course, is the rub. The whole difficulty of art +consists in losing your own personality, so to speak, and finding it +again transformed, and it is a difficulty which Miss Bretherton has never +even understood. + +'After this impression of spontaneity and natural force, I think what +struck me most was the physical effect London has already exercised upon +her in six weeks. She looks superbly sound and healthy; she is tall and +fully developed, and her colour, for all its delicacy, is pure and +glowing. But, after all, she was born in a languid tropical climate, and +it is the nervous strain, the rush, the incessant occupation of London +which seem to be telling upon her. She gave me two or three times a +painful impression of fatigue on Friday--fatigue and something like +depression. After twenty minutes' talk she threw herself back against the +iron pillar behind her, her White Lady's hood framing a face so pale and +drooping that we all got up to go, feeling that it was cruelty to keep +her up a minute longer. Mrs. Stuart asked her about her Sundays, and +whether she ever got out of town. "Oh," she said, with a sigh and a look +at her uncle, who was standing near, "I think Sunday is the hardest day +of all. It is our 'at home' day, and such crowds come--just to look at +me, 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 as +well as its pleasures, and that his dear niece could hardly escape her +social duties after the flattering manner in which London had welcomed +her. Miss Bretherton answered, with a sort of languid rebellion, that her +social duties would soon be the death of her. But evidently she is very +docile at home, and they do what they like with her. It seems to me that +the uncle and aunt are a good deal shrewder than the London public; it is +borne in upon me by various indications that they know exactly what their +niece's popularity depends on, and that it very possibly may not be a +long-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 be +made; and, secondly, that she shall find her way into London society, and +secure, if possible, a great _parti_ before the enthusiasm for her has +had time to chill. One hears various stories of the uncle, all in this +sense; 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 League +for the protection of Miss Bretherton from her family; in other words, +we mean to secure that she has occasional rest and country air on +Sunday--her only free day. Mrs. Stuart has already wrung out of Mrs. +Worrall, by a little judicious scaring, permission to carry her off for +two Sundays--one this month and one next--and Miss Bretherton's romantic +side, which is curiously strong in her, has been touched by the +suggestion that the second Sunday should be spent at Oxford. + +'Probably for the first Sunday--a week hence--we shall go to Surrey. You +remember Hugh Farnham's property near Leith Hill? I know all the farms +about there from old shooting days, and there is one on the edge of some +great commons, which would be perfection on a May Sunday. I will write +you a full account of our day. The only rule laid down by the League is +that things are to be so managed that Miss Bretherton is to have no +possible excuse for fatigue so long as she is in the hands of the +society. + +'My book goes on fairly well. I have been making a long study of De +Musset, with the result that the poems seem to me far finer than I had +remembered, and the _Confessions d' un Enfant du Siècle_ a miserable +performance. How was it it impressed me so much when I read it first? His +poems have reminded me of you at every step. Do you remember how you used +to read them aloud to our mother and me after dinner, while the father +had his sleep before going down to the House?' + +Ten days later Kendal spent a long Monday evening in writing the +following letter to his sister:-- + +'Our yesterday's expedition was, I think, a great success. Mrs. Stuart +was happy, because she had for once induced Stuart to put away his papers +and allow himself a holiday; it was Miss Bretherton's first sight of the +genuine English country, and she was like a child among the gorse and the +hawthorns, while Wallace and I amused our manly selves extremely well in +befriending the most beautiful woman in the British Isles, in drawing her +out 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 the +crisis of his fortunes that he should enjoy ten hours' divorce from his +briefs; but he did his best to reach the common level, and his wife, who +is devoted to him, and might as well not be married at all, from the +point of view of marital companionship, evidently thought him perfection. +The day more than confirmed my liking for Mrs. Stuart; there are certain +little follies about her; she is too apt to regard every distinguished +dinner-party she and Stuart attend as an event of enormous and universal +interest, and beyond London society her sympathies hardly reach, except +in that vague charitable form which is rather pity and toleration than +sympathy. But she is kindly, womanly, soft; she has no small jealousies +and none of that petty self-consciousness which makes so many women +wearisome to the great majority of plain men, who have no wish to take +their social exercises too much _au sérieux._ + +'I was curious to see what sort of a relationship she and Miss Bretherton +had developed towards each other. Mrs. Stuart is nothing if not +cultivated; her light individuality floats easily on the stream of London +thought, now with this current, now with that, but always in movement, +never left behind. She has the usual literary and artistic topics at her +fingers' end, and as she knows everybody, whenever the more abstract +sides of a subject begin to bore her, she can fall back upon an endless +store of gossip as lively, as brightly-coloured, and, on the whole, as +harmless as she herself is. Miss Bretherton had till a week or two ago +but two subjects--Jamaica and the stage--the latter taken in a somewhat +narrow sense. Now, she has added to her store of knowledge a great number +of first impressions of London notorieties, which naturally throw her +mind and Mrs. Stuart's more frequently into contact with each other. But +I see that, after all, Mrs. Stuart had no need of any bridges of this +kind to bring her on to common ground with Isabel Bretherton. Her strong +womanliness and the leaven of warm-hearted youth still stirring in her +would be quite enough of themselves, and, besides, there is her critical +delight in the girl's beauty, and the little personal pride and +excitement she undoubtedly feels at having, in so creditable and natural +a manner, secured a hold on the most interesting person of the season. It +is curious to see her forgetting her own specialities, and neglecting to +make her own points, that she may bring her companion forward and set her +in the best light. Miss Bretherton takes her homage very prettily; it is +natural to her to be made much of, and she does not refuse it, but she in +her turn evidently admires enormously her friend's social capabilities +and cleverness, and she is impulsively eager to make some return for Mrs. +Stuart's kindness--an eagerness which shows itself in the greatest +complaisance towards all the Stuarts' friends, and in a constant +watchfulness for anything which will please and flatter them. + +'However, here I am as usual wasting time in analysis instead of +describing to you our Sunday. It was one of those heavenly days with +which May startles us out of our winter pessimism, sky and earth seemed +to be alike clothed in a young iridescent beauty. We found a carriage +waiting for us at the station, and we drove along a great main road until +a sudden turn landed us in a green track traversing a land of endless +commons, as wild and as forsaken of human kind as though it were a region +in some virgin continent. On either hand the gorse was thick and golden, +great oaks, splendid in the first dazzling sharpness of their spring +green, threw vast shadows over the fresh moist grass beneath, and over +the lambs sleeping beside their fleecy mothers, while the hawthorns rose +into the sky in masses of rose-tinted snow, each tree a shining miracle +of white set in the environing blue. + +'Then came the farmhouse--old, red-brick, red-tiled, +casemented--everything that the aesthetic soul desires--the farmer and +his wife looking out for us, and a pleasant homely meal ready in the +parlour, 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, made +in the intervals of eating, of the sitters whose portraits he has +condescended to take this year. They range from a bishop and a royalty +down to a little girl picked up in the London streets, and his +presentation of the characteristic attitudes of each--those attitudes +which, according to him, betray the "inner soul" of the bishop or the +foundling--was admirable. Then he fell upon the Academy--that respected +body of which I suppose he will soon be the President--and tore it limb +from limb. With what face I shall ever sit at the same table with him at +the Academy dinners of the future--supposing fortune ever exalts me again +as 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 could +not say it was ill-natured; it was simply the bare truth of things put in +the whimsical manner which is natural to Forbes. + +'Miss Bretherton listened to and laughed at it all, finding her way +through the crowd of unfamiliar names and allusions with a woman's +cleverness, looking adorable all the time in a cloak of some brown velvet +stuff, and a large hat also of brown velvet. She has a beautiful hand, +fine and delicate, not specially small, but full of character; it was +pleasant to watch it playing with her orange, or smoothing back every now +and then the rebellious locks which will stray, do what she will, beyond +the boundaries assigned to them. Presently Wallace was ill-advised enough +to ask her which pictures she had liked best at the Private View; she +replied by picking out a ballroom scene of Forth's and an unutterable +mawkish thing of Halford's--a troubadour in a pink dressing-gown, +gracefully intertwined with violet scarves, singing to a party of robust +young women in a "light which never was on sea or land." "You could count +all 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, remembering +the rodomontade with which Wallace and had been crushed on the night of +the _White Lady_, to see him wince under Miss Bretherton's liking of the +worst art in England! Is the critical spirit worth something, or is it +superfluous in theatrical matters and only indispensable in matters of +painting! I think he caught the challenge in my eye, for he evidently +felt himself in some little difficulty. + +'"Oh, you couldn't," he said with a groan, "you couldn't like that +ballroom,--and that troubadour, Heaven forgive us! Well, there must be +something in it,--there must be something in it, if it really gives you +pleasure,--I daresay there is; we're so confoundedly uppish in the way we +look at things. If either of them had a particle of drawing or a scrap of +taste, if both of them weren't as bare as a broomstick of the least +vestige of gift, or any suspicion of knowledge, there might be a good +deal to say for them! Only, my dear Miss Bretherton, you see it's really +not a matter of opinion; I assure you it isn't. I could prove to you as +plain as that two and two make four, that Halford's figures don't join in +the middle, and that Forth's men and women are as flat as my hand--there +isn't a back among them! And then the taste, and the colour, and the +clap-trap idiocy of the sentiment! No, I don't think I can stand it. I am +all for people getting enjoyment where they can," with a defiant look at +me, "and snapping their fingers at the critics. But one must draw the +line 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 I +wouldn'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 white +brows. Mrs. Stuart and Wallace kept their countenances to perfection; but +I had him, there's no denying it. + +'"Oh, I know nothing about it," said Isabel Bretherton, divinely +unconscious of the little skirmish going on around her. "You must teach +me, Mr. Forbes. I only know what touches me, what I like--that's all I +know in anything." + +'"It's all we any of us know," said Wallace airily. "We begin with 'I +like' and 'I don't like,' then we begin to be proud, and make +distinctions and find reasons; but the thing beats us, and we come back +in the end to 'I like' and 'I don't like.'" + +'The lunch over, we strolled out along the common, through heather which +as yet was a mere brown expanse of flowerless undergrowth, and copses +which overhead were a canopy of golden oak-leaf, and carpeted underneath +with primroses and the young up-curling bracken. Presently through a +little wood we came upon a pond lying wide and blue before us under the +breezy May sky, its shores fringed with scented fir-wood and the whole +air alive with birds. We sat down under a pile of logs fresh-cut and +fragrant, and talked away vigorously. It was a little difficult often to +keep the conversation on lines which did not exclude Miss Bretherton. +Forbes, the Stuarts, Wallace, and I are accustomed to be together, and +one never realises what a freemasonry the intercourse even of a capital +is until one tries to introduce an outsider into it. We talked the +theatre, of course, the ways of different actors, the fortunes of +managers. Isabel Bretherton naturally has as yet seen very little; her +comments were mainly personal, and all of a friendly, enthusiastic kind, +for the profession has been very cordial to her. A month or five weeks +more and her engagement at the _Calliope_ will be over. There are other +theatres 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, I +imagine, made so much money this season that the family cannot in decency +object to her having her own way. "I am wild to get to Italy," she said +to me in her emphatic, impetuous way. "Sir Walter Rutherford has talked +to me so much about it that I am beginning to dream of it. I long to have +done with London and be off! This English sun seems to me so chilly," and +she drew her winter cloak about her with a little shiver, although the +day was really an English summer day, and Mrs. Stuart was in cotton. "I +come from such warmth, and I loved it. I have been making acquaintance +with all sorts of horrors since I came to London--face-ache and +rheumatism and colds!--I scarcely knew there were such things in the +world. And I never knew what it was to be tired before. Sometimes I can +hardly drag through my work. I hate it so: it makes me cross like a +naughty child!" + +'"Do you know," I said, flinging myself down beside her on the grass and +looking up at her, "that it's altogether wrong? Nature never meant you to +feel 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 that +is so prettily pathetic. "I have the roar in my ears all day, and it +seems to be humming through my sleep at night. And then the crowd, and +the hurry people are in, and the quickness and sharpness of things! But I +have only a few weeks more," she added, brightening, "and then by October +I shall be more used to Europe--the climate and the life." + +'I am much impressed, and so is Mrs. Stuart, by the struggle her nervous +strength is making against London. All my nursing of you, Marie, and of +our mother has taught me to notice these things in women, and I find +myself taking often a very physical and medical view of Miss Bretherton. +You see, it is a case of a northern temperament and constitution relaxed +by tropical conditions, and then exposed once more in an exceptional +degree to the strain and stress of northern life. I rage when I think of +such a piece of physical excellence marred and dimmed by our harsh +English 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 a +sense of tragic waste about it. Suppose London destroys her health--there +are some signs of it--what a futile, ironical pathos there would be in +it. 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 moved +on to the other side of the pond and were basking in the fir-wood. The +afternoon sun was slanting through the branches on to the bosom of the +pond; a splendid Scotch fir just beside us tossed out its red-limbed +branches over a great bed of green reeds, starred here and there with +yellow irises. The woman from the keeper's cottage near had brought us +out some tea, and most of us had fallen into a sybaritic frame of mind in +which talk seemed to be a burden on the silence and easeful peace of the +scene. Suddenly Wallace and Forbes fell upon the question of Balzac, of +whom Wallace has been making a study lately, and were soon landed in a +discussion of Balzac's method of character-drawing. Are Eugène de +Rastignac, le Père Goriot, and old Grandet real beings or mere +incarnations of qualities, mathematical deductions from a given point? At +last I was drawn in, and the Stuarts: Stuart has trained his wife in +Balzac, and she has a dry original way of judging a novel, which is +stimulating and keeps the ball rolling. It was the first time that the +talk had not centred in one way or another round Miss Bretherton, who, of +course, was the first consideration throughout the day in all our minds. +We grew vehement and forgetful, till at last a little movement of hers +diverted the general current. She had taken off her hat and was leaning +back against the oak under which she sat, watching with parted lips and a +gaze of the purest delight and wonder the movements of a nut-hatch +overhead, a creature of the woodpecker kind, with delicate purple gray +plumage, who was tapping the branch above her for insects with his large +disproportionate bill, and then skimming along to a sand-bank a little +distance off, where he disappeared with his prey into his nest. + +'"Ha!" said Wallace, who is a bird-lover, "a truce to Balzac, and let us +watch those nut-hatches! Miss Bretherton's quite right to prefer them to +French novels." + +'"French novels!" she said, withdrawing her eyes from the branch above +her, and frowning a little at Wallace as she spoke. "Please don't expect +me to talk about them--I know nothing about them--I have never wished +to." + +'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 and +her own opinion. I connected it, too, with all one hears of her +determination to look upon herself as charged with a mission for the +reform of stage morals. French novels and French actresses! apparently +she regards them all as so many unknown horrors, standing in the way of +the purification of dramatic art by a beautiful young person with a high +standard of duty. It is very odd! Evidently she is the Scotch +Presbyterian's daughter still, for all her profession, and her success, +and her easy ways with the Sabbath! Her remark produced a good deal of +unregenerate irritation in me. If she were a first-rate artist to begin +with, I was inclined to reflect, this moral enthusiasm would touch and +charm one a good deal more; as it is, considering her position, it is +rather putting the cart before the horse. But, of course, one can +understand that it is just these traits in her that help her to make the +impression she does on London society and the orthodox public in general. + +'Wallace and I went off after the nut-hatches, enjoying a private laugh +by the way over Mrs. Stuart's little look of amazement and discomfort as +Miss Bretherton delivered herself. When we came back we found Forbes +sketching her--she sitting rather flushed and silent under the tree, and +he drawing away and working himself at every stroke into a greater and +greater enthusiasm. And certainly she was as beautiful as a dream, +sitting against that tree, with the brown heather about her and the young +oak-leaves overhead. But I returned in an antagonistic frame of mind, a +little out of patience with her and her beauty, and wondering why Nature +always blunders somewhere! + +'However, on the way home she had another and a pleasanter surprise for +me. A carriage was waiting for us on the main road, and we strolled +towards it through the gorse and the trees and the rich level evening +lights. I dropped behind for some primroses still lingering in bloom +beside a little brook; she stayed too, and we were together, out of +ear-shot of the rest. + +'"Mr. Kendal," she said, looking straight at me, as I handed the flowers +to her, "you may have misunderstood something just now. I don't want to +pretend to what I haven't got. I don't know French, and I can't read +French 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 suddenly +I thought to myself that I too would speak my mind. + +'"Well," I said deliberately, walking on beside her; "you lose a good +deal. There are hosts of French novels which I would rather not see a +woman touch with the tips of her fingers; but there are others, which +take one into a bigger world than we English people with our parochial +ways of writing and seeing have any notion of. George Sand carries you +full into the mid-European stream--you feel it flowing, you are brought +into contact with all the great ideas, all the big interests; she is an +education in herself. And then Balzac! he has such a range and breadth, +he teaches one so much of human nature, and with such conscience, such +force of representation! It's the same with their novels as with their +theatre. Whatever other faults he may have, a first-rate Frenchman of the +artistic sort takes more pains over his work than anybody else in the +world. They don't shirk, they throw their life-blood into it, whether +it's acting, or painting, or writing. You've never seen Desforêts, I +think?--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, and +flung it away from her with one of her nervous gestures. "I am not +sorry," she said. "Nothing would have induced me to go and see her." + +'"Indeed!" I said, waiting a little curiously for what she would say +next. + +'"It's not that I am jealous of her," she exclaimed, with a quick proud +look at me; "not that I don't believe she's a great actress; but I can't +separate her acting from what she is herself. It is women like that who +bring discredit on the whole profession--it is women like that who make +people think that no good woman can be an actress. I resent it, and I +mean to take the other line. I want to prove, if I can, that a woman may +be an actress and still be a lady, still be treated just as you treat the +women you know and respect! I mean to prove that there need never be a +word breathed against her, that she is anybody's equal, and that her +private life is her own, and not the public's! It makes my blood boil to +hear the way people--especially men--talk about Madame Desforêts; there +is not one of you who would let your wife or your sister shake hands with +her, and yet how you rave about her, how you talk as if there were +nothing in the world but genius--and French genius!" + +'It struck me that I had got to something very much below the surface in +Miss Bretherton. It was a curious outburst; I remembered how often her +critics had compared her to Desforêts, greatly to her disadvantage. Was +this championship of virtue quite genuine? or was it merely the best +means of defending herself against a rival by the help of British +respectability? + +'"Mme. Desforêts," I said, perhaps a little drily, "is a riddle to her +best friends, and probably to herself; she does a thousand wild, +imprudent, _bad_ things if you will, but she is the greatest actress the +modern world has seen, and that's something to have done for your +generation. To have moved the feelings and widened the knowledge of +thousands by such delicate, such marvellous, such conscientious work as +hers--there is an achievement so great, so masterly, that I for one will +throw no stones at her!" + +'It seemed to me all through as though I were speaking perversely; I +could have argued on the other side as passionately as Isabel Bretherton +herself; but I was thinking of her dialogue with the Prince, of that +feeble, hysterical death-scene, and it irritated me that she, with her +beauty, and with British Philistinism and British virtue to back her, +should be trampling on Desforêts and genius. But I was conscious of my +audacity. If a certain number of critics have been plain-spoken, Isabel +Bretherton has none the less been surrounded for months past with people +who have impressed upon her that the modern theatre is a very doubtful +business, that her acting is as good as anybody's, and that her special +mission 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 personal +short-comings, her generation has cause to be grateful to her--must be +repugnant to her. She, too, talks about art, but it is like a child who +learns a string of long words without understanding them. She walked on +beside me while I cooled down and thought what a fool I had been to +endanger a friendship which had opened so well,--her wonderful lips +opening once or twice as though to speak, and her quick breath coming and +going as she scattered the yellow petals of the flowers far and wide with +a sort of mute passion which sent a thrill through me. It was as though +she could not trust herself to speak, and I waited awkwardly on +Providence, wishing the others were not so far off. But suddenly the +tension of her mood seemed to give way. Her smile flashed out, and she +turned upon me with a sweet, eager graciousness, quite indescribable. + +'"No, we won't throw stones at her! She _is_ great, I know, but that +other feeling is so strong in me. I care for my art; it seems to me +grand, magnificent!--but I think I care still more for making people +feel it is work a good woman can do, for holding my own in it, and +asserting myself against the people who behave as if all actresses had +done the things that Madame Desforêts has done. Don't think me narrow and +jealous. I should hate you and the Stuarts to think that of me. You have +all been so kind to me--such good, real friends! I shall never forget +this day--Oh! look, there is the carriage standing up there. I wish it +was the morning and not the evening, and that it might all come again! I +hate the thought of London and that hot theatre to-morrow night. Oh, my +primroses! What a wretch I am! I've lost them nearly all. Look, just that +bunch over there, Mr. Kendal, before we leave the common." + +'I sprang to get them for her, and brought back a quantity. She took them +in her hand--how unlike other women she is after all, in spite of her +hatred of Bohemia!--and, raising them to her lips, she waved a farewell +through them to the great common lying behind us in the evening sun. "How +beautiful! 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 a +winning, spontaneous charm. I cannot say what pleasure I got out of those +primroses lying in her soft ungloved hand all the way home. Henceforward, +I feel she may make what judgments and draw what lines she pleases; she +won't change me, and I have some hopes of modifying her; but I am not +very 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 understand +it--but I won't quarrel with her, even in my thoughts, any more! + + * * * * * + +'On looking over this letter it seems to me that if +you were not you, and I were not I, you might with +some plausibility accuse me of being--what?--in love +with Miss Bretherton? But you know me too well. +You know I am one of the old-fashioned people who +believe in community of interests--in belonging to the +same world. When I come coolly to think about it, I +can hardly imagine two worlds, whether outwardly or +inwardly, more wide apart than mine and Miss +Bretherton'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 under +varying circumstances. One night he took it into his head to go to the +pit of the _Calliope_, and came away more persuaded than before that as +an actress there was small prospect for her. Had she been an ordinary +mortal, he thought the original stuff in her might have been disciplined +into something really valuable by the common give and take, the normal +rubs and difficulties of her profession. But, as it was, she had been +lifted at once by the force of one natural endowment into a position +which, from the artistic point of view, seemed to him hopeless. Her +instantaneous success--dependent as it was on considerations wholly +outside those of dramatic art--had denied her all the advantages which +are to be won from struggle and from laborious and gradual conquest. And +more than this, it had deprived her of an ideal; it had tended to make +her take her own performance as the measure of the good and possible. +For, naturally, it was too much to expect that she herself should analyse +truly the sources and reasons of her popularity. She must inevitably +believe that some, at least, of it was due to her dramatic talent in +itself. 'Perhaps some of it is,' Kendal would answer himself. 'It is very +possible that I am not quite fair to her. She has all the faults which +repel me most. I could get over anything but this impression of bare +blank ignorance which she makes upon me. And as things are at present, it +is impossible that she should learn. It might be interesting to have the +teaching of her! But it could only be done by some one with whom she came +naturally 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 whom +Mrs. Stuart had a warm but very respectful admiration. They had met two +or three times in London, and Madame de Châteauvieux's personal +distinction, her refinement, her information, her sweet urbanity of +manner, had made a great impression upon the lively little woman, who, +from the lower level of her own more commonplace and conventional success +in society, felt an awe-struck sympathy for anything so rare, so unlike +the ordinary type. Her intimacy with Miss Bretherton had not gone far +before the subject of 'Mr. Kendal's interesting sister' had been +introduced, and on this particular afternoon, as Kendal entered her +drawing-room, his ear was caught at once by the sound of Marie's name. +Miss Bretherton drew him impulsively into the conversation, and he found +himself 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 in +the public discussion of any subject connected with himself. But Isabel +Bretherton's frank curiosity, her kindling eyes and sweet parted lips, +and that strain of romance in her which made her so quickly responsive to +anything which touched her imagination, were not easy to resist. She was +delightful to his eye and sense, and he was as conscious as he had ever +been of her delicate personal charm. Besides, it was pleasant to him to +talk of that Parisian world, in which he was himself vitally interested, +to any one so naive and fresh. Her ignorance, which on the stage had +annoyed him, in private life had its particular attractiveness. And, with +regard to this special subject, he was conscious of breaking down a +prejudice; he felt the pleasure of conquering a great reluctance in her. +Evidently on starting in London she had set herself against everything +that she identified with the great Trench actress who had absorbed the +theatre-going public during the previous season; not from personal +jealousy, as Kendal became ultimately convinced, but from a sense of keen +moral revolt against Madame Desforêts's notorious position and the +stories of her private life which were current in all circles. She had +decided in her own mind that French art meant a tainted art, and she had +shown herself very restive--Kendal had seen something of it on their +Surrey expedition--under any attempts to make her share the interest +which certain sections of the English cultivated public feel in foreign +thought, and especially in the foreign theatre. Kendal took particular +pains, when they glided off from the topic of his sister to more general +matters, to make her realise some of the finer aspects of the French +world of which she knew so little, and which she judged so harshly; the +laborious technical training to which the dwellers on the other side of +the channel submit themselves so much more readily than the English in +any matter of art; the intellectual conscientiousness and refinement due +to the pressure of an organised and continuous tradition, and so on. He +realised that a good deal of what he said or suggested must naturally be +lost upon her. But it was delightful to feel her mind yielding to his, +while it stimulated her sympathy and perhaps roused her surprise to find +in him every now and then a grave and unpretending response to those +moral enthusiasms in herself which were too real and deep for much direct +expression. + +'Whenever I am next in Paris, she said to him, when she perforce rose to +go, with that pretty hesitation of manner which was so attractive in her, +'would you mind--would Madame de Châteauvieux,--if I asked you to +introduce me to your sister? It would be a great pleasure to me.' + +Kendal made a very cordial reply, and they parted knowing more of each +other than they had yet done. Not that his leading impression of her was +in any way modified. Incompetent and unpromising as an artist, delightful +as a woman,--had been his earliest verdict upon her, and his conviction +of its reasonableness had been only deepened by subsequent experience; +but perhaps the sense of delightfulness was gaining upon the sense of +incompetence? After all, beauty and charm and sex have in all ages been +too much for the clever people who try to reckon without them. Kendal was +far too shrewd not to recognise the very natural and reasonable character +of the proceeding, and not to smile at the first sign of it in his own +person. Still, he meant to try, if he could, to keep the two estimates +distinct, and neither to confuse himself nor other people by confounding +them. It seemed to him an intellectual point of honour to keep his head +perfectly cool on the subject of Miss Bretherton's artistic claims, but +he was conscious that it was not always very easy to do--a consciousness +that made him sometimes all the more recalcitrant under the pressure of +her celebrity. + +For it seemed to him that in society he heard of nothing but her--her +beauty, her fascination, and her success. At every dinner-table he heard +stories of her, some of them evident inventions, but all tending in the +same direction--that is to say, illustrating either the girl's proud +independence and her determination to be patronised by nobody, not even +by royalty itself, or her lavish kind-heartedness and generosity towards +the poor and the inferiors of her own profession. She was for the moment +the great interest of London, and people talked of her popularity and +social prestige as a sign of the times and a proof of the changed +position of the theatre and of those belonging to it. Kendal thought it +proved no more than that an extremely beautiful girl of irreproachable +character, brought prominently before the public in any capacity +whatever, is sure to stir the susceptible English heart, and that Isabel +Bretherton's popularity was not one which would in the long run affect +the stage at all. But he kept his reflections to himself, and in general +talked about her no more than he was forced to do. He had a sort of +chivalrous feeling that those whom the girl had made in any degree her +personal friends ought, as far as possible, to stand between her and this +inquisitive excited public. And it was plain to him that the enormous +social success was not of her seeking, but of her relations. + +One afternoon, between six and seven, Kendal was working alone in his +room with the unusual prospect of a clear evening before him. He had +finished a piece of writing, and was standing before the fire deep in +thought over the first paragraphs of his next chapter, when he heard a +knock; the door opened, and Wallace stood on the threshold. + +'May I come in? It's a shame to disturb you; but I've really got +something 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? or +will you stay and dine? I must dine early to-night for my work. I'll ring +and tell Mason.' + +'No, don't; I can't stay. I must be in Kensington at eight.' He threw +himself into Kendal's deep reading-chair, and looked up at his friend +standing silent and expectant on the hearth-rug. 'Do you remember that +play of mine I showed you in the spring?' + +Kendal took time to think. + +'Perfectly; you mean that play by that young Italian fellow which you +altered and translated? I remember it quite well. I have meant to ask you +about it once or twice lately.' + +'You thought well of it, I know. Well, my sister has got me into the most +uncomfortable 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 want +of money just now, and I had set my heart on the thing's being really +good--well written and well acted. Well, Agnes, in a rash moment two or +three days ago, and without consulting me, told Miss Bretherton the whole +story of the play, and said that she supposed I should soon want somebody +to bring it out for me. Miss Bretherton was enormously struck with the +plot, as Agnes told it to her, and the next time I saw her she insisted +that I should read some scenes from it to her--' + +'Good heavens! and now she has offered to produce it and play the +principal part in it herself,' interrupted Kendal. + +Wallace nodded. 'Just so; you see, my relations with her are so friendly +that it was impossible for me to say no. But I never was in a greater +fix. She was enthusiastic. She walked up and down the room after I'd done +reading, repeating some of the passages, going through some of the +situations, and wound up by saying, "Give it me, Mr. Wallace! It shall be +the first thing I bring out in my October season--if you will let me have +it." 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 of +its lessening. Any piece she plays in is bound to be a success, and I +suppose 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 the +part of Elvira--you remember the plot?--even decently. It's an extremely +difficult part. It would be superb--I think so, at least--in the hands +of an actress who really understood her business; but Miss Bretherton +will 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 the +name of fortune, am I to get out of it?' + +'You had thought,' said Kendal, 'I remember, of Mrs. Pearson for the +heroine.' + +'Yes; I should have tried her. She is not first-rate, but at least she is +intelligent; she understands something of what you want in a part like +that. But for poor Isabel Bretherton, and those about her, the great +points in the play will be that she will have long speeches and be able +to wear "medieval" dresses! I don't suppose she ever heard of Aragon in +her life. Just imagine her playing a high-born Spanish woman of the +fifteenth century! Can't you see her?' + +'Well, after all,' said Kendal, with a little laugh, 'I should see what +the public goes for mostly--that is to say, Isabel Bretherton in +effective costume. No, it would be a great failure--not a failure, of +course, in the ordinary sense. Her beauty, the medieval get-up, and the +romantic plot of the piece, would carry it through, and, as you say, you +would probably make a great deal by it. But, artistically, it would be a +ghastly failure. And Hawes! Hawes, I suppose, would play Macias? Good +heavens!' + +'Yes,' said Wallace, leaning his head on his hands and looking gloomily +out 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 the +least in love with that girl, Kendal, but there isn't anything she asked +me to do for her that I wouldn't do if I could. She's the warmest-hearted +creature--one of the kindest, frankest, sincerest women that ever +stepped. I feel at times that I'd rather cut my hand off than hurt her +feelings by throwing her offer in her face, and yet, that play has been +the apple of my eye to me for months; the thought of seeing it spoilt by +clumsy handling is intolerable to me.' + +'I suppose it would hurt her feelings,' said Kendal meditatively, 'if you +refused?' + +'Yes,' said Wallace emphatically; 'I believe it would wound her +extremely. You see, in spite of all her success, she is beginning to be +conscious that there are two publics in London. There is the small +fastidious public of people who take the theatre seriously, and there is +the large easy-going public who get the only sensation they want out of +her beauty and her personal prestige. The enthusiasts have no difficulty, +as yet, in holding their own against the scoffers, and for a long time +Miss 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 more +than she did. It seems to me that there is a little growing soreness in +her mind, and just now if I refuse to let her have that play it will +destroy 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's +sake, Kendal, help me to some plausible fiction or other!' + +'I wish I could,' said Kendal, pacing up and down, his gray hair falling +forward over his brow. There was a pause, and then Kendal walked +energetically 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 on +that. You know how much I like her. She's all you say, and more; but art +is art, and acting is acting. I, at any rate, take these things +seriously, 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 make +one despair. Sometimes I think it will throw back the popular dramatic +taste for years. At any rate, I am clear that if a man has got hold of a +fine work of art, as you have in that play, he has a duty to it and to +the public. You are bound to see it brought out under the best possible +conditions, and we all know that Miss Bretherton's acting, capped with +Hawes's, would kill it, from the artistic point of view.' + +'Perfectly true, perfectly true,' said Wallace. 'Well, would you have me +tell her so?' + +'You must get out of it somehow. Tell her that the part is one you feel +won't suit her--won't do her justice.' + +'Much good that would do! She thinks the part just made for her--costumes +and all.' + +'Well, then, say you haven't finished your revision, and you must have +time for more work at it; that will postpone the thing, and she will hear +of something else which will put it out of her head.' + +'There are all sorts of reasons against that,' said Wallace; 'it's hardly +worth while going through them. In the first place, she wouldn't believe +me; in the second, she won't forget it, whatever happens, and it would +only put the difficulty off a few weeks at most. I feel so stupid about +the whole thing. I like her too much. I'm so afraid of saying anything to +hurt 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 winning +expression. + +'Do you think _you_ could earn my eternal gratitude and manage the thing +for me? You know we're going to Oxford next Sunday, and I suppose we +shall go to Nuneham, and there will be opportunities for walks, and so +on. Could you possibly take it in hand? She has an immense respect for +you intellectually. If you tell her that you're sure the part won't suit +her, that she won't do herself justice in it; if you could lead the +conversation on to it and try to put her out of love for the scheme +without seeming to have a commission from me in any way, I should be +indeed everlastingly obliged! You wouldn't make a mess of it, as I should +be sure to do. You'd keep your head cool.' + +'Well!' said Kendal, laughing, balancing himself on the table facing +Wallace. 'That's a tempting prospect! But if I don't help you out you'll +give in, I know; you're the softest of men, and I don't want you to give +in.' + +'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 known +you do difficult things before; you manage somehow to get your own way +without offending people.' + +'H'm,' said Kendal; 'I don't know whether that's flattering or not.' He +began to walk up and down the room again cogitating. 'I don't mind +trying,' 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 over +the 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 she +really took it to heart. She attaches one to her. I feel towards her as +though she were a sister--only more interesting, because there's the +charm 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 and +looking for his overcoat, while his face darkened; 'it's an experience I +don'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 own +about her and his friend--her departure from London and Wallace's long +absence in the country. But he said nothing, unless there was sympathy in +the cordial grip of his hand as he accompanied the other to the door. + +On the threshold Wallace turned irresolutely. 'It will be a risk next +Sunday,' he said; 'I'm determined it shan't be anything more. She is not +the 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 you +can, and I'll bless you for ever. What a brute I am never to have asked +after your work! Does it get on?' + +'As much as any work can in London just now. I must take it away with me +somewhere 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 into +his room and stood meditating. It seemed to him that Wallace did not +quite realise the magnificence of his self-devotion. 'For, after all, +it's an awkward business,' he said to himself, shaking his head over his +own temerity. 'How I am to come round a girl as frank, as direct, as +unconventional as that, I don't quite know! But she ought not to have +that play; it's one of the few good things that have been done for the +English stage for a long time past. It's well put together, the plot +good, three or four strongly marked characters, and some fine Victor +Hugoish dialogue, especially in the last act. But there is extravagance +in it, as there is in all the work of that time, and in Isabel +Bretherton's hands a great deal of it would be grotesque: nothing would +save it but her reputation and the get-up, and that would be too great +a shame. No, no; it will not do to have the real thing swamped by all +sorts of irrelevant considerations in this way. I like Miss Bretherton +heartily, but I like good work, and if I can save the play from her, I +shall save her too from what everybody with eyes in his head would see to +be a failure!' + +It was a rash determination. Most men would have prudently left the +matter to those whom it immediately concerned, but Kendal had a Quixotic +side to him, and at this time in his life a whole-hearted devotion to +certain intellectual interests, which decided his action on a point like +this. In spite of his life in society, books and ideas were at this +moment much more real to him than men and women. He judged life from the +standpoint of the student and the man of letters, in whose eyes +considerations, which would have seemed abstract and unreal to other +people, had become magnified and all-important. In this matter of Wallace +and Miss Bretherton he saw the struggle between an ideal interest, so to +speak, and a personal interest, and he was heart and soul for the ideal. +Face to face with the living human creature concerned, his principles, as +we have seen, were apt to give way a little, for the self underneath was +warm-hearted and impressionable, but in his own room and by himself they +were strong and vigorous, and would allow of no compromise. + +He ruminated over the matter during his solitary meal, planning his line +of action. 'It all depends,' he said to himself, 'on that,--if what +Wallace says about her is true, if my opinion has really any weight with +her, I shall be able to manage it without offending her. It's good of her +to speak of me as kindly as she seems to do; I was anything but amiable +on that Surrey Sunday. However, I felt then that she liked me all the +better for plain-speaking; one may be tolerably safe with her that she +won't take offence unreasonably. What a picture she made as she pulled +the primroses to pieces--it seemed all up with one! And then her smile +flashing out--her eagerness to make amends--to sweep away a harsh +impression--her pretty gratefulness--enchanting!' + +On Saturday, at lunch-time, Wallace rushed in for a few minutes to say +that he himself had avoided Miss Bretherton all the week, but that things +were coming to a crisis. 'I've just got this note from her,' he said +despairingly, spreading it out before Kendal, who was making a scrappy +bachelor meal, with a book on each side of him, at a table littered with +papers. + +'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 for +an appointment with her and her business manager, and spoke with +enthusiasm of the play. 'It cannot help being a great success,' she +wrote; '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 for +me. You have never, indeed, I remember, consented in so many words to let +me 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 will +see 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 the +pecuniary advantages of her offer, though she must know that almost any +author would give his eyes just now for such a proposal. Well, we shall +see. If I can't make the thing look less attractive to her without +rousing her suspicions, and if you can't screw up your courage to +refuse--why, you must sign the agreement, my dear fellow, and make the +best of it; you will find something else to inspire you before long.' + +'It's most awkward,' sighed Wallace, as though making up his perplexed +mind with difficulty. 'The great chance is that by Agnes's account she is +very much inclined to regard your opinion as a sort of intellectual +standard; she has two or three times talked of remarks of yours as if +they had struck her. Don't quote me at all, of course. Do it as +impersonally as you can--' + +'If you give me too many instructions,' said Kendal, returning the letter +with a smile, 'I shall bungle it. Don't make me nervous. I can't promise +you 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 Agnes +about the trains to-morrow?' + +'Yes, Paddington, 10 o'clock, and there is an 8.15 train back from +Culham. Mrs. Stuart says we're to lunch in Balliol, run down to Nuneham +afterwards, and leave the boats there, to be brought back.' + +'Yes, we lunch with that friend of ours--I think you know him--Herbert +Sartoris. He has been a Balliol don for about a year. I only trust the +weather will be what it is to-day.' + +The weather was all that the heart of man could desire, and the party met +on the Paddington platform with every prospect of another successful day. +Forbes turned up punctual to the moment, and radiant under the combined +influence of the sunshine and of Miss Bretherton's presence; Wallace had +made all the arrangements perfectly, and the six friends found themselves +presently journeying along to Oxford, at that moderated speed which is +all that a Sunday express can reach. The talk flowed with zest and +gaiety; the Surrey Sunday was a pleasant memory in the background, and +all were glad to find themselves in the same company again. It seemed to +Kendal that Miss Bretherton was looking rather thin and pale, but she +would not admit it, and chattered from her corner to Forbes and himself +with 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 them +alighting at the gate of the new Balliol, where stood Herbert Sartoris +looking out for them. He was a young don with a classical edition on hand +which kept him up working after term, within reach of the libraries, and +he led the way to some pleasant rooms overlooking the inner quadrangle of +Balliol, showing in his well-bred look and manner an abundant +consciousness of the enormous good fortune which had sent him Isabel +Bretherton for a guest. For at that time it was almost as difficult to +obtain the presence of Miss Bretherton at any social festivity as it was +to obtain that of royalty. Her Sundays were the objects of conspiracies +for weeks beforehand on the part of those persons in London society who +were least accustomed to have their invitations refused, and to have and +to hold the famous beauty for more than an hour in his own rooms, and +then to enjoy the privilege of spending five or six long hours on the +river with her, were delights which, as the happy young man felt, would +render him the object of envy to all at least of his fellow-dons below +forty. + +In streamed the party, filling up the book-lined rooms and startling the +two old scouts in attendance into an unwonted rapidity of action. Miss +Bretherton 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 of +green, and threw herself down at last on to the low window-seat with a +sigh 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 that +building is over there; it's too new, it ought to be old and gray like +the 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 for +once.' + +'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 admiration +of that marvellous changing face. 'The vacation is the time they show +themselves; 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 in +vacation they have the colleges and the parks and the Bodleian to +themselves, and you may study their ways, and their spectacles, and their +umbrellas, under the most favourable conditions.' + +'Oh yes,' said Miss Bretherton, with a little scorn, 'people always make +fun 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 Oxford +is 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 declares +already; 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 at +him. 'Do you generally find my enthusiasms cool down?' + +'You are as constant as you are kind,' said Forbes, bowing to her; 'I am +only 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 drive +through the streets. Mr. Wallace, are you and Mrs. Stuart really going to +forbid me sight-seeing?' + +'Of course!' said Wallace emphatically. 'That's one of the fundamental +rules of the society. Our charter would be a dead letter if we let you +enter a single college on your way to the river to-day.' + +'The only art, my dear Isabel,' said Mrs. Stuart, 'that you will be +allowed to study to-day, will be the art of conversation.' + +'And a most fatiguing one, too!' exclaimed Forbes; 'it beats sight-seeing +hollow. But, my dear Miss Bretherton, Kendal and I will make it up to +you. We'll give you an illustrated history of Oxford on the way to +Nuneham. I'll do the pictures, and he shall do the letterpress. Oh! the +good times I've had up here--much better than he ever had'--nodding +across at Kendal, who was listening. 'He was too proper behaved to enjoy +himself; he got all the right things, all the proper first-classes and +prizes, poor fellow! But, as for me, I used to scribble over my +note-books all lecture-time, and amuse myself the rest of the day. And +then, you see, I was up twenty years earlier than he was, and the world +was not as virtuous then as it is now, by a long way.' + +Kendal was interrupting, when Forbes, who was in one of his maddest +moods, turned round upon his chair to watch a figure passing along the +quadrangle in front of the bay-window. + +'I say, Sartoris, isn't that Camden, the tutor who was turned out of +Magdalen a year or two ago for that atheistical book of his, and whom you +took in, as you do all the disreputables? Ah, I knew it! + +"By the pricking of my thumbs +Something 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 the +persecutors who are the curiosity.' + +'I don't know that,' said young Sartoris. 'We liberals are by no means +the cocks of the walk that we were a few years ago. You see, now we have +got nothing to pull against, as it were. So long as we had two or three +good grievances, we could keep the party together and attract all the +young men. We were Israel going up against the Philistines, who had us in +their 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 we +who 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 that +prevents Oxford becoming as dull as the rest of the world. All your +picturesqueness, so to speak, has been struck out of the struggle between +the two forces. The Church force is the one that has given you all your +buildings and your beauty, while, as for you liberals, who will know such +a lot of things that you're none the happier for knowing--well, I suppose +you keep the place habitable for the plain man who doesn't want to be +bullied. But it's a very good thing the other side are strong enough to +keep you in order.' + +The conversation flowed on vigorously--Forbes guiding it, now here, now +there, 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 Miss +Bretherton. + +'Edward has told you of my escapade,' said Mrs. Stuart. 'Yes, I have put +my 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 came +to tell her. You see, I've seen so much of her lately, it slipped out +when we were talking.' + +'It was very natural,' said Kendal, glad to notice from Mrs. Stuart's way +of attacking the subject that she knew nothing of his own share in the +matter. It would have embarrassed him to be conscious of another +observer. 'Oh, a hundred things may turn up; there are ways out of these +things if one is determined to find them.' + +Mrs. Stuart shook her head. 'She is so curiously bent upon it. She is +possessed with the idea that the play will suit her better than any she +has had yet. Don't you think her looking very tired? I have come to know +her much better these last few weeks, and it seems absurd; but I get +anxious about her. Of course, she is an enormous success, but I fancy the +theatrical 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 the +temper of the audience a good deal flatter.' + +'Yes,' said Mrs. Stuart; 'and then there is that curious little sister of +hers, whom you haven't seen, and who counts for a good deal. I believe +that in reality she is very fond of Isabel, and very proud of her, but +she's very jealous of her too, and she takes her revenge upon her sister +for her beauty and her celebrity by collecting the hostile things people +say about her acting, and pricking them into her every now and then, like +so many pins. At first Isabel was so sure of herself and the public that +she 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 came +over, nor so happy, I think, and the criticisms tell more. She is +heartily sick of the _White Lady_, and is bent upon a change, and I +believe she thinks this play of Edward's is just what she wants to enable +her to strengthen her hold upon the public.' + +'There never was a greater delusion,' said Kendal; 'it's the last part in +the 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 so +well. It's a long tragic part--a tremendous strain, and would take all +the 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 she +did. The paleness of the beautiful face opposite indeed had touched his +sympathies very keenly, and he was beginning to think the safety of +Wallace'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 be +hanged,' he said to himself, 'if I come within a thousand miles of +hurting 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 the +schools'-quadrangle, and a drive down High Street. Mr. Sartoris, who had +been an examiner during the summer term, and had so crept into the good +graces of the Clerk of the Schools, was sent off to suborn that +functionary for the keys of the iron gates which on Sunday shut out the +Oxford world from the sleepy precincts of the Bodleian. The old clerk was +in a lax vacation mood, and the envoy returned key in hand. Mrs. Stuart +and Forbes undertook the guidance of Miss Bretherton, while the others +started to prepare the boats. It was a hot June day, and the gray +buildings, with their cool shadows, stood out delicately against a pale +blue sky dappled with white cloud. Her two guides led Miss Bretherton +through the quadrangle of the schools, which, fresh as it was from the +hands of the restorer, rose into the air like some dainty white piece of +old-world confectionery. For the windows are set so lightly in the +stone-work, and are so nearly level with the wall, that the whole great +building has an unsubstantial card-board air, as if a touch might dint +it. + +'The doctrinaires call it a fault,' said Forbes indignantly, pointing out +the feature to his companions. 'I'd like to see them build anything +nowadays with half so much imagination and charm.' + +They looked enviously at the closed door of the Bodleian, they read the +Latin names of the schools just freshly painted at intervals round the +quadrangle, and then Forbes led them out upon the steps in front of the +Radcliffe and S. Mary's, and let them take their time a little. + +'How strange that there should be anything in the world,' cried Miss +Bretherton, 'so beautiful all through, so all of a piece as this! I had +no idea it would be half so good. Don't, don't laugh at me, Mr. Forbes. I +have not seen all the beautiful things you other people have seen. Just +let me rave.' + +'_I_ laugh at you!' said Forbes, standing back in the shadow of the +archway, his fine lined face, aglow with pleasure, turned towards her. +'_I_, who have got Oxford in my bones and marrow, so to speak! Why, every +stone in the place is sacred to me! Poetry lives here, if she has fled +from all the world besides. No, no; say what you like, it cannot be too +strong for me.' + +Mrs. Stuart, meanwhile, kept her head cool, admired all that she was +expected to admire, and did it well, and never forgot that the carriage +was waiting for them, and that Miss Bretherton was not to be tired. It +was she who took charge of the other two, piloted them safely into the +fly, carried them down the High Street, sternly refused to make a stop at +Magdalen, and finally landed them in triumph to the minute at the great +gate of Christchurch. Then they strolled into the quiet cathedral, +delighted themselves with its irregular bizarre beauty, its unexpected +turns and corners, which gave it a capricious fanciful air for all the +solidity and business-like strength of its Norman framework, and as they +rambled out again, Forbes made them pause over a window in the northern +aisle--a window by some Flemish artist of the fifteenth century, who +seems to have embodied in it at once all his knowledge and all his +dreams. In front sat Jonah under his golden-tinted gourd--an ill-tempered +Flemish peasant--while behind him the indented roofs of the Flemish town +climbed the whole height of the background. It was probably the artist's +native town; some roof among those carefully-outlined gables sheltered +his own household Lares. But the hill on which the town stood, and the +mountainous background and the purple sea, were the hills and the sea not +of Belgium, but of a dream country--of Italy, perhaps, the medieval +artist's paradise. + +'Happy man!' said Forbes, turning to Miss Bretherton; 'look, he put it +together four centuries ago, all he knew and all he dreamt of. And there +it is to this day, and beyond the spirit of that window there is no +getting. For all our work, if we do it honestly, is a compound of what we +know and what we dream.' + +Miss Bretherton looked at him curiously. It was as though for the first +time 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 to +him sympathetically, and looked at the window closely, as though trying +to follow all he had been saying. But it struck Mrs. Stuart that there +was often a bewilderment in her manner which had been strange to it on +her first entrance into London. Those strong emphatic ways Kendal had +first noticed in her were less frequent. Sometimes she struck Mrs. Stuart +as having the air of a half-blindfold person trying to find her way along +strange roads. + +They passed out into the cool and darkness of the cloisters, and through +the new buildings, and soon they were in the Broad Walk, trees as old as +the Commonwealth bending overhead, and in front the dazzling green of the +June meadows, the shining river in the distance, and the sweep of +cloud-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 the +embarkation, for on Sunday the river is forsaken, and they were the only +adventurers on its blue expanse. Off they pushed, Miss Bretherton, +Kendal, Mr. Stuart, and Forbes in one boat, the remaining members of the +party in the other. Isabel Bretherton had thrown off the wrap which she +always carried with her, and which she had gathered round her in the +cathedral, and it lay about her in green fur-edged folds, bringing her +white dress into relief, the shapely fall of the shoulders and all the +round slimness of her form. As Kendal took the stroke oar, after he had +arranged everything for her comfort, he asked her if Oxford was what she +had expected. + +'A thousand times better!' she said eagerly. + +'You have a wonderful power of enjoyment. One would think your London +life would have spoilt it a little.' + +'I don't think anything ever could. I was always laughed at for it as a +child, I enjoy everything.' + +'Including such a day as you had yesterday? How _can_ you play the _White +Lady_ twice in one day? It's enough to wear you out.' + +'Oh, everybody does it. I was bound to give a _matinée_ to the profession +some time, and yesterday had been fixed for it for ages. But I have only +given three _matinées_ altogether, and I shan't give another before my +time is up.' + +'That's a good hearing,' said Kendal. 'Do you get tired of the _White +Lady_?' + +'Yes,' she said emphatically; 'I am sick of her. But,' she added, bending +forward with her hands clasped on her knee, so that what she said could +be heard by Kendal only; 'have you heard, I wonder, what I have in my +head for the autumn? Oh well, we must not talk of it now; I have no right +to make it public yet. But I should like to tell you when we get to +Nuneham, if there's an opportunity.' + +'We will make one,' said Kendal, with an inward qualm. And she fell back +again with a nod and a smile. + +On they passed, in the blazing sunshine, through Iffley lock and under +the green hill crowned with Iffley village and its Norman church. The hay +was out in the fields, and the air was full of it. Children, in tidy +Sunday frocks, ran along the towing-path to look at them; a reflected +heaven smiled upon them from the river depths; wild rose-bushes overhung +the water, and here and there stray poplars rose like land-marks into +the sky. The heat, after a time, deadened conversation. Forbes every now +and then would break out with some comment on the moving landscape, which +showed the delicacy and truth of his painter's sense, or set the boat +alive with laughter by some story of the unregenerate Oxford of his own +undergraduate days; but there were long stretches of silence when, except +to the rowers, the world seemed asleep, and the regular fall of the oars +like 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 shade +lay deep and green on the still water, spanned by a rustic bridge, and +broken every now and then by the stately whiteness of the swans. Rich +steeply-rising woods shut in the left-hand bank, and foliage, grass, and +wild flowers seemed suddenly to have sprung into a fuller luxuriance than +elsewhere. + +'It's too early for tea,' said Mrs. Stuart's clear little voice on the +bank; 'at least, if we have it directly it will leave such a long time +before the train starts. Wouldn't a stroll be pleasant first?' + +Isabel Bretherton and Kendal only waited for the general assent before +they wandered off ahead of the others. 'I should like very much to have a +word with you,' she had said to him as he handed her out of the boat. And +now, 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 the +wood, a little out of breath after a bit of steep ascent, 'that I have +got hold of a play for next October that I think you are rather specially +interested in--at least, Mr. Wallace told me you had heard it all, and +given him advice about it while he was writing it. I want so much to hear +your ideas about it. It always seems to me that you have thought more +about the stage and seen more acting than any one else I know, and I care +for your opinion very much indeed--do tell me, if you will, what you +thought of _Elvira!_' + +'Well,' said Kendal quietly, as he made her give up her wrap to him to +carry, 'there is a great deal that's fine in it. The original sketch, as +the Italian author left it, was good, and Wallace has enormously improved +upon it. Only--' + +'Isn't it most dramatic?' she exclaimed, interrupting him; 'there are so +many strong situations in it, and though one might think the subject a +little unpleasant if one only heard it described, yet there is nothing in +the treatment but what is noble and tragic. I have very seldom felt so +stirred by anything. I find myself planning the scenes, thinking over +them this way and that incessantly.' + +'It is very good and friendly of you,' said Kendal warmly, 'to wish me to +give 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 are +one or two points in it that might be changed. I shall press Mr. Wallace +to make a few alterations. I wonder what were the changes that occurred +to you?' + +'I wasn't thinking of changes,' said Kendal, not venturing to look at her +as she walked beside him, her white dress trailing over the moss-grown +path, and her large hat falling back from the brilliant flushed cheeks +and queenly throat. 'I was thinking of the play itself, of how the part +would really suit you.' + +'Oh, I have no doubts at all about that,' she said, but with a quick look +at him; 'I always feel at once when a part will suit me, and I have +fallen 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 of +scolding and declaiming. _Elvira_ will give me an opportunity of showing +what I can do with something soft and pathetic. I have had such +difficulties 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 in +something poetical and romantic, and this is new, and the mounting of it +might be quite original.' + +'And yet I doubt,' said Kendal; 'I think the part of Elvira wants +variety, 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 lighter +vein, 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 can +play a comedy part, of course--every actor ought to be able to--but I +don'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 which +would be less of a continuous tragic strain than this. Why, almost all +the modern tragic plays have their passages of relief, but the texture +of _Elvira_ is so much the same throughout,--I cannot conceive a greater +demand on any one. And then you must consider your company. Frankly, I +cannot imagine a part less suited to Mr. Hawes than Macias; and his +difficulties 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 should +have said--only, of course, you must know much better--that it is a +little risky to give the British public such very serious fare as this, +and immediately after the _White Lady_. The English theatre-goer never +seems to me to take kindly to medievalism--kings and knights and nobles +and the fifteenth century are very likely to bore him. Not that I mean to +imply for a moment that the play would be a failure in point of +popularity. You have got such a hold that you could carry anything +through; but I am inclined to think that in _Elvira_ you would be rather +fighting against wind and tide, and that, as I said before, it would be a +great strain upon you.' + +'The public makes no objection to Madame Desforêts in Victor Hugo,' she +answered quickly, even sharply. 'Her parts, so far as I know anything +about them, are just these romantic parts, and she has made her enormous +reputation 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 voice +which startled him; 'it is not that. It is that I am I, and Madame +Desforêts is Madame Desforêts. Oh, I see! I see very well that your mind +is against it. And Mr. Wallace--there were two or three things in his +manner which have puzzled me. He has never said yes to my proposal +formally. I understand perfectly what it means; you think that I shall do +the 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 her +manner 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 does +suit me? Of course, that is what you mean. If I cannot act Elvira, I am +good for nothing--I am worse than good for nothing--I am an impostor, a +sham!' + +She sat down on the raised edge of the bank, for she was trembling, and +clasped her quivering hands on her knees. Kendal was beside himself with +distress. How had he blundered so, and what had brought this about? It +was so unexpected, it was incredible. + +'Do--do believe me!' he exclaimed, bending over her. 'I never meant +anything the least disrespectful to you; I never dreamt of it. You asked +me to give you my true opinion, and my criticism applied much more to the +play than to yourself. Think nothing of it, if you yourself are +persuaded. You must know much better than I can what will suit you. And +as for Wallace--Wallace will be proud to let you do what you will with +his play.' + +It seemed to him that he would have said anything in the world to soothe +her. It was so piteous, so intolerable to him to watch that quivering +lip. + +'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; I +saw 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 is +worth having is beginning to say. My acting has been a nightmare to me +lately. I believe it has all been a great, great mistake.' + +Kendal never felt a keener hatred of the conventions which rule the +relations between men and women. Could he only simply have expressed his +own feeling, he would have knelt beside her on the path, have taken the +trembling 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 yet +it seemed to him as if the whole world had resolved itself into his own +individuality and hers, and as if the gay river party and the bright +friendly relations of an hour before were separated from the present by +an impassable gulf. And, worst of all, there seemed to be a strange +perversity in his speech--a fate which drove him into betraying every +here 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 have +charmed the English public as no one else has ever charmed it. Is not +that a great thing to have done? And if I, who am very fastidious and +very captious, and over-critical in a hundred ways--if I am inclined to +think that a part is rather more than you, with your short dramatic +experience, can compass quite successfully, why, what does it matter? I +may be quite wrong. Don't take any notice of my opinion: forget it, and +let me help you, if I can, by talking over the play.' + +She shook her head with a bitter little smile. 'No, no; I shall never +forget it. Your attitude only brought home to me, almost more strongly +than 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 the +criticisms he had allowed himself to make of her were recoiling in one +avenging mass upon his head. 'I never felt anything but the warmest +admiration for your courage, your work, your womanly goodness and +sweetness.' + +'Yes,' she said, rising and holding out her hand half-unconsciously for +her cloak, which she put round her as though the wood had suddenly grown +cold; '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? Is +there nothing in me but this beauty that people talk of, and which I +sometimes _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 itself +against the judgment which had been passed upon it, as if some hidden +force hardly suspected even by herself were beating against its bars. +Kendal watched her in helpless silence. 'Tell me,' she said, fixing her +deep 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 of +your heart--that is, if you are interested enough in me--what is it I +want? What is it that seems to be threatening me with failure as an +artist? I work all day long, my work is never out of my head; it seems to +pursue me all night. But the more I struggle with it the less successful +I seem even to myself.' + +Her look was haunting: there was despair and there was hope in it. It +implied that she had set him up in her impulsive way as a sort of oracle +who alone could help her out of her difficulty. In presence of that look +his 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 are +dissatisfied with your work--it is the beginning of all real success. But +you want positive knowledge--the knowledge you could get from books, and +the knowledge other people could teach you. You want a true sense of what +has been done and what can be done with your art, and you want an insight +into 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 so +complicated that none of us can get on without using the great stores of +experience others have laid up for us.' + +It was all out now. He had spoken his inmost mind. They had stopped +again, and she was looking at him intently; it struck him that he could +not possibly have said what he had been saying unless he had been led on +by an instinctive dependence upon a great magnanimity of nature in her. +And then the next moment the strange opposites the matter held in it +flashed across him. He saw the crowded theatre, the white figure on the +stage, his ear seemed to be full of the clamour of praise with which +London had been overwhelming its favourite. It was to this spoilt child +of fortune that he had been playing the schoolmaster--he, one captious +man of letters, against the world. + +But she had not a thought of the kind, or rather, the situation presented +itself to her in exactly the contrary light. To her Kendal's words, +instead of being those of a single critic, were the voice and the +embodiment of a hundred converging impressions and sensations, and she +felt a relief in having analysed to the full the vague trouble which had +been 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, but +almost when I first saw you I felt that there was something ominous in +you to me. My dream, in which I have been living, has never been so +perfect since, and now I think it has gone. Don't look so grieved,' she +cried, inexpressibly touched by his face, 'I am glad you told me all you +thought. 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 give +her up. I am not vexed, I am not angry. Don't you think now we had better +go back to Mrs. Stuart? I should like a rest with her before we all meet +again.' + +She moved forward as she spoke, and it seemed to Kendal that her step was +unsteady and that she was deadly white. He planted himself before her in +the descending path, and held out a hand to her to help her. She gave him +her own, and he carried it impetuously to his lips. + +'You are nobleness itself!' he cried, from the depths of his heart. 'I +feel as if I had been the merest pedant and blunderer--the most +incapable, clumsy idiot.' + +She smiled, but she could not answer. And in a few more moments voices +and steps could be heard approaching, and the scene was over. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +The Sunday party separated at Paddington on the night of the Nuneham +expedition, and Wallace and Eustace Kendal walked eastward together. The +journey home had been very quiet. Miss Bretherton had been forced to +declare herself 'extremely tired,' and Mrs. Stuart's anxiety and sense of +responsibility about her had communicated themselves to the rest of the +party. + +'It is the effect of my long day yesterday,' she said apologetically to +Forbes, who hovered about her with those affectionate attentions which a +man on the verge of old age pays with freedom to a young girl. 'It won't +do to let the public see so much of me in future. But I don't want to +spoil our Sunday. Talk to me, and I shall forget it.' + +Wallace, who had had his eyes about him when she and Eustace Kendal +emerged from the wood in view of the rest of the party, was restless and +ill at ease, but there was no getting any information, even by a gesture, +from Kendal, who sat in his corner diligently watching the moonlight on +the flying fields, or making every now and then some disjointed attempts +at conversation with Mrs. Stuart. + +At the station Miss Bretherton's carriage was waiting; the party of +gentlemen saw her and Mrs. Stuart, who insisted on taking her home, into +it; the pale, smiling face bent forward; she waved her hand in response +to the lifted hats, and she was gone. + +'Well?' said Wallace, with a world of inquiry in his voice, as he and +Kendal turned eastward. + +'It has been an unfortunate business,' said Kendal abruptly. 'I never did +a thing worse, I think, or spent a more painful half-hour.' + +Wallace's face fell. 'I wish I hadn't bored you with my confounded +affairs,' he exclaimed. 'It was too bad!' + +Kendal was inclined to agree inwardly, for he was in a state of irritable +reaction; but he had the justice to add aloud, 'It was I who was the fool +to undertake it. And I think, indeed, it could have been done, but that +circumstances, which neither you nor I had weighed sufficiently, were +against 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 it +on 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 she +talked of the "contempt" that you and I feel for her!' + +'Good heavens!' cried Wallace, feeling most unjustly persuaded that his +friend had bungled the matter horribly. + +'Yes,' said Kendal deliberately; '"contempt," that was it. I don't know +how it came about. All I know is, that what I said, which seemed to me +very harmless, was like a match to a mine. But she told me to tell you +that she made no further claim on _Elvira_. So the play is safe.' + +'D---- the play!' cried Wallace vigorously, a sentiment to which perhaps +Kendal's silence gave consent. 'But I cannot let it rest there. I must +write to her.' + +'I don't think I would, if I were you,' said Kendal. 'I should let it +alone. She looks upon the matter as finished. She told me particularly to +tell you that she was _not_ vexed, and you may be quite sure that she +isn'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 I +remember.' + +He gave an abridged account of the conversation, which made matters a +little clearer, though by no means less uncomfortable, to Wallace. When +it was over, they were nearing Vigo Street, the point at which their +routes diverged, Wallace having rooms in the Albany, and Kendal hailed a +hansom. + +'If I were you,' he said, as it came up, 'I should, as I said before, let +the thing alone as much as possible. She will probably speak to you about +it, and you will, of course, say what you like, but I'm pretty sure she +won't take up the play again, and if she feels a coolness towards +anybody, 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 though +determined to strike a lighter key. 'Don't be so dismal, things will look +differently to-morrow morning--they generally do--there's no tremendous +harm done. I'm sorry I didn't do your bidding better. Honestly, when I +come to think over it, I don't see how I could have done otherwise. But +I 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 were +burning, and threw himself into his reading-chair, beside which his books +and papers stood ready to his hand. Generally, nothing gave him a greater +sense of _bien-être_ than this nightly return, after a day spent in +society, to these silent and faithful companions of his life. He was +accustomed to feel the atmosphere of his room when he came back to it +charged with welcome. It was as though the thoughts and schemes he had +left warm and safe in shelter there started to life again after a day's +torpor, and thronged to meet him. His books smiled at him with friendly +faces, the open page called to him to resume the work of the morning--he +was, in every sense, at home. Tonight, however, the familiar spell seemed +to have lost its force. After a hasty supper he took up some proofs, pen +in hand. But the first page was hardly turned before they had dropped on +to his knee. It seemed to him as if he still felt on his arm the folds of +a green, fur-edged cloak, as if the touch of a soft cold hand were still +lingering in his. Presently he fell to recalling every detail of the +afternoon scene,--the arching beech trees, the rich red and brown of the +earth beneath, tinged with the winter sheddings of the trees, the little +raised bank, her eyes as she looked up at him, the soft wisps of her +golden brown hair under her hat. What superb, unapproachable beauty it +was! how living, how rich in content and expression! + +'Am I in love with Isabel Bretherton?' he asked himself at last, lying +back on his chair with his eyes on the portrait of his sister. 'Perhaps +Marie could tell me--I don't understand myself. I don't think so. And if +I were, I am not a youngster, and my life is a tolerably full one. I +could hold myself in and trample it down if it were best to do so. I can +hardly imagine myself absorbed in a great passion. My bachelor life is a +good many years old--my habits won't break up easily. And, supposing I +felt 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. 'And +there is absolutely no sort of reason in my letting myself fall in love +with Isabel Bretherton! She has never given me the smallest right to +think that she takes any more interest in me than she does in hundreds of +people whom she meets on friendly terms, unless it may be an intellectual +interest, as Wallace imagines, and that's a poor sort of stepping-stone +to love! And if it were ever possible that she should, this afternoon has +taken away the possibility. For, however magnanimous a woman may be, a +thing like that rankles: it can't help it. She will feel the sting of it +worse to-morrow than to-day, and, though she will tell herself that she +bears no grudge, it will leave a gulf between us. For, of course, she +must go on acting, and, whatever depressions she may have, she must +believe in herself; no one can go on working without it, and I shall +always recall to her something harsh and humiliating!' + +'Supposing, by any chance, it were not so--supposing I were able to +gather up my relation with her again and make it a really friendly one--I +should take, I think, a very definite line; I should make up my mind +to be of use to her. After all, it is true what she says: there are many +things in me that might be helpful to her, and everything there was she +should have the benefit of. I would make a serious purpose of it. She +should find me a friend worth having.' + +His thoughts wandered on a while in this direction. It was pleasant to +see 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 a +fool!' he said to himself resolutely at last, 'and I may as well go to +bed and put her out of my mind. The chance is over--gone--done with, if +it ever existed.' + +The next morning, on coming down to breakfast, he saw among his letters a +handwriting which startled him. Where had he seen it before? In Wallace's +hand 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--on +Monday, if all goes well. We go to Switzerland for a while, and then to +Venice, which people tell me is often very pleasant in August. We shall +be there by the first week in August, and Mr. Wallace tells me he hears +from you that your sister, Madame de Châteauvieux, will be there about +the same time. I forgot to ask you yesterday, but, if you think she would +not 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 she +would not find me a troublesome person! We shall hardly, I suppose, meet +again before I start. If not, please remember that my friends can always +find me on Sunday afternoon.--Yours very truly, ISABEL BRETHERTON.' + +Kendal's hand closed tightly over the note. Then he put it carefully back +into its envelope, and walked away with his hands behind him and the note +in them, to stare out of window at the red roofs opposite. + +'That is like her,' he murmured to himself; 'I wound and hurt her: she +guesses I shall suffer for it, and, by way of setting up the friendly +bond 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 work +than that morning, and at last, in despair, he pushed his book aside, and +wrote an answer to Miss Bretherton, and, when that was accomplished, a +long letter to his sister. The first took him longer than its brevity +seemed to justify. It contained no reference to anything but her request. +He felt a compulsion upon him to treat the situation exactly as she had +done, but, given this limitation, how much cordiality and respect could +two sides of letterpaper be made to carry with due regard to decorum and +grammar? + +When he next met Wallace, that hopeful, bright-tempered person had +entirely recovered his cheerfulness. Miss Bretherton, he reported, had +attacked the subject of _Elvira_ with him, but so lightly that he had no +opportunity for saying any of the skilful things he had prepared. + +'She evidently did not want the question seriously opened,' he said, 'so +I followed your advice and let it alone, and since then she has been +charming 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.' To +which Kendal heartily agreed. + +A few days afterwards the newspapers gave a prominent place to reports of +Miss 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, and +compliments, flowers, and farewells showered upon her. Kendal, who had +not meant to go at the time when tickets were to be had, tried about the +middle of the week after the Oxford Sunday to get a seat, but found it +utterly impossible. He might have managed it by applying to her through +Edward 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 and +his answer close his relations with her for the present. Everywhere else +but in the theatre she might still regard him as her friend; but there +they could not but be antagonistic in some degree one to another, and not +even intellectually did Kendal wish just now to meet her on a footing of +antagonism. + +So, when Saturday night came, he passed the hours of Miss Bretherton's +triumph at a ministerial evening party, where it seemed to him that the +air 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 he +thought he noticed in the common talk about her that criticism of her as +an actress was a good deal more general than it had been at the beginning +of the season. The little knot of persons with an opinion and reasons for +it had gradually influenced the larger public. Nevertheless, there was no +abatement whatever of the popular desire to see her, whether on the stage +or in society. The _engouement_ for her personally, for her beauty, and +her fresh pure womanliness, showed no signs of yielding, and would hold +out, Kendal thought, for some time, against a much stronger current of +depreciation on the intellectual side than had as yet set in. + +He laid down the Monday paper with a smile of self-scorn and muttered: 'I +should like to know how much she remembers by this time of the prig who +lectured to her in Nuneham woods a week ago!' In the evening his _Pall +Mall Gazette_ told him that Miss Bretherton had crossed the channel that +morning, _en route_ for Paris and Venice. He fell to calculating the +weeks which must elapse before his sister would be in Venice, and before +he could hear of any meeting between her and the Bretherton party, and +wound up his calculations by deciding that London was already hot and +would soon be empty, and that, as soon as he could gather together +certain books he was in want of, he would carry them and his proofs down +into Surrey, refuse all invitations to country houses, and devote himself +to his work. + +Before he left he paid a farewell call to Mrs. Stuart, who gave him full +and enthusiastic accounts of Isabel Bretherton's last night, and informed +him that her brother talked of following the Brethertons to Venice some +time in August. + +'Albert,' she said, speaking of her husband, 'declares that he cannot get +away for more than three weeks, and that he must have some walking; so +that, what we propose at present is to pick up Edward at Venice at the +end of August, and move up all together into the mountains afterwards. +Oh, Mr. Kendal,' she went on a little nervously, as if not quite knowing +whether to attack the subject or not, 'it _was_ devoted of you to throw +yourself into the breach for Edward as you did at Oxford. I am afraid it +must have been very disagreeable, both to you and to her. When Edward +told me of it next morning it made me cold to think of it. I made up my +mind that our friendship--yours and ours--with her was over. But do you +know she came to call on me that very afternoon--how she made time I +don't know--but she did. Naturally, I was very uncomfortable, but she +began to talk of it in the calmest way while we were having tea. "Mr. +Kendal was probably quite right," she said, "in thinking the part +unsuited to me; anyhow, I asked him for his opinion, and I should be a +poor creature to mind his giving it." And then she laughed and said that +I must ask Edward to keep his eyes open for anything that would do better +for her in the autumn. And since then she has behaved as if she had +forgotten all about it. I never knew any one with less smallness about +her.' + +'No; she is a fine creature,' said Kendal, almost mechanically. How +little Mrs. Stuart knew--or rather, how entirely remote she was from +_feeling_--what had happened! It seemed to him that the emotion of that +scene was still thrilling through all his pulses, yet to what ordinary +little proportions had it been reduced in Mrs. Stuart's mind! He alone +had seen the veil lifted, had come close to the energetic reality of the +girl's nature. That Isabel Bretherton could feel so, could look so, was +known only to him--the thought had pain in it, but the keenest pleasure +also. + +'Do you know,' said Mrs. Stuart presently, with a touch of reproach in +her 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 had +fallen. It was such a pretty sight, you ought not to have missed it. The +Prince had come to say good-bye to her, and, as we came in, she was just +turning away in her long phantom dress with the white hood falling round +her head, like that Romney picture--don't you remember?--of Lady +Hamilton,--Mr. Forbes has drawn her in it two or three times. The stage +was full of people. Mr. Forbes was there, of course, and Edward, and +ourselves, 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 not +having been able to get a seat, which I thought clumsy of him, for, of +course, 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 if +you had been there.' + +'It seems to me,' said Kendal, with vexation in his voice, 'that there is +a fate against my doing anything as I ought to do it. I thought, on the +whole, it would be better not to make a fuss about it when it came to +the last. You see she must look upon me to some extent as a critical, if +not a hostile, influence, and I did not wish to remind her of my +existence.' + +'Oh well,' said Mrs. Stuart in her cheery commonsense way, 'that evening +was such an overwhelming experience that I don't suppose she could have +felt 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 long +scenes she does more intelligently, and even the death-scene is +better,--less monotonous. I sometimes think she will surprise us all +yet.' + +'Very likely,' said Kendal absently, not in reality believing a word of +it, but it was impossible to dissent. + +'I hope so,' exclaimed Mrs. Stuart, 'with all my heart. She has been very +depressed often these last weeks, and certainly, on the whole, people +have been harder upon her than they were at first. I am so glad that she +and your sister will meet in Venice. Madame de Châteauvieux is just the +friend she wants.' + +Kendal walked home feeling the rankling of a fresh pin-point. She had +asked for him, and he had not been there! What must she think, +apparently, but that, from a sour, morose consistency, he had refused to +be a witness of her triumph! + +Oh, hostile fates! + + * * * * * + +A week later Eustace was settled in the Surrey farmhouse which had +sheltered the Sunday League on its first expedition. The Surrey country +was in its full glory: the first purple heather was fully out, and the +distant hills rose blue and vaporous across stretches of vivid crimson, +broken here and there by the dim gray greens of the furze or the sharper +colour of the bracken. The chorus of birds had died away, but the nests +were not yet tenantless. The great sand-pit near the farmhouse was still +vocal with innumerable broods of sand-martins, still enlivened by the +constant skimming to and fro of the parent birds. And under Kendal's +sitting-room window a pair of tomtits, which the party had watched that +May Sunday, were just launching their young family on the world. One of +his first walks was to that spot beyond the pond where they had made +their afternoon camping-ground. The nut-hatches had fled--fled, Kendal +hoped, some time before, for the hand of the spoiler had been near their +dwelling, and its fragments lay scattered on the ground. He presently +learnt to notice that he never heard the sharp sound of the bird's +tapping beak among the woods without a little start of recollection. + +Outside his walks, his days were spent in continuous literary effort. His +book was in a condition which called for all his energies, and he threw +himself vigorously into it. The first weeks were taken up with a long +review of Victor Hugo's prose and poetry, with a view to a final critical +result. It seemed to him that there was stuff in the great Frenchman to +suit all weathers and all skies. There were sombre, wind-swept days, when +the stretches of brown ling not yet in flower, the hurrying clouds, and +the bending trees, were in harmony with all the fierce tempestuous side +of the great Romantic. There were others when the homely, tender, +domestic aspect of the country formed a sort of framework and +accompaniment to the simpler patriarchal elements in the books which +Kendal had about him. Then, when the pages on Victor Hugo were +written, those already printed on Chateaubriand began to dissatisfy him, +and he steeped himself once more in the rolling artificial harmonies, the +mingled beauty and falsity of one of the most wonderful of styles, that +he 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 first +month 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 with +amusing sketches of the political or artistic celebrities with whom the +little Norman town swarms in the season. + +After the third or fourth letter, however, Kendal began to look +restlessly at the Etretât postmark, to reflect that Marie had been there +a long time, and to wonder she was not already tired of such a public +sort of existence as the Etretât life. The bathing scenes, and the +fire-eating deputy, and the literary woman with a mission for the spread +of naturalism, became very flat to him. He was astonished that his sister +was not as anxious to start for Italy as he was to hear that she had done +so. + +This temper of his was connected with the fact that after the first of +August he began to develop a curious impatience on the subject of the +daily post. At Old House Farm the post was taken as leisurely as +everything else; there was no regular delivery, and Kendal generally was +content to trust to the casual mercies of the butcher or baker for his +letters. But, after the date mentioned, it occurred to him that his +letters reached him with an abominable irregularity, and that it would do +his work no harm, but, on the contrary, much good, if he took a daily +constitutional in the direction of the post-office, which gave a touch of +official dignity to the wasp-filled precincts of a grocer's shop in the +village, some two miles off. + +For some considerable number of days, however, his walks only furnished +him with food for reflection on the common disproportion of means to ends +in this life. His sister's persistence in sticking to the soil of France +began to seem to him extraordinary! However, at last, the monotony of the +Etretât postmarks was broken by a postcard from Lyons. 'We are here for +the 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 the +Brethertons be? I must trust to my native wits, I suppose, when I get +there. She is not the sort of light to be hidden under a bushel.' + +This postcard disturbed Kendal not a little, and he felt irritably that +somebody had mismanaged matters. He had supposed, and indeed suggested, +that Miss Bretherton should enclose his note in one of her own to his +sister's Paris address, giving, at the same time, some indication of a +place of meeting in Venice. But if she had not done this, it was very +possible that the two women might miss each other after all. Sometimes, +when he had been contemplating this possibility with disgust, he would +with a great effort make himself reflect why it was that he cared about +the matter so disproportionately. Why was he so deeply interested in +Isabel Bretherton's movements abroad, and in the meeting which would +bring her, so to speak, once more into his own world? Why! because it was +impossible, he would answer himself indignantly, not to feel a profound +interest in any woman who had ever shared as much emotion with you as she +had with him in those moments at Nuneham, who had received a wound at +your hands, had winced under it, and still had remained gracious, and +kind, and womanly! 'I should be a hard-hearted brute,' he said to +himself, 'if I did not feel a very deep and peculiar interest in her--if +I did not desire that Marie's friendship should abundantly make up to her +for my blundering!' + +Did he ever really deceive himself into imagining that this was all? It +is difficult to say. The mind of a man no longer young, and trained in +all the subtleties of thought, does not deal with an invading sentiment +exactly as a youth would do with all his experience to come. It steals +upon him more slowly, he is capable of disguising it to himself longer, +of escaping from it into other interests. Passion is in its ultimate +essence the same, wherever it appears and under whatever conditions, but +it possesses itself of human life in different ways. Slowly, and +certainly, the old primeval fire, the commonest, fatalest, divinest force +of life, was making its way into Kendal's nature. But it was making its +way against antagonistic forces of habit, tradition, self-restraint,--it +found a hundred other interests in possession;--it had a strange +impersonality and timidity of nature to fight with. Kendal had been +accustomed to live in other men's lives. Was he only just beginning to +live his own? + +But, however it was, he was at least conscious during this waiting time +that life was full of some hidden savour; that his thoughts were never +idle, never vacant; that, as he lay flat among the fern in his moments of +rest, following the march of the clouds as they sailed divinely over the +rich breadth and colour of the commons, a whole brood of images nestled +at his heart, or seemed to hover in the sunny air before him,--visions +of a slender form fashioned with Greek suppleness and majesty, of a soft +and 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 impulsive +gait! He followed that figure through scene after scene; he saw primroses +in its hand, and the pale spring blue above it; he recalled it standing +tense and still with blanched cheek and fixed appealing eye, while all +round the June woods murmured in the breeze; he surrounded it in +imagination with the pomp and circumstance of the stage, and realised it +as a centre of emotion to thousands. And then from memories he would pass +on to speculations, from the scenes he knew to those he could only guess +at, from the life of which he had seen a little to the larger and +unexplored life beyond. + +And so the days went on, and though he was impatient and restless, yet +indoors his work was congenial to him, and out of doors the sun was +bright, and all the while a certain little god lay hidden, speaking no +articulate word, but waiting with a mischievous patience for the final +overthrow of one more poor mortal. + +At last the old postmistress, whom he had almost come to regard as +cherishing a personal grudge against him, ceased to repulse him, and, +after his seven years of famine, the years of abundance set in. For the +space of three weeks letters from Venice lay waiting for him almost every +alternate morning, and the heathery slopes between the farm and the +village grew familiar with the spectacle of a tall thin man in a rough +tweed suit struggling, as he walked, with sheets of foreign paper which +the wind was doing its best to filch away from him. + +The following extracts from these letters contain such portions of them +as 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, for +we are just settling into our apartment, and the rooms are strewn in the +most distracting way with boxes, books, and garments; while my maid, +Félicie, and the old Italian woman, Caterina, who is to cook and manage +for 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 he +has really gone as much on my business as on his own. I sent him--feeling +his look of misery, as he sat on a packing-case in the middle of this +chaos, 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 your +friends are. It is strange, as you say, that Miss Bretherton should not +have written to me; but I incline to put it down to our old Jacques at +home, who is getting more and more imbecile with the weight of years and +infirmities, and is quite capable of forwarding to us all the letters +which are not worth posting, and leaving all the important ones piled up +in the hall to await our return. It is provoking, for, if the Bretherton +party are not going to stay long in Venice, we may easily spend all our +time in looking for each other; which will, indeed, be a lame and +impotent conclusion. However, I have hopes of Paul's cleverness. + +'And now, four o'clock! There is no help for it, my dear Eustace. I must +go and instruct Caterina how not to poison us in our dinner to-night. She +looks a dear old soul, but totally innocent of anything but Italian +barbarities in the way of cooking. And Félicie also is well-meaning but +ignorant, so, unless I wish to have Paul on my hands for a week, I must +be off. This rough picnicking life, in Venice of all places, is a curious +little experience; but I made up my mind last time we were here that we +would venture our precious selves in no more hotels. The heat, the +mosquitoes, the horrors of the food, were too much. Here we have a +garden, 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 English +consul 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 apparently +all the English people who have as yet ventured to Venice; and these, or +most of them, seemed to be following in the wake of a little party of +four persons--two ladies, a gentleman, and a lame girl walking with a +crutch. An excited English tourist condescended to inform Paul that it +was "the great English actress, Miss Bretherton," who was creating all +the commotion. Then, of course, he went up to her--he was provoked that +he could hardly see her in the dim light of St. Mark's--introduced +himself, and described our perplexities. Of course, she had written. I +expected as much. Jacques must certainly be pensioned off! Paul thought +the other three very inferior to her, though the uncle was civil, and +talked condescendingly of Venice as though it were even good enough to be +admired by a Worrall. It is arranged that the beauty is to come and see +me to-morrow if, after Caterina has operated upon us during two meals, we +are 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 the +little garden which separates one half of our rooms from the other, while +Caterina was arranging the _déjeûner_ under the little acacia arbour in +the centre of it. Suddenly Félicie came out from the house, and behind +her a tall figure in a large hat and a white dress. The figure held out +both hands to me in a cordial, un-English way, and said a number of +pleasant things, rapidly, in a delicious voice; while I, with the dazzle +of the sun in my eyes so that I could hardly make out the features, stood +feeling a little thrilled by the advent of so famous a person. In a few +moments, 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 had +known one another for months, and I was experiencing one of those sudden +rushes of liking which, as you know, are a weakness of mine. She stayed +and took her meal with its. Paul, of course, was fascinated, and for once +has not set her down as a _réputation surfaite_. + +'Her beauty has a curious air of the place; and now I remember that her +mother was Italian--Venetian actually, was it not? That accounts for it; +she is the Venetian type spiritualised. At the foundation of her face, as +it were, lies the face of the Burano lace-maker; only the original type +has been so refined, so chiselled and smoothed away, that, to speak +fancifully, only a beautiful ghost of it remains. That large stateliness +of 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 Edward +Wallace? I knew, of course, from you that he might be here about this +time, but in the hurry of our settling in I had quite forgotten his +existence, so that the sight of his trim person bearing down upon us was +a surprise. He and the Bretherton party, however, had been going about +together for several days, so that he and she had plenty of gossip in +common. Miss Bretherton's enthusiasm about Venice is of a very naive, +hot, outspoken kind. It seems to me that she is a very susceptible +creature. She lives her life fast, and crowds into it a greater number of +sensations than most people. All this zest and pleasure must consume a +vast amount of nervous force, but it makes her very refreshing to people +as _blasés_ as Paul and I are. My first feeling about her is very much +what yours was. Personally, there seems to be all the stuff in her of +which an actress is made; will she some day stumble upon the discovery of +how to bring her own individual flame and force to bear upon her art? I +should think it not unlikely, and, altogether, I feel as though I should +take a more hopeful view of her intellectually than you do. You see, my +dear Eustace, you men never realise how clever we women are, how fast we +learn, and how quickly we catch up hints from all quarters under heaven +and improve upon them. An actress so young and so sympathetic as Isabel +Bretherton must still be very much of an unknown quantity dramatically. I +know you think that the want of training is fatal, and that popularity +will 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 from +life rather what stimulates it than what dulls and vulgarises it. +Altogether, when I compare my first impressions of her with the image of +her left by your letters, I feel that I have been pleasantly surprised. +Only in the matter of intelligence. Otherwise it has, of course, been +your descriptions of her that have planted and nurtured in me that strong +sense of attraction which blossomed into liking at the moment of personal +contact.' + + * * * * * + +'_August_ 10. + +'This afternoon we have been out in the gondola belonging to this +modest establishment, with our magnificent gondolier, Piero, and his +boy to convey us to the Lido. I got Miss Bretherton to talk to me about +her Jamaica career. She made us all laugh with her accounts of the +blood-and-thunder pieces in which the audiences at the Kingston theatre +revelled. She seems generally to have played the Bandit's Daughter, the +Smuggler's Wife, or the European damsel carried off by Indians, or some +other 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 positive +dramatic knowledge she must have! She knows some Shakespeare, I think--at +least, she mentions two or three plays--and I gather from something she. +said that she is now making the inevitable study of Juliet that every +actress makes sooner or later; but Sheridan, Goldsmith, and, of course, +all the French people, are mere names to her. When I think of the minute +exhaustive training our Paris actors go through, and compare it with such +a state of nature as hers, I am amazed at what she has done! For, after +all, you know, she must be able to act to some extent; she must know a +great deal more of her business than you and I suspect, or she could not +get on at all.' + + * * * * * + +'_August_ 16. + +'It is almost a week, I see, since I wrote to you last. During that time +we have seen a great deal more of Miss Bretherton, sometimes in company +with her belongings, sometimes without them, and my impressions of her +have ripened very fast. Oh, my dear Eustace, you have been hasty,--all +the world has been hasty! Isabel Bretherton's _real_ self is only now +coming to the front, and it is a self which, as I say to myself with +astonishment, not even your keen eyes have ever seen--hardly suspected +even. Should I, myself a woman, have been as blind to a woman's +capabilities, I wonder? Very likely! These sudden rich developments of +youth are often beyond all calculation. + +'Mr. Wallace's attitude makes me realise more than I otherwise could the +past and present condition of things. He comes and talks to me with +amazement of the changes in her tone and outlook, of the girl's +sharpening intellect and growing sensitiveness, and as he recalls +incidents and traits of the London season--confessions or judgments or +blunders of hers, and puts them beside the impression which he sees her +to be making on Paul and myself--I begin to understand from his talk and +his bewilderment something of the real nature of the case. +Intellectually, it has been "the ugly duckling" over again. Under all the +crude, unfledged imperfection of her young performance, you people who +have watched her with your trained critical eyes seem to me never to have +suspected the coming wings, the strange nascent power, which is only now +asserting itself in the light of day. + +'"What has Eustace been about?" said Paul to me last night, after we had +all returned from rambling round and round the moonlit Piazza, and he had +been describing to me his talk with her. "He ought to have seen farther +ahead. That creature is only just beginning to live--and it will be a +life worth having! He has kindled it, too, as much as anybody. Of course +we have not seen her act yet, and ignorant--yes, she is certainly +ignorant,--though not so much as I imagined. But as for natural power and +delicacy of mind, there can be no question at all about them!" + +'"I don't know that Eustace did question them," I said; "he thought +simply 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 thought +more meanly of her popularity than she did, and he has been talking a +great deal to her about her season. + +'"I never saw a woman at a more critical or interesting point of +development," he exclaimed at last, striding up and down, and so absorbed +in the subject that I could have almost laughed at his eagerness. +"Something or other, luckily for her, set her on the right track three +months ago, and it is apparently a nature on which nothing is lost. One +can see it in the way in which she takes Venice: there isn't a scrap of +her--little as she knows about it--that isn't keen and interested and +wide-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 too +before long."' + + * * * * * + +'_August_ 17-19. + +'And so he has! + +'Paul has been devoting himself more and more to the beauty, Mr. Wallace +and I looking on with considerable amusement and interest; and this +afternoon, finding it intolerable that Miss Bretherton has not even a +bowing acquaintance with any of his favourite plays, Augier, Dumas, +Victor Hugo, or anything else, he has been reading aloud to us in the +garden, running on from scene to scene and speech to speech, translating +as he went--she in rapt attention, and he gesticulating and spouting, +and, except for an occasional queer rendering that made us laugh, getting +on capitally with his English. She was enchanted; the novelty and the +excitement of it absorbed her; and every now and then she would stop Paul +with a little imperious wave of her hand, and repeat the substance of a +speech after him with an impetuous _élan_, an energy, a comprehension, +which drew little nods of satisfaction out of him, and sometimes produced +a strong and startling effect upon myself and Mr. Wallace. However, Mr. +Wallace might stare as he liked; the two people concerned were totally +unconscious of the rest of us, until at last, after the great death-scene +in the _Nuit Blanche_, Paul threw down the book almost with a sob, and +she, rising in a burst of feeling, held out her white arms towards an +imaginary lover, and with extraordinary skill and memory repeated the +substance of the heroine's last speeches:-- + +'"_Achille, beloved! my eyes are dim--the mists of death are gathering. O +Achille! the white cottage by the river--the nest in the reeds--your face +and 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 wind +rising, rising: it chills me to the bone, it chokes, it stifles me! I +cannot see the river, and the cottage is gone, and the sun. O Achille, it +is dark, so dark! Gather me close, beloved!--closer, closer! O death is +kind--tender, like your touch! I have no fears--none!"_ + +'She sank back into her chair. Anything more pathetic, more noble than +her intonation of those words, could not have been imagined. Desforêts +herself could not have spoken them with a more simple, a more piercing +tenderness. I was so confused by a multitude of conflicting feelings--my +own impressions and yours, the realities of the present position and the +possibilities of her future--that I forgot to applaud her. It was the +first time I had had any glimpse at all of her dramatic power, and, rough +and imperfect as the test was, it seemed to me enough. I have not been so +devoted to the _Français_, and to some of the people connected with +it, for ten years, for nothing! One gets a kind of insight from long +habit which, I think, one may trust. Oh, you blind Eustace, how could you +forget 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 of +every friend, out of every sensation. Incident and feeling, praise and +dispraise, will all alike tend to mould the sensitive plastic material +into shape. So far she may have remained outside her art; the art, no +doubt, has been a conventional appendage, and little more. Training would +have given her good conventions, whereas she has only picked up bad and +imperfect ones. But no training could have given her what she will +evidently soon develop for herself, that force and flame of imagination +which fuses together instrument and idea in one great artistic whole. She +has that imagination. You can see it in her responsive ways, her quick +sensitive emotion. Only let it be roused and guided to a certain height, +and it will overleap the barriers which have hemmed it in, and pour +itself into the channels made ready for it by her art. + +'There, at least, you have my strong impression. It is, in many ways, at +variance with some of my most cherished principles; for both you and I +are perhaps inclined to overrate the value of education, whether +technical or general, in its effect on the individuality. And, of course, +a better technical preparation would have saved Isabel Bretherton an +immense amount of time; would have prevented her from contracting a host +of bad habits--all of which she will have to unlearn. But the root of the +matter is in her; of that I am sure; and whatever weight of hostile +circumstance may be against her, she will, if she keeps her health--as to +which I am sometimes, like you, a little anxious--break through it all +and 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 yesterday +abruptly--we were alone in our gondola, far out on the lagoon--"Did your +brother ever tell you of a conversation he and I had in the woods at +Nuneham about Mr. Wallace's play?" + +'"Yes," I answered with outward boldness, but a little inward +trepidation; "I have not known anything distress him so much for a long +time. He thought you had misunderstood him." + +'"No," she said quietly, but as it seemed to me with an undercurrent of +emotion in her voice; "I did not misunderstand him. He meant what he +said, and I would have forced the truth from him, whatever happened. I +was determined to make him show me what he felt. That London season was +sometimes terrible to me. I seemed to myself to be living in two +worlds--one a world in which there was always a sea of faces opposite to +me, or crowds about me, and a praise ringing in my ears which was enough +to turn anybody's head, but which after a while repelled me as if there +was something humiliating in it; and then, on the other side, a little +inner 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 at +all! It was your brother who first roused that sense in me; it was so +strange and painful, for how could I help at first believing in all the +hubbub and the applause?" + +'"Poor child!" I said, reaching out my hand for one of hers. "Did Eustace +make himself disagreeable to you?" + +'"It was more, I think," she answered, as if reflecting, "the standard he +always seemed to carry about with him than anything connected with my own +work. At least, of course, I mean before that Nuneham day. Ah, that +Nuneham day! It cut deep." + +'She turned away from me, and leant over the side of the boat, so that I +could not see her face. + +'"You forced it out of Eustace, you know," I said, trying to laugh at +her, "you uncompromising young person! Of course, he flattered himself +that you forgot all about his preaching the moment you got home. Men +always make themselves believe what they want to believe." + +'"Why should he want to believe so?" she replied quickly. "I had half +foreseen it, I had forced it from him, and yet I felt it like a blow! It +cost me a sleepless night, and some--well, some very bitter tears. Not +that the tears were a new experience. How often, after all that noise at +the theatre, have I gone home and cried myself to sleep over the +impossibility of doing what I wanted to do, of moving those hundreds of +people, 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--it +seemed to me quite in the near future--grown old and ugly, a forgotten +failure, without any of those memories which console people who have been +great when they must give up. I felt myself struggling against such a +weight of ignorance, of bad habits, of unfavourable surroundings. How was +I ever to get free and to reverse that judgment of Mr. Kendal's? My very +success stood in my way, How was 'Miss Bretherton' to put herself to +school?" + +'"But now," I said to her warmly, "you have got free; or, rather, you are +on 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 the +Armenian convent. She seemed to be drinking in the dazzling harmonies of +blue and warm brown and pearly light. When she did speak again it was +very slowly, as though she were trying to give words to a number of +complex impressions. + +'"Yes," she said; "it seems to me that I am different; but I can't tell +exactly how or why. I see all sorts of new possibilities, new meanings +everywhere: 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 which +may come to me tell on my art." And then she changed altogether with one +of those delightful swift transformations of hers, and her face rippled +over with laughter. "At present the chief result of the difference, +whatever it may be, seems to be to make me most unmanageable at home. I +am for ever disagreeing with my people, saying I can't do this and I +won't do that. I am getting to enjoy having my own way in the most +abominable 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 my +own--not even French? That I can't read any French book or any French +play?" + +'"Well," I said, half laughing too, "it is very astonishing. And you know +it can't go on if you are to do what I think you will do. French you +positively must learn, and learn quickly. I don't mean to say that we +haven't good plays and a tradition of our own; but for the moment France +is 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 who +come. Ours is still floating and amateurish--" + +'And so on. You may imagine it, my dear Eustace; I spare you any more of +it verbatim. After I had talked away for a long time and brought it all +back to the absolute necessity that she should know French and become +acquainted with French acting and French dramatic ideals, she pulled me +up in the full career of eloquence, by demanding with a little practical +air, 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 neglected +education; "get a French maid, a French master, and a novel: I will +provide you with _Consuelo_ and a translation to-morrow." + +'"As for the French maid," she answered dubiously, shaking her head, "I +don't know. I expect my old black woman that I brought with me from +Jamaica would ill-treat her--perhaps murder her. But the master can be +managed and the novel. Will none of you laugh at me if you see me +trailing a French grammar about?" + +'And so she has actually begun to-day. She makes a pretence of keeping +her novel and a little dictionary and grammar in a bag, and hides them +when any one appears. But Paul has already begun to tease her about her +new and mysterious occupation, and I foresee that he will presently spend +the greater part of his mornings in teaching her. I never saw anybody +attract him so much; she is absolutely different from anything he has +seen before; and, as he says, the mixture of ignorance and genius in +her--yes, genius; don't be startled!--is most stimulating to the +imagination.' + + * * * * * + +'_August_ 22. + +'During the last few days I have not been seeing so much of Miss +Bretherton as before. She has been devoting herself to her family, and +Paul and I have been doing our pictures. We cannot persuade her to take +any very large dose of galleries; it seems to me that her thoughts are +set on one subject--and one subject only--and while she is in this first +stage of intensity, it is not likely that anything else will have a +chance. + +'It is amusing to study the dissatisfaction of the uncle and aunt with +the turn things have taken since they left London. Mr. Worrall has been +evidently accustomed to direct his niece's life from top to bottom--to +choose her plays for her, helped by Mr. Robinson; to advise her as to her +fellow-actors, and her behaviour in society; and all, of course, with a +shrewd eye to the family profit, and as little regard as need be to any +fantastical 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 which +had been nearly decided on before they left London--a flimsy spectacular +performance quite unworthy of her. As soon as possible she will make +important changes in the troupe who are to be with her, and at the +beginning of September she is coming to stay three weeks with us in +Paris, and, in all probability (though the world is to know nothing of +it), Perrault of the Conservatoire, who is a great friend of ours, will +give her a good deal of positive teaching. This last arrangement is +particularly exasperating to Mr. Worrall. He regards it as sure to be +known, a ridiculous confession of weakness on Isabel's part, and so on. +However, in spite of his wrath and the aunt's sullen or tearful +disapproval, 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 experiences +which remain with one as a sort of perpetual witness to the poetry which +life holds in it, and may yield up to one at any moment. It was in our +little garden; the moon was high above the houses opposite, and the +narrow canal running past our side railing into the Grand Canal was a +shining streak of silver. The air was balmy and absolutely still; no more +perfect 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 read +Romeo and the Nurse in the scenes she had chosen, while in the background +were the Worralls and Lucy Bretherton (the little crippled sister), Mr. +Wallace, and myself. She did the balcony scene, the morning scene with +Romeo, the scene with the nurse after Tybalt's death, and the scene of +the philtre. There is an old sundial in the garden, which caught the +moonbeams. She leaned her arms upon it, her eyes fixed upon the throbbing +moonlit sky, her white brocaded dress glistening here and there in the +pale light--a vision of perfect beauty. And when she began her sighing +appeal-- + +"O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" + +--it seemed to me as if the night--the passionate Italian night--had +found its voice--the only voice which fitted it. + +'Afterwards I tried as much as possible to shake off the impressions +peculiar to the scene itself to think of her under the ordinary +conditions of the stage, to judge her purely as an actress. In the love +scenes there seemed hardly anything to find fault with. I thought I could +trace in many places the influence of her constant dramatic talks and +exercises with Paul. The flow of passion was continuous and electric, but +marked by all the simpleness, all the sweetness, all the young winsome +extravagance which belong to Juliet. The great scene with the Nurse had +many fine things in it; she has evidently worked hard at it line by line, +and that speech of Juliet's, with its extraordinary dramatic +capabilities-- + +"Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?"-- + +was given with admirable variety and suppleness of intonation. The dreary +sweetness of her + +"_Banished!_ that one word _banished!_" + +still lives with me, and her gestures as she paced restlessly along the +little strip of moonlit path. The speech before she takes the potion was +the least satisfactory of all; the ghastliness and horror of it are +beyond her resources as yet; she could not infuse them with that terrible +beauty which Desforêts would have given to every line. But where is the +English 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 came +forward listlessly, her beautiful head drooping, and approached Paul like +a 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 was +admirable. You must have worked very hard!" + +'"So I have," she said, brightening at the warmth of his praise. "But +Diderot is wrong, wrong, wrong! When I could once reach the feeling of +the Tybalt speech, when I could once _hate_ him for killing Tybalt in the +same breath in which I _loved_ him for being Romeo, all was easy; gesture +and movement came to me; I learnt them, and the thing was done." + +'The reference, of course, meant that Paul had been reading to her his +favourite _Paradoxe sur le Comédien_, and that she had been stimulated, +but not converted, by the famous contention that the actor should be the +mere "cold and tranquil spectator," the imitator of other men's feelings, +while possessing none of his own. He naturally would have argued, but I +would not have it, and made her rest. She was quite worn out with the +effort, and I do not like this excessive fatigue of hers. I often wonder +whether the life she is leading is not too exciting for her. This is +supposed to be her holiday, and she is really going through more +brain-waste than she has ever done in her life before! Paul is throwing +his 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 a +girl of twenty-one, with everything to learn, and as easily excited as he +is capable of exciting her. I really must keep him in check. + +'Mr. Wallace, when we had sent her home across the canal--their apartment +is on the other side, farther up towards the railway station--could not +say enough to me of his amazement at the change in her. + +'"What have you done to her?" he asked. "I can hardly recognise the old +Miss Bretherton at all. Is it really not yet four months since your +brother and I went to see her in the _White Lady_? Why, you have +bewitched her!" + +'"We have done something, I admit," I said; "but the power you see +developed in her now was roused in her when months ago she first came in +contact with the new world and the new ideal which you and Eustace +represented to her." + +'There, my dear Eustace, have I given you your due? Oh, Miss Bretherton +says so many kind things about you! I'll take especial pains to tell you +some 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, will +interest you as much as they did me. I told Madame de Châteauvieux that I +should write to you to-night, and my letter, she says, must do in place +of one from her for a day or two. We have been to Torcello to-day--your +sister, M. de Châteauvieux, Miss Bretherton, and I. The expedition itself +was delightful, but that I have no time to describe. I only want to tell +you what happened when we got to Torcello. + +'But first, you will, of course, know from your sister's letters--she +tells me she writes to you twice a week--how absorbed we have all been in +the artistic progress of Miss Bretherton. I myself never saw such a +change, such an extraordinary development in any one. How was it that you +and I did not see farther into her? I see now, as I look back upon her +old self, that the new self was there in germ. But I think perhaps it may +have been the vast disproportion of her celebrity to her performance that +blinded us to the promise in her; it was irritation with the public that +made us deliver an over-hasty verdict on her. + +'However that may be, I have been making up my mind for some days past +that the embassy on behalf of _Elvira_, which I thrust upon you, and +which you so generously undertook, was a blunder on my part which it +would be delightful to repair, and which no artistic considerations +whatever need prevent me from repairing. You cannot think how divine she +was in Juliet the other night. Imperfect and harsh, of course, here +and there, but still a creature to build many and great hopes upon, if +ever there was one. She is shaking off trick after trick; your +brother-in-law is merciless to them whenever they appear, and she is for +ever working with a view to his approval, and also, I think, from two +or three things she has said, with a memory of that distant standard of +criticism which she believes to be embodied in you! + +'M. de Châteauvieux has devoted himself to her; it is a pretty sight to +see them together. Your sister and she, too, are inseparable, and Madame +de Châteauvieux's quiet, equable refinement makes a good contrast to +Miss Bretherton's mobility. She will never lose the imprint of her +friendship with these two people; it was a happy thought which led you to +bring them together. + +'Well, we went to Torcello, and I watched for an opportunity of getting +her alone. At last Madame de Châteauvieux gave me one; she carried off +her husband, Ruskin in hand, to study the mosaics, and Miss Bretherton +and I were left sitting under the outer wall of San Fosca till they +should come back. We had been talking of a hundred things--not of acting +at 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 who +pestered us for coppers--and then suddenly, I asked her whether she would +answer me a personal question: Was there any grudge in her mind towards +me for anything I had said and done in London, or caused others to say +and do for me? + +'She was much startled, and coloured a good deal, but she said very +steadily: "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 I +might really see her expression, "if you bear me no grudge, if you feel +kindly 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 to +find 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 on +the point of tears, but suddenly the nervousness of each of us seemed to +strike the other, and we both laughed--she long and helplessly, as if she +could not help herself. + +'Presently she looked up, with her great eyes swimming in tears, and +tried to impress on me that I was speaking hastily, that I had an ideal +for that play she could never promise to reach, that it was my friendship +for her that made me change my mind, that there might be practical +difficulties now that so many arrangements had been made, and so on. But +I would not listen to her. I had it all ready; I had an actor to propose +to her for Macias, and even the costumes in my mind, ready to sketch for +her, if need were. Forbes, I suggested, might and would direct the +setting of the piece; no one could do it with more perfect knowledge +or a more exquisite taste; and for her, as we both knew, he would turn +scene-painter, if necessary. And so I rambled on, soothing her shaken +feeling and my own until she had let me beguile her out of her attitude +of 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 out +of her, and all the way home she was very silent. I, of course, got +anxious, and began to think that my blunder had been irreparable; but, at +any rate, I was determined not to let the thing linger on. So that, when +the 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, and +appealed to your sister for help. I knew that both she and her husband +were acquainted with what had happened at Oxford, and I supposed that +Miss Bretherton would know that they were, so that it was awkward enough. +Only that women, when they please, have such tact, such an art of +smoothing over and ignoring the rough places of life, that one often with +them gets through a difficult thing without realising how difficult it +is. M. de Châteauvieux smoked a long time and said nothing, then he asked +me a great many questions about the play, and finally gave no opinion. I +was almost in despair--she said so little--until, just as I was going +away with _Elvira's_ fate still quite unsettled, she said to me with a +smile and a warm pressure of the hand, "To-morrow come and see me, and I +will 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 20th +November, in this year of grace, and Isabel Bretherton will play the +heroine, and your friend is already plunged in business, and aglow with +hope and expectation. How I wish--how we all wish--that you were here! I +feel more and more penitent towards you. It was you who gave the impulse +of 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 readily +in spirit. "Tell Mr. Kendal," were almost her last words to me, "that I +cannot say how much I owe to his influence and his friendship. He first +opened my eyes to so many things. He was so kind to me, even when he +thought 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. She +meant 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 off +homewards, look up Forbes and begin operations. She will be in town in +about three weeks from now--as you know she is going to stay first with +your sister in Paris--and then we shall have hard work till about the +middle of November, when I suppose the play will be produced. This will +be more than a fortnight later than she intended to open, and Mr. Worrall +will probably be furious over the delay, but she has developed a will of +her own lately. + +'_Au revoir_ then. You must have had a peaceful summer with your books +and your heather. I wish I had anything like the same digestion for work +that you have; I never saw a man get as much pleasure out of his books as +you 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 she +will be in that last act!--Where were my eyes last spring?--I wish there +were 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 right +people. Perrault, I hear, is to give her lessons--under the rose. Happy +man!' + + * * * * * + +Kendal read this letter on a glowing August morning as he walked homeward +along the side of the pond, where the shade of the fir-trees was a +welcome protection against the rising heat, and the air was fragrant with +the scent of the ling, which was just out in all its first faint flush of +beauty. He threw himself down among it after he had finished the sheets, +and stared for long at the sunlit motionless water, his hat drawn forward +over his brows. So this was the outcome of it all. Isabel Bretherton was +about to become a great actress,--Undine had found her soul! + +It seemed to him, as he lay there buried in the ling, that during the +past three weeks he had lived through a whole drama of feeling--a drama +which had its beginning, its complications, its climax. While it had been +going on he had been only half-conscious of its bearings, half-conscious +of himself. Wallace's letter had made him sensible of the situation, as +it concerned himself, with a decisive sharpness and completeness. There +was no possibility of any further self-delusion: the last defences were +overcome, the last veil between himself and the pursuing force which had +overtaken him had fallen, and Kendal, with a shiver of pain, found +himself looking straight into the wide, hungry eyes of Love! Oh, was this +love,--this sore desire, this dumb craving, this restlessness of the +whole being? + +The bees hummed among the heather, every now and then a little +brown-streaked lizard rustled faintly beside him, a pair of kingfishers +flashed across the pond. But he saw and heard nothing, responsive as +every sense in him commonly was to the details of the wild life about +him. His own miserable reverie absorbed him. What was it that had made +the charm of those early weeks in July immediately after his parting with +her? What was it which had added zest to his work, and enchantment to the +summer beauty of the country, and, like a hidden harmony dimly resonant +within him, had kept life tuneful and delightful? He could put words to +it now. It had been nothing less than a settled foresight, a deep +conviction, of _Isabel Bretherton's failure_! What a treachery! But +yes,--the vision perpetually before his eyes had been the vision of a +dying fame, a waning celebrity, a forsaken and discrowned beauty! And +from that abandonment and that failure he had dimly foreseen the rise +and upspringing of new and indescribable joy. He had seen her, conscious +of defeat and of the inexorable limits of her own personality, turning +to the man who had read her truly and yet had loved her, surely, from +the very beginning, and finding in his love a fresh glory and an +all-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 sharp +distinctness,--now that every perception was intensified by pain and +longing. + +Then, as he went over the past, he saw how this consciousness had been +gradually invaded and broken up by his sister's letters. He remembered +the incredulous impatience with which he had read the earlier ones. So, +Marie thought him mistaken! 'Isabel Bretherton would be an actress +yet'--'she had genius, after all'--'she was learning, growing, developing +every day.' Absurd! _He_, had been able to keep his critical estimate of +the actress and his personal admiration of the woman separate from one +another. But evidently Marie's head had been confused, misled, by her +heart. And then, little by little, his incredulity had yielded, and his +point of view had changed. Instead of impatience of Marie's laxity of +judgment, what he had been fiercely conscious of for days was jealousy of +Paul de Châteauvieux--jealousy of his opportunities, his influence, his +relation towards that keen sweet nature. That, too, had been one of his +dreams of the future,--the dream of tutoring and training her young +unformed intelligence. He had done something towards it; he had, as it +were, touched the spring which had set free all this new and unexpected +store of power. But, if he had planted, others had watered, and others +would reap. In this great crisis of her fortunes he had been nothing to +her. Other voices and other hands had guided and directed her. Her +kindly, grateful messages only stung and tortured him. They seemed to him +the merest friendly commonplace. In reality her life had passed out of +his ken; her nature had flowered into a new perfection, and he had not +been there to see or to help. She would never connect him with the +incidents or the influences which had transformed existence to her, and +would probably irrevocably change the whole outline of her future. Once +he had wounded and startled her, and had despaired for awhile of undoing +the impression made upon her. But now he felt no quick anxiety, no fear +how things might turn, only a settled flat consciousness of division, of +a life that had once been near to his swept away from him for ever, of +diverging roads which no kindly fate would ever join again. + +For, by the end of this time of solitary waiting, his change of attitude +was 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 so +vivid, as this new and strange foreboding of her true success. Marie must +be right. He had been a mere blind hair-splitting pedant, judging Isabel +Bretherton by principles and standards which left out of count the inborn +energy, the natural power of growth, of such a personality as hers. And +the more he had once doubted the more he now believed. Yes, she would be +great--she would make her way into that city of the mind, in which he +himself had made his dwelling-place; she, too, would enter upon the +world's vast inheritance of knowledge. She would become, if only her +physical frame proved equal to the demands upon it, one of that little +band of interpreters, of ministers of the idea, by whom the intellectual +life of a society is fed and quickened. Was he so lost in his own selfish +covetous need as not to rejoice? + +Oh, but she was a woman, she was beautiful, and he loved her! Do what he +would, all ideal and impersonal considerations fell utterly away from +him. Day by day he knew more of his own heart; day by day the philosopher +grew weaker in him, and the man's claim fiercer. Before him perpetually +were two figures of a most human and practical reality. He saw a great +actress, absorbed in the excitement of the most stimulating of lives, her +power ripening from year to year, her fame growing and widening with +time; and beside this brilliant vision he saw himself, the quiet man of +letters, with the enthusiasms of youth behind him, the calm of middle-age +before him. What possible link could there be between them? + +At last Wallace's letter cleared still further the issues of the +conflict; or rather, it led to Kendal's making a fatalist compact with +himself. He was weary of the struggle, and it seemed to him that he must +somehow or other escape from the grip in which his life was held. He must +somehow deaden this sense, this bitter sense of loss, if it were only by +postponing the last renunciation. He would go back to his work and force +himself not to hate it. It was his only refuge, and he must cling to it +for dear life. And he would not see her again till the night of the first +performance of _Elvira_. She would be in London in a month's time, but he +would take care to be out of reach. He would not meet those glorious eyes +or 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 of +peace, and he went back to his papers and his books like a man who has +escaped from the grasp of some deadly physical ill into a period of +comparative ease and relief. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +It was a rainy November night. A soft continuous downpour was soaking the +London streets, without, however, affecting their animation or the +nocturnal brightness of the capital, for the brilliance of the gas-lamps +was flashed back from innumerable patches of water, and every ray of +light seemed to be broken by the rain into a hundred shimmering +reflections. It was the hour when all the society of which an autumnal +London can boast is in the streets, hurrying to its dinner or its +amusements, and when the stream of diners-out, flowing through the +different channels of the west, is met in all the great thoroughfares by +the stream of theatre-goers setting eastward. + +The western end of D---- Street was especially crowded, and so was the +entrance to a certain narrow street leading northwards from it, in which +stood the new bare buildings of the _Calliope_. Outside the theatre +itself there was a dense mass of carriages and human beings, only kept in +order by the active vigilance of the police, and wavering to and fro with +kaleidoscopic 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 sterner +ordeal of the struggling well-dressed crowd within, surging up the double +staircase of the newly-decorated theatre. The air inside was full of the +hum 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 into +the theatre. Everybody seemed to know everybody else; there were +politicians, and artists, and writers of books, known and unknown; there +were fair women and wise women and great ladies; and there was that large +substratum of faithful, but comparatively nameless, persons on whom a +successful manager learns to depend with some confidence on any first +night of importance. + +And this was a first night of exceptional interest. So keen, indeed, had +been the competition for tickets that many of those present had as vague +and confused an idea of how they came to be among the favoured multitude +pouring into the _Calliope_ as a man in a street panic has of the devices +by which he has struggled past the barrier which has overthrown his +neighbour. Miss Bretherton's first appearance in _Elvira_ had been the +subject of conversation for weeks past among a far larger number of +London circles than generally concern themselves with theatrical affairs. +Among those which might be said to be within a certain literary and +artistic circumference, people were able to give definite grounds for the +public interest. The play, it was said, was an unusually good one, and +the progress of the rehearsals had let loose a flood of rumours to the +effect that Miss Bretherton's acting in it would be a great surprise to +the public. Further, from the intellectual centre of things, it was only +known 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 social +decalogue laid it down as necessary that you should, first of all, see +her 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 sat +three people who had arrived early, and had for some time employed +themselves in making a study of the incoming stream through their +opera-glasses. They were Eustace Kendal, his sister, Madame de +Châteauvieux, and her husband. The Châteauvieux had travelled over +from Paris expressly for the occasion, and Madame de Châteauvieux, her +gray-blue eyes sparkling with expectation and all her small delicate +features alive with interest and animation, was watching for the rising +of the heavy velvet curtain with an eagerness which brought down upon her +the occasional mockery of her husband, who was in reality, however, +little less excited than herself. It was but three weeks since they had +parted with Isabel Bretherton in Paris, and they were feeling on this +first night something of the anxiety and responsibility which parents +feel when they launch a child upon whom they have expended their best +efforts into a critical world. + +As for Eustace, he also had but that afternoon arrived in London. He had +been paying a long duty-visit to some aged relatives in the North, and +had so lengthened it out, in accordance with the whim which had taken +possession of him in Surrey, that he had missed all the preparations for +_Elvira_, and had arrived upon the scene only at the moment when the +final _coup_ was to be delivered. Miss Bretherton had herself sent him a +warm note of invitation, containing an order for the first night and an +appeal to him to come and 'judge me as kindly as truth will let you.' And +he had answered her that, whatever happened, he would be in his place in +the _Calliope_ on the night of the 20th of November. + +And now here he was, wearing outwardly precisely the same aspect of +interested expectation as those around him, and all the time conscious +inwardly that to him alone, of all the human beings in that vast theatre, +the experience of the evening would be so vitally and desperately +important, that life on the other side of it would bear the mark of it +for ever. It was a burden to him that his sister suspected nothing of his +state of feeling; it would have consoled him that she should know it, but +it seemed to him impossible to tell her. + +'There are the Stuarts,' he said, bending down to her as the orchestra +struck up, 'in the box to the left. Forbes, I suppose, will join them +when 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 she +refuse 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 could +not be got over. I believe her associations with the play were so painful +that it would have seemed an evil omen to her to begin a new season with +it.' + +'Was she wise, I wonder?' + +'I think she did well to follow her fancy in the matter, and she herself +has had plenty of time. She was working at it all the weeks she was with +us, and young Harting, too, I think had notice enough. Some of the +smaller parts may go roughly to-night, but they will soon fall into +shape.' + +'Poor Wallace!' said Kendal; 'he must be wishing it well over. I never +saw a house better stocked with critics.' + +'Here he is,' cried Madame de Châteauvieux, betraying her suppressed +excitement 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 misery +so far as his face, which Nature had moulded in one of her cheerfullest +moods, was capable of it. + +'My dear Madame de Châteauvieux, I have no more notion than the man in +the moon. Miss Bretherton is an angel, and without Forbes we should have +collapsed a hundred times already, and that's about all I know. As for +the 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 goes +the hell; now for it.' + +The sketch for the play of _Elvira_ had been found among the papers of a +young penniless Italian who had died, almost of starvation, in his Roman +garret, during those teeming years after 1830, when poets grew on every +hedge and the romantic passion was abroad. The sketch had appeared in a +little privately-printed volume which Edward Wallace had picked up by +chance 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 the +sketch into a play. But, in developing it, he had carefully preserved the +character of the original conception. It was a conception strictly of the +Romantic time, and the execution of it presented very little of that +variety of tone which modern audiences have learnt to expect. The play +told one rapid breathless story of love, jealousy, despair, and death, +and it told it directly and uninterruptedly, without any lighter +interludes. Author and adapter alike had trusted entirely to the tragic +force 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 the +school of Victor Hugo. It was, indeed, rather a dramatic love-poem than a +play, in the modern sense, and it depended altogether for its success +upon the two characters of Macias and Elvira. + +In devising the character of Macias the Italian author had made use of a +traditional Spanish type, which has its historical sources, and has +inspired many a Spanish poet from the fifteenth century downwards. Macias +is knight, poet, and lover; his love is a kind of southern madness which +withers every other feeling in its neighbourhood, and his tragic death is +the only natural ending to a career so fierce and uncontrolled. Elvira, +with whom Macias is in love, the daughter of Nuno Fernandez, is embodied +gentleness and virtue, until the fierce progress of her fate has taught +her that men are treacherous and the world cruel. For her love had been +prosperous and smooth until, by a series of events, it had been brought +into antagonism with two opposing interests--those of her father and of a +certain Fernan Perez, the tool and favourite of the powerful Duke of +Villena. The ambition and selfish passion of these two men are enlisted +against her. Perez is determined to marry her; her father is determined +to sweep Macias out of the path of his own political advancement. The +intrigue devised between the two is perfectly successful. Macias is +enticed away; Elvira, forced to believe that she is deserted and +betrayed, is half driven, half entrapped, into a marriage with Perez; and +Macias, returning to claim her against a hundred obstacles, meets the +wedding party on their way back to the palace of the Duke. The rest of +the play represented, of course, the struggle between the contending +forces thus developed. In plan and mechanism the story was one of a +common romantic type, neither better nor worse than hundreds of others of +which the literary archives of the first half of the present century are +full. It required all the aid that fine literary treatment could give it +to 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 in +the Italian sketch with delicacy and a true tragic insight, and Edward +Wallace had brought all the resources of a very evenly-trained and +critical mind to bear upon his task. It could hardly have been foreseen +that he would be attracted by the subject, but once at work upon it he +had worked with enthusiasm. + +The curtain drew up on the great hall of the Villena Palace. Everything +that antiquarian knowledge could do had been brought to bear upon the +surroundings of the scene; the delicate tilework of the walls and floor, +the leather hangings, the tapestries, the carved wood and brass work of a +Spanish palace of the fifteenth century, had been copied with lavish +magnificence; and the crowded expectant house divided its attention and +applause during the first scene between the beauty and elaboration of its +setting and the play of the two tolerable actors who represented Elvira's +father and the rival of Macias, Fernan Perez. + +Fernan Perez, having set the intrigue on foot which is to wreck the love +of Macias and Elvira, had just risen from his seat, when Wallace, who was +watching 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 de +Châteauvieux and bent forward. The great door at the end of the palace +had slowly opened, and gliding through it with drooping head and hands +clasped before her came Elvira, followed by her little maid Beatriz. The +storm which greeted her appearance was such as thrilled the pulses of the +oldest _habitué_ in the theatre. Tears came to Madame de Châteauvieux's +eyes, and she looked up at her brother. + +'What a scene! It is overpowering--it is too much for her! I wish they +would let her go on!' + +Kendal made no answer, his soul was in his eyes; he had no senses for any +but one person. _She_ was there, within a few yards of him, in all the +sovereignty of her beauty and her fame, invested with the utmost romance +that circumstances could bestow, and about, if half he heard were true, +to reap a great artistic, no less than a great personal triumph. Had he +felt towards her only as the public felt it would have been an experience +beyond the common run, and as it was--oh, this aching, intolerable sense +of desire, of separation, of irremediable need! Was that her voice? He +had heard that tone of despair in it before--under over-arching woods, +when the June warmth was in the air! That white outstretched hand had +once lain close clasped in his own; those eyes had once looked with a +passionate trouble into his. Ah, it was gone for ever, nothing would ever +recall it--that one quick moment of living contact! In a deeper sense +than met the ear, she was on the stage and he among the audience. To the +end his gray life would play the part of spectator to hers, or else she +would soon have passed beyond his grasp and touch, just as Elvira would +have vanished in a little while from the sight of the great audience +which 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 was +stirring the multitude of human beings around him, and he found himself +gradually mastered by considerations of a different order altogether. Was +this the actress he had watched with such incessant critical revolt six +months before? Was this the half-educated girl, grasping at results +utterly beyond her realisation, whom he remembered? + +It seemed to him impossible that this quick artistic intelligence, this +nervous understanding of the demands made upon her, this faculty in +meeting them, could have been developed by the same Isabel Bretherton +whose earlier image was so distinctly graven on his memory. And yet his +trained eye learned after a while to decipher in a hundred indications +the past history of the change. He saw how she had worked, and where; the +influences which had been brought to bear upon her were all familiar to +him; they had been part of his own training, and they belonged, as he +knew, to the first school of dramatic art in Europe--to the school which +keeps alive from generation to generation the excellence and fame of the +best 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 an +actress without a future, condemned by the inexorable logic of things to +see her fame desert her with the first withering of her beauty. Now she +had, as it were, but started towards her rightful goal, but her feet were +in the great high-road, and Kendal saw before her, if she had but +strength to reach it, the very highest summit of artistic success. + +The end of the first act was reached; Elvira, returning from the +performance of the marriage ceremony in the chapel of the palace, had +emerged hand-in-hand with her husband, and, followed by her wedding +train, upon the great hall. She had caught sight of Macias standing +blanched and tottering under the weight of the incredible news which had +just been given to him by the Duke. She had flung away the hateful hand +which held her, and, with a cry, instinct with the sharp and terrible +despair of youth, she had thrown herself at the feet of her lover. + +When the curtain fell, Edward Wallace could have had few doubts--if he +had ever cherished any--of the success of his play. He himself escaped +behind 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 a +constant murmur of congratulation, which was music in the ears of Madame +de Châteauvieux, and, for the moment, silenced in Kendal his own +throbbing and desolate consciousness. + +'There never was a holiday turned to such good account before,' a +gray-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 spring +we all felt as though one fairy godmother at least had been left out at +the christening. And now it would seem as though even she had repented of +it, and brought her gift with the rest. Well, well, I always felt there +was something at the bottom in that nature that might blossom yet. Most +people who are younger at the trade than I would not hear of it. It was +commonly agreed that her success would last just as long as the first +freshness of her beauty, and no more. And _now_--the English stage has +laid its hold at last upon a great actress.' + +Madame de Châteauvieux's smiling reply was broken by the reappearance of +Wallace, 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. Forbes +in the wings, looking on, is a play in himself!' + +In another minute the hubbub had swept out again, and the house had +settled into silence. + +Macias was the central figure of the second act. In the great scene of +explanation between himself and Elvira, after he had forced his way into +her apartment, his fury of jealous sarcasm, broken by flashes of the old +absolute trust, of the old tender worship, had been finely conceived, and +was well rendered by the promising young actor, whom Wallace had himself +chosen for the part, Elvira, overwhelmed by the scorn and despair of her +lover, and, conscious of the treachery which has separated them, is yet +full of a blind resolve to play the part she has assumed to the bitter +end, to save her own name and her father's from dishonour, and to +interpose the irrevocable barrier of her marriage vow between herself and +Macias. Suddenly they are interrupted by the approach of the Duke and of +Fernan Perez. Elvira throws herself between her husband and her lover, +and, having captured the sword of Macias, hands it to the Duke. Macias is +arrested after a tumultuous scene, and is led away, shaking off Elvira's +efforts to save him with bitter contempt, and breaking loose from her +with the prophecy that in every joy of the future and every incident of +her 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 a +kind of incredulous admiration that Isabel Bretherton never once lost +herself, that every gesture was true, every word struck home. Her +extraordinary 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 his +death an unarmed and defenceless man. Then, when he becomes conscious of +the approach of his rival, the soldier's instinct revives in him; he +calls for his sword; she refuses it, and he makes a threatening step +towards 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 it +in this breast.' + +All the desperate energy of a loving woman driven to bay was in her +attitude as she repelled Macias, whereas in the agony of her last +clinging appeal to him, as his guards lead him off, every trace of her +momentary heroism had died away. Faint and trembling, recoiling from +every harsh word of his as from a blow, she had followed him towards the +door, and in her straining eyes and seeking, outstretched hands as she +watched him disappear, there was a pathos so true, so poignant, that it +laid a spell upon the audience, and the curtain fell amid a breathless +silence, which made the roar that almost instantly followed doubly +noticeable. + +But it was in the third act that she won her highest triumph. The act +opened with a scene between Elvira and her husband, in which she implored +him, with the humility and hopelessness of grief, to allow her to retire +from the world and to hide the beauty which had wrought such ruin from +the light of day. He, in whom jealousy has taken fierce root, refuses +with reproach and insult, and in the full tide of her passionate reaction +against his tyranny, the news is brought her by Beatriz that Fernan, in +his determination to avoid the duel with Macias on the morrow, which the +Duke, in accordance with knightly usage, has been forced to grant, has +devised means for assassinating his rival in prison. Naturally, her whole +soul 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 him +of the fate that threatens him and to persuade him to fly. + +It was, indeed, a dramatic moment when the gloom of Macias's cell was +first broken by the glimmer of the hand-lamp, which revealed to the vast +expectant audience the form of Elvira standing on the threshold, +searching the darkness with her shaded eyes; and in the great love scene +which followed the first sharp impression was steadily deepened word by +word and gesture after gesture by the genius of the actress. Elvira finds +Macias in a mood of calm and even joyful waiting for the morrow. His +honour is satisfied; death and battle are before him, and the proud +Castilian is almost at peace. The vision of Elvira's pale beauty and his +quick intuition of the dangers she has run in forcing her way to him +produce a sudden revulsion of feeling towards her, a flood of passionate +reconciliation; 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 her +efforts in dimming his ecstasy of joy or in awakening him to the +necessity of flight, and at last he even resents her terror for him, her +entreaties 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 awful +pressure of the situation, her love resists his no longer, but rather she +sees in the full expression of her own heart the only chance of +reconciling him to life, and of persuading him to take thought for his +own 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 needs +open all her weak heart to you, if she must needs tell you that she lives +only in your life and dies in your death, her lip will brace itself even +to that pitiful confession! Ah me! these poor cheeks have been so +blanched with weeping, they have no blushes left.' + +To her this supreme avowal is the only means of making him believe her +report of his danger, and turn towards flight; but in him it produces a +joy which banishes all thought of personal risk, and makes separation +from 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 and +to 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 his +prison, it is too late. Fernan and his assassins are at hand, the stairs +are surrounded, and escape is cut off. Again, in these last moments, when +the locked door still holds between them and the death awaiting them, her +mood 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 it +nothing--nothing! Come, the bonds which linked us to it are for ever +broken! Death is at the door; _we are already dead_! Come, and make death +beautiful: tell me you love, love, love me to the end!' + +Then, putting her from him, he goes out to meet his enemies. There is a +clamour outside, and he returns wounded to death, pursued by Fernan and +his men. He falls, and Elvira defends him from her husband with a look +and gesture so terrible that he and the murderers fall back before her as +though she were some ghastly avenging spirit. Then, bending over him, she +snatches the dagger from the grasp of the dying man, saying to him, with +a voice into which Isabel Bretherton threw a wealth of pitiful +tenderness, 'There is but one way left, beloved. Your wife that should +have been, that is, saves herself and you--_so_!' + +And in the dead silence that followed, her last murmur rose upon the air +as the armed men, carrying torches, crowded round her. 'See, Macias, the +torches--how they shine! _Bring more--bring more--and light--our +marriage festival_!' + + * * * * * + +'Eustace! Eustace! there, now they have let her go! Poor child, poor +child! 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't +want to stay, but I must just see her, and so must Paul. Ah, Mr. Wallace +is gone already, but he described to me how to find her. This way!' + +And Madame de Châteauvieux, brushing the tears from her eyes with one +hand, took Kendal's arm with the other, and hurried him along the narrow +passages leading to the door on to the stage, M. de Châteauvieux +following them, his keen French face glistening with a quiet but intense +satisfaction. + +As for Kendal, every sense in him was covetously striving to hold and fix +the experiences of the last half-hour. The white muffled figure standing +in the turret door, the faint lamp light streaming on the bent head and +upraised arm--those tones of self-forgetful passion, drawn straight, as +it were, from the pure heart of love--the splendid energy of that last +defiance of fate and circumstance--the low vibrations of her dying +words--the power of the actress and the personality of the woman,--all +these different impressions were holding wild war within him as he +hastened on, with Marie clinging to his arm. And beyond the little +stage-door the air seemed to be even more heavily charged with +excitement than that of the theatre. For, as Kendal emerged with his +sister, his attention was perforce attracted by the little crowd of +persons already assembled round the figure of Isabel Bretherton, and, as +his eye travelled over them, he realised with a fresh start the full +compass of the change which had taken place. To all the more eminent +persons in that group Miss Bretherton had been six months before an +ignorant and provincial beauty, good enough to create a social craze, and +nothing more. Their presence round her at this moment, their homage, the +emotion visible everywhere, proved that all was different, that she had +passed the barrier which once existed between her and the world which +knows and thinks, and had been drawn within that circle of +individualities which, however undefined, is still the vital circle of +any time or society, for it is the circle which represents, more or less +brilliantly and efficiently, the intellectual life of a generation. + +Only one thing was unchanged--the sweetness and spontaneity of that +rich womanly nature. She gave a little cry as she saw Madame de +Châteauvieux enter. She came running forward, and threw her arms round +the elder woman and kissed her; it was almost the greeting of a daughter +to a mother. And then, still holding Madame de Châteauvieux with one +hand, she held out the other to Paul, asking him how much fault he had to +find, and when she was to take her scolding; and every gesture had a glow +of youth and joy in it, of which the contagion was irresistible. She had +thrown off the white head-dress she had worn during the last act, and her +delicately-tinted head and neck rose from the splendid wedding-gown of +gold-embroidered satin--vision of flowerlike and aerial beauty. + +Fast as the talk flowed about her, Kendal noticed that every one seemed +to be, first of all, conscious of her neighbourhood, of her dress +rustling past, of her voice in all its different shades of gaiety or +quick emotion. + +'Oh, Mr. Kendal,' she said, turning to him again after their first +greeting--was it the magnetism of his gaze which had recalled hers?--'if +you only knew what your sister has been to me! How much I owe to her and +to you! It was kind of you to come to-night. I should have been so +disappointed 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 rash +and 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, were +so hard to meet! + +'You have played Elvira,' he said, 'as I never thought it would be played +by anybody; and I was blind from first to last. I hoped you had forgotten +that piece of pedantry on my part.' + +'One does not forget the turning-points of one's life,' she answered with +a 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 him +impossible that his self-restraint should hold much longer. Those +wonderful eyes of hers were full upon him; there was emotion in +them,--evidently the Nuneham scene was in her mind, as it was in +his,--and a great friendliness, even gratitude, seemed to look out +through them. But it was as though his doom were written in the very +candour and openness of her gaze, and he rushed desperately into speech +again, hardly knowing what he was saying. + +'It gives me half pain, half pleasure, that you should speak of it so. I +have never ceased to hate myself for that day. But you have travelled far +indeed since the _White Lady_--I never knew any one do so much in so +short a time!' + +She smiled--did her lip quiver? Evidently his praise was very pleasant to +her, and there must have been something strange and stirring to her +feeling in the intensity and intimacy of his tone. Her bright look caught +his again, and he believed for one wild moment that the eyelids sank and +fluttered. He lost all consciousness of the crowd; his whole soul seemed +concentrated on that one instant. Surely she must feel it, or love is +indeed impotent! + +But no,--it was all a delusion! she moved away from him, and the +estranging present rushed in again between them. + +'It has been M. de Châteauvieux's doing, almost all of it,' she said +eagerly, with a change of voice, 'and your sister's. Will you come and +see me some time and talk about some of the Paris people? Oh, I am +wanted! But first you must be introduced to Macias. Wasn't he good? It +was such an excellent choice of Mr. Wallace's. There he is,-and there is +his wife, that pretty little dark woman.' + +Kendal followed her mechanically, and presently found himself talking +nothings to Mr. Harting, who, gorgeous in his Spanish dress, was +receiving the congratulations which poured in upon him with a pleasant +mixture of good manners and natural elation. A little farther on he +stumbled upon Forbes and the Stuarts, Mrs. Stuart as sparkling and fresh +as ever, a suggestive contrast in her American crispness and prettiness +to the high-bred distinction of Madame de Châteauvieux, who was standing +near her. + +'Well, my dear fellow,' said Forbes, catching hold of him, 'how is that +critical demon of yours? Is he scotched yet?' + +'He is almost at his last gasp,' said Kendal, with a ghostly smile, and a +reckless impulse to talk which seemed to him his salvation. 'He was never +as vicious a creature as you thought him, and Miss Bretherton has had no +difficulty in slaying him. But that hall was a masterpiece, Forbes! How +have your pictures got on with all this?' + +'I haven't touched a brush since I came back from Switzerland, except to +make 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 and +I would have our way, and it's all right--the play will run for twelve +months, if she chooses, easily.' + +Near by were the Worralls, looking a little sulky, as Kendal fancied, in +the midst of this great inrush of the London world, which was sweeping +their niece from them into a position of superiority and independence +they were not at all prepared to see her take up; Nothing, indeed, could +be prettier than her manner to them whenever she came across them, but it +was evident that she was no longer an automaton to be moved at their will +and pleasure, but a woman and an artist, mistress of herself and of her +fate. Kendal fell into conversation on the subject with Mrs. Stuart, who +was as communicative and amusing as usual, and who chattered away to him +till he suddenly saw Miss Bretherton signalling to him with her arm in +that of his sister. + +'Do you know, Mr. Kendal,' she said as he went up to her, 'you must +really take Madame de Châteauvieux away out of this noise and crowd? It +is all very well for her to preach to me. Take her to your rooms and +get her some food. How I wish I could entertain you here; but with this +crowd 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? There +will be nothing left of you to-morrow.' + +'Yes, directly, directly! only I feel as if sleep were a thing that did +not 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 send +him 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 and +kindest of friends!' and the brother and sister hurried away, Kendal +dropping the hand which had been cordially stretched out to himself. + +'Do you mind, Eustace?' said Madame de Châteauvieux, as they walked +across the stage. 'I ought to go, and the party ought to break up. But it +is a shame to carry you off from so many friends.' + +'Mind? Why, I have ordered supper for you in my rooms, and it is just +midnight. 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 the +quadrangle under a sky still heavy with storm-clouds, Madame de +Châteauvieux said to her brother with a sigh: 'Well, it has been a great +event. I never remember anything more exciting, or more successful. But +there is one thing, I think, that would make me happier than a hundred +Elviras, and that is to see Isabel Bretherton the wife of a man she +loved!' Then a smile broke over her face as she looked at her +brother. + +'Do you know, Eustace, I quite made up my mind from those first letters +of yours in May, in spite of your denials, that you were very deeply +taken with her? I remember quite seriously discussing the pros and cons +of it with myself.' + +The words were said so lightly, they betrayed so clearly the speaker's +conviction that she had made a foolish mistake, that they stung Kendal to +the quick. How could Marie have known? Had not his letters for the last +three months been misleading enough to deceive the sharpest eyes? And yet +he felt unreasonably that she ought to have known--there was a blind +clamour in him against the bluntness of her sisterly perception. + +His silence was so prolonged that Madame de Châteauvieux was startled by +it. She slipped her hand into his arm. 'Eustace!' Still no answer. 'Have +I said anything to annoy you--Eustace? Won't you let your old sister have +her dreams?' + +But still it seemed impossible for him to speak. He could only lay his +hand over hers with a brotherly clasp. By this time they were at the foot +of the stairs, and he led the way up, Madame de Châteauvieux following in +a tumult of anxious conjecture. When they reached his rooms he put her +carefully into a chair by the fire, made her take some sandwiches, and +set the kettle to boil in his handy bachelor way, that he might make her +some tea, and all the time he talked about various nothings, till at last +Marie, unable to put up with it any longer, caught his hand as he was +bending over the fire. + +'Eustace,' she exclaimed, 'be kind to me, and don't perplex me like +this.--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 into +the fire, the lines of his mobile face settling into repose. + +'Yes,' he said, as though to himself; 'I love her. I believe I have loved +her from the first moment.' + +Madame de Châteauvieux was tremblingly silent, her thoughts travelling +back over the past with lightning rapidity. Could she remember one word, +one look of Isabel Bretherton's, of which her memory might serve to throw +the smallest ray of light on this darkness in which Eustace seemed to be +standing? No, not one. Gratitude, friendship, esteem--all these had been +there abundantly, but nothing else, not one of those many signs by which +one woman betrays her love to another! She rose and put her arm round her +brother's neck. They had been so much to one another for nearly forty +years; he had never wanted anything as a child or youth that she had not +tried to get for him. How strange, how intolerable, that this toy, this +boon, was beyond her getting! + +Her mute sympathy and her deep distress touched him, while, at the same +time, they seemed to quench the last spark of hope in him. Had he counted +upon hearing something from her whenever he should break silence which +would lighten the veil over the future? It must have been so, otherwise +why 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 deal +out of London for the present, and my books are a wonderful help. After +all, life is not all summed up in one desire, however strong. Other +things are real to me--I am thankful to say. I shall live it down.' + +'But why despair so soon?' she cried, rebelling against this heavy +acquiescence of his and her own sense of hopelessness. 'You are a man any +woman might love. Why should she not pass from the mere friendly +intellectual relation to another? Don't go away from London. Stay and see +as much of her as you can.' + +Kendal shook his head. 'I used to dream,' he said huskily, 'of a time +when failure should have come, when she would want some one to step in +and shield her. Sometimes I thought of her protected in my arms against +the world. But now!' + +She felt the truth of his unspoken argument--of all that his tone +implied. In the minds of both the same image gathered shape and +distinctness. Isabel Bretherton in the halo of her great success, in all +the intensity of her new life, seemed to her and to him to stand afar +off, divided by an impassable gulf from this simple, human craving, which +was crying to her, unheard and hopeless, across the darkness. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +A month after the first performance of _Elvira_ Kendal returned to town +on a frosty December afternoon from the Surrey lodgings on which he had +now established a permanent hold. He mounted to his room, found his +letters lying ready for him, and on the top of them a telegram, which, as +his man-servant informed him, had arrived about an hour before. He took +it 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 much +alarmed. Can you come to-night_?' He put it down in stupefaction. Marie +ill! the doctors alarmed! Good heavens! could he catch that evening +train? He looked at his watch, decided that there was time, and plunged, +with his servant's help, into all the necessary preparations. An hour and +a half later he was speeding along through the clear cold moonlight to +Dover, realising for the first time, as he leant back alone in his +compartment, the full meaning of the news which had hurried him off. All +his tender affection for his sister, and all his stifling sense of +something unlucky and untoward in his own life, which had been so strong +in him during the past two months, combined to rouse in him the blackest +fears, the most hopeless despondency. Marie dead,--what would the world +hold for him! Books, thought, ideas--were they enough? Could a man live +by them if all else were gone? For the first time Kendal felt a doubt +which seemed to shake his nature to its depths. + +During the journey his thoughts dwelt in a dull sore way upon the +past. He saw Marie in her childhood, in her youth, in her rich +maturity. He remembered her in the schoolroom spending all her spare +time over contrivances of one kind or another for his amusement. He +had a vision of her going out with their mother on the night of her +first ball, and pitying him for being left behind. He saw her tender +face bending over the death-bed of their father, and through a hundred +incidents and memories--all beautiful, all intertwined with that lovely +self-forgetfulness which was characteristic of her, his mind travelled +down to an evening scarcely a month before, when her affection had once +more stood, a frail warm barrier, between him and the full bitterness of +a great renunciation. Oh Marie, Marie! + +It was still dark when he reached Paris, and the gray winter light was +only just dawning when he stopped at the door of his brother-in-law's +house in one of the new streets near the Champs Elysées. M. de +Châteauvieux was standing on the stairs, his smoothly-shaven, clear-cut +face drawn and haggard, and a stoop in his broad shoulders which Kendal +had 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 the +brother's inquiry of eye and lip, and led the way upstairs into the +forsaken _salon_, which looked as empty and comfortless as though its +mistress had been gone from it years instead of days. Arrived there, the +two men standing opposite to each other in the streak of dull light made +by 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 now +till--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 long +preparation for the worst. 'What is it--how did it happen?' he asked. + +'Internal chill. She was only taken ill the day before yesterday, and the +pain was frightful till yesterday afternoon; then it subsided, and I +thought she was better--she herself was so cheerful and so thankful for +the relief--but when the two doctors came in again, it was to tell me +that the disappearance of the pain meant only the worst--meant that +nothing more can be done--she may go at any moment.' + +There was a silence. M. de Châteauvieux walked up and down with the +noiseless 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 same +painful whisper, 'You must have some food, then I will tell her you are +here.' + +'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 little +anteroom, lifted a curtain, and knocked. The nurse came, there was a +little parley, and Paul went in, while Eustace waited outside, conscious +of the most strangely trivial things, of the passers-by in the street, of +a wrangle between two _gamins_ on the pavement opposite, of the +misplacement of certain volumes in the bookcase beside him, till the +door opened again, and M. de Châteauvieux drew him in. + +He stepped over the threshold, his whole being wrought up to he knew not +what solemn pageant of death and parting, and the reality within startled +him. The room was flooded with morning light, a frosty December sun was +struggling through the fog, the curtains had just been drawn back, and +the wintry radiance rested on the polished brass of the bed, on the +bright surfaces of wood and glass with which the room was full, on the +little tray of tea-things which the nurse held, and on his sister's face +of greeting as she lay back smiling among her pillows. There was such a +cheerful home peace and brightness in the whole scene--in the crackling +wood 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 him +incredible that under all this familiar household detail there should be +lying in wait that last awful experience of death. + +Marie kissed him with grateful affectionate words spoken almost in her +usual voice, and then, as he sat beside her holding her hands, she +noticed that he looked pale and haggard. + +'Has he had some breakfast, Paul? Oh, poor Eustace, after that long +journey! Nurse, let him have my cup, there is some tea left; let me see +you 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, while +she took one hand from him and slipped it into that of her husband as he +sat beside her on the bed. Her touch seemed to have meaning in it, for +Paul rose presently and went to the far end of the large room; the nurse +carried away the tea-things, and the brother and sister were practically +alone. + +'Dear Eustace,' she began, after a few pathetic moments of silence, in +which look and gesture took the place of speech, 'I have so longed to see +you. It seemed to me in that awful pain that I must die before I could +gather my thoughts together once more, before I could get free enough +from 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 always +promised one another that there should never be any concealment between +us when either of us came to die, and I think I shall have a few hours +more with you.' + +She was silent a little; the voice had all its usual intonations, but it +was low and weak, and it was necessary for her from time to time to +gather such strength as might enable her to maintain the calm of her +manner. Eustace, in bewildered misery, had hidden his face upon her +hands, which were clasped in his, and every now and then she felt the +pressure of his lips upon her fingers. + +'There are many things I want to say to you,' she went on. 'I will try to +remember them in order. Will you stay with Paul a few days--after--? will +you always remember to be good to him? I know you will. My poor Paul, oh +if I had but given you a child!' + +The passion of her low cry thrilled Eustace's heart. He looked up and saw +on her face the expression of the hidden yearning of a lifetime. It +struck him as something awful and sacred; he could not answer it except +by look and touch, and presently she went on after another pause: + +'His sister will come to him very likely--his widowed sister. She has a +girl he is fond of. After a while he will take pleasure in her.--Then I +have thought so much of you and of the future. So often last night I +thought I saw you and _her_, and what you ought to do seemed to grow +plain to me. Dear Eustace, don't let anything I say now ever be a burden +to you--don't let it fetter you ever--but it is so strong in me you must +let me say it all. She is not in love with you, Eustace--at least, I +think not. She has never thought of you in that way; but there is +everything 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. She +knows that you are good and true. I want you to try and carry it farther +for her sake and yours.' He looked up and would have spoken, but she put +her soft hand over his mouth. 'Wait one moment. Those about her are not +people to make her happy--at any time if things went wrong--if she broke +down--she would be at their mercy. Then her position--you know what +difficulties it has--it makes my heart ache sometimes to think of it. She +won 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 with +you--in those true hands of yours. Oh, you will try, darling?' He +answered 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 beauty +and her fame? Anybody would be proud to marry her, and she has such a +quick eager nature. + +'There is no one!' said Marie, with deep conviction in the whispered +words. 'Her life has been too exciting--too full of one interest. She +stayed with me; I got to know her to the bottom. She would not have +hidden it. Only say you will make one trial and I should be content.' + +And then her innate respect for another's individuality, her shrinking +from what might prove to be the tyranny of a dying wish interposed, and +she checked herself. 'No, don't promise; I have no right--no one has any +right. I can only tell you my feeling--my deep sense that there is +hope--that there is nothing against you. Men--good men--are so often +over-timid when courage would be best. Be bold, Eustace; respect your +own love; do not be too proud to show it--to offer it!' Her voice died +away into silence, only Eustace still felt the caressing touch of the +thin fingers clasped round his. It seemed to him as if the life still +left in her were one pure flame of love, undimmed by any thought of +self, undisturbed by any breath of pain. Oh, this victory of the spirit +over the flesh, of soul over body, which humanity achieves and renews +from day to day and from age to age, in all those nobler and finer +personalities upon whom the moral life of the world depends! How it burns +its testimony into the heart of the spectator! How it makes him thrill +with the apprehension which lies at the root of all religion--the +apprehension 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 our +leaning upon, and stand the strain of human questioning! It was borne in +upon Eustace, as he sat bowed beside his dying sister, that through this +fragile body and this failing breath the Eternal Mind was speaking, and +that in Marie's love the Eternal Love was taking voice. He said so to her +brokenly, and her sweet eyes smiled back upon him a divine answer of +peace and faith. + +Then she called faintly, 'Paul!' The distant figure came back; and she +laid her head upon her husband's breast, while Eustace was gently drawn +away by the nurse. Presently, he found himself mechanically taking food +and mechanically listening to the low-voiced talk of the kindly +white-capped woman who was attending to him. Every fact, every +impression, was misery,--these details so unexpected, so irrevocable, so +charged with terrible meaning, which the nurse was pouring out upon +him,--that presence in the neighbouring room of which his every nerve was +conscious,--and in front of him, like a frowning barrier shutting off the +view of the future, the advancing horror of death! Yesterday, at the same +time, he had been walking along the sandy Surrey roads, delighting in the +last autumn harmonies of colour, and conscious of the dawn of a period of +rest after a period of conflict, of the growth within him of a temper of +quiet and rational resignation to the conditions of life and of his own +individual lot, over the development of which the mere fact of his +sister's existence had exercised a strong and steadying influence. Life, +he had persuaded himself, was for him more than tolerable, even without +love 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 of +personal relations, one heart was safely his, the sympathy and trust and +tenderness of one human soul would never fail him at his need. And now +this last tender bond was to be broken with a rough, incredible +suddenness. The woman he loved with passion would never be his; for not +even now, fresh from contact with his sister's dying hope, could he raise +himself 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 a +consciousness fell upon him which made him ashamed. In the neighbouring +room his ear was caught now and then by an almost imperceptible, murmur +of voices. What was his loss, his agony, compared to theirs? + +When he softly returned into the room he found Marie lying as though +asleep upon, her husband's arm. It seemed to him that since he had left +her there had been a change. The face was more drawn, the look of +exhaustion more defined. Paul sat beside her, his eyes riveted upon her. +He scarcely seemed to notice his brother-in-law's entrance; it was as +though he were rapidly losing consciousness of every fact but one; and +never had Kendal seen any countenance so grief-stricken, so pinched with +longing. But Marie heard the familiar step. She made a faint movement +with her hand towards him, and he resumed his old place, his head bowed +upon the bed. And so they sat through the morning, hardly moving, +interchanging at long intervals a few words--those sad sacred words which +well from the heart in the supreme moments of existence--words which, in +the case of such natures as Marie de Châteauvieux, represent the intimate +truths and fundamental ideas of the life that has gone before. There was +nothing to hide, nothing to regret. A few kindly messages, a few womanly +commissions, and every now and then a few words to her husband, as simple +as the rest, but pregnant with the deepest thoughts and touching the +vastest problems of humanity,--this was all. Marie was dying as she had +lived--bravely, tenderly, simply. + +Presently they roused her to take some nourishment, which she swallowed +with difficulty. It gave her a momentary strength. Kendal heard himself +called, and looked up. She had opened the hand lying on the bed, and he +saw 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 I +can think of. She has been ill, Eustace: did I tell you? I forget. I +should have gone--but for this. It is too much for her,--that life. It +will break her down. You can save her and cherish her--you will. It seems +as if I saw you--together!' + +Then her eyes fell and she seemed to sleep--gently wandering now and +then, and mentioning in her dying dream names and places which made the +reality before them more and more terrible to the two hushed listeners, +so different were the associations they called up. Was this white +nerveless form, from which mind and breath were gently ebbing away, all +that fate had grudgingly left to them, for a few more agonised moments, +of the brilliant, high-bred woman who had been but yesterday the centre +of an almost European network of friendships and interests! Love, loss, +death,--oh, how unalterable is this essential content of life, embroider +it and adorn it as we may! + +Kendal had been startled by her words about Isabel Bretherton. He had not +heard of any illness; it could hardly be serious, for he vaguely +remembered that in the newspapers he had tried to read on the journey his +eye had caught the familiar advertisement of the _Calliope_. It must have +happened while he was in Surrey. He vaguely speculated about it now and +then as he sat watching through the afternoon. But nothing seemed to +matter very much to him--nothing but Marie and the slow on-coming of +death. + +At last when the wintry light was fading, when the lamps were being lit +outside, and the bustle of the street seemed to penetrate in little +intermittent waves of sound into the deep quiet of the room, Marie +Raised herself and, with a fluttering sigh, withdrew her hand softly from +her brother, and laid her arm round her husband's neck. He stooped to +her--kissed the sweet lips and the face on which the lines of middle age +had hardly settled--caught a wild alarm from her utter silence, called +the nurse and Kendal, and all was over. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +The morning of Marie's funeral was sunny but bitterly cold; it was one of +those days when autumn finally passes into winter, and the last memory of +the summer warmth vanishes from the air. It had been the saddest, +dreariest laying to rest. The widowed sister, of whom Marie had spoken in +her last hours, had been unable to come, and the two men had gone through +it all alone, helped only by the tearful, impulsive sympathy and the +practical energy of the maid who had been with Marie ever since her +marriage, and was as yet hardly capable of realising her mistress's +death. + +It was she who, while they were away, had done her best to throw a little +air of comfort over the forsaken _salon_. She had kindled the fire, +watered the plants, and thrown open the windows to the sunshine, finding +in her toil and movement some little relief from her own heart-ache and +oppression. When Paul came back, and with numb, trembling fingers had +stripped himself of his scarf and his great-coat, he stepped over the +threshold into the _salon_, and it seemed to him as though the sunlight +and the open windows and the crackling blaze of the fire dealt him a +sudden blow. He walked up to the windows, and, shuddering, drew them down +and closed the blinds, Félicie watching him anxiously from the landing +through the half-open door. Then he had thrown himself into a chair; and +Kendal, coming softly upstairs after him, had gently closed the door from +the outside, said a kind word to Félicie, and himself slipped noiselessly +down again and out into the Champs Elysées. There he had paced up and +down for an hour or more under the trees, from which a few frosty leaves +were still hanging in the December air. + +He himself had been so stunned and bewildered by the loss which had +fallen upon him, that, when he found himself alone and out of doors +again, 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 dumb +physical congeniality in the sunshine, in the clear blue and white of the +sky, in the cheerful distinctness and sharpness of every outline. And +then, little by little, the cheated grief reasserted itself, the numbed +senses woke into painful life, and he fell into broken musings on the +past, or into a bitter wonder over the precarious tenure by which men +hold those good things whereon, so long as they are still their own, they +are so quick to rear an edifice of optimist philosophy. A week before, +his sister's affection had been to him the one sufficient screen between +his own consciousness and the desolate threatening immensities of thought +and of existence. The screen had fallen, and the darkness seemed to be +rushing in upon him. And still, life had to be lived, work to be got +through, 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, and +possession after possession swept away, and still find the years +tolerable and the sun pleasant, still cherish in themselves that +inexhaustible faith in an ideal something which supplies from century to +century the invincible motive power of the race? + +Presently--by virtue of long critical and philosophical habit--his mind +brought itself to bear more and more steadily upon his own position; he +stepped back, as it were, from himself and became his own spectator. The +introspective temper was not common with him; his mind was naturally +turned outward--towards other people, towards books, towards intellectual +interests. But self-study had had its charm for him of late, and, amongst +other things, it was now plain to him that up to the moment of his first +meeting with Isabel Bretherton his life had been mostly that of an +onlooker--a bystander. Society, old and new, men and women of the past +and of the present, the speculative achievements of other times and of +his own,--these had constituted a sort of vast drama before his eyes, +which he had watched and studied with an ever-living curiosity. But his +interest in his particular _rôle_ had been comparatively weak, and in +analysing other individualities he had run some risk of losing his own. + +Then love came by, and the half-dormant personality within him had been +seized upon and roused, little by little, into a glowing, although a +repressed and hidden energy. He had learnt in his own person what it +means to crave, to thirst, to want. And now, grief had followed and had +pinned him more closely than ever to his special little part in the human +spectacle. The old loftiness, the old placidity of mood, were gone. He +had loved, and lost, and despaired. Beside those great experiences how +trivial and evanescent seemed all the interests of the life that went +before them! He looked back over his intercourse with Isabel Bretherton, +and the points upon which it had turned seemed so remote from him, so +insignificant, that for the moment he could hardly realise them. The +artistic and aesthetic questions which had seemed to him so vital six +months before had faded almost out of view in the fierce neighbourhood of +sorrow and passion. His first relation to her had been that of one who +knows to one who is ignorant; but that puny link had dropped, and he was +going to meet her now, fresh from the presence of death, loving her as a +man 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 and +hers! In the early morning after Marie's death, when he woke up from a +few heavy hours of sleep, his mind had been full of her. How was the news +to be broken to her? He himself did not feel that he could leave his +brother-in-law. There was a strong regard and sympathy between them; and +his presence in the house of mourning would undoubtedly be useful to Paul +for a while; besides, there were Marie's words--'Will you stay with him a +few days--after--?'--which were binding on him. He must write, then; but +it was only to be hoped that no newspaper would bring her the news before +his letter could reach. + +However, as the day wore on, Paul came noiselessly out of the quiet room +where the white shrouded form seemed still to spread a tender presence +round 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 a +brotherly 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 motherly +carefulness over the bright creature who had charmed her had passed into +Paul. He was saying what Marie would have said, taking thought as she +would 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 to +find Paul busy with his wife's letters and trinkets, turning them over +With a look of shivering forlornness, as though the thought of the +uncompanioned lifetime to come were already closing upon him like some +deadly chill in the air. Beside him lay two miniature cases open; one of +them was the case which Eustace had received from his sister's hand on +the afternoon before her death, and both of them contained identical +portraits of Marie in her first brilliant womanhood. + +'Do you remember them?' Paul said in his husky Voice, pointing them +out to him. 'They were done when you were at college and she was +twenty-three. Your mother had two taken--one for herself and one for your +old aunt Marion. Your mother left me hers when she died, and your aunt's +copy 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 stood +beside him, mechanically spreading out his hands to the fire. + +'To-morrow, as soon as you are gone, I shall go off to Italy. There are +some little places in the south near Naples that she was very fond of. I +shall stay about there for a while. As soon as I feel I can, I shall come +back to the Senate and my work. It is the only thing left me,--she was so +keen about it.' His voice sank into a whisper, and a long silence fell +upon them. Women in moments of sorrow have the outlet of tears and +caresses; men's great refuge is silence; but the silence may be charged +with 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 make +some necessary preparations for his journey, when Paul detained him, +looking up at him with sunken eyes which seemed to carry in them all the +history of the two nights just past. 'Will you ever ask her what Marie +wished?' The tone was the even and passionless tone of one who for the +moment feels none of the ordinary embarrassments of intercourse; Kendal +met it with the same directness. + +'Some day I shall ask her, or at least I shall let her know; but it will +be no use.' + +Paul shook his head, but whether in protest or agreement Kendal could +hardly tell. Then he went back to his task of sorting the letters, and +let the matter drop. It seemed as if he were scarcely capable of taking +an interest in it for its own sake, but simply as a wish, a charge of +Marie's. + +Kendal parted from him in the evening with an aching heart, and was +haunted for hours by the memory of the desolate figure returning slowly +into the empty house, and by a sharp prevision of all the lonely nights +and the uncomforted morrows which lay before the stricken man. + +But, as Paris receded farther and farther behind him, and the sea drew +nearer, and the shores of the country which held Isabel Bretherton, it +was but natural that even the grip upon him of this terrible and +startling calamity should relax a little, and that he should realise +himself as a man seeking the adored woman, his veins still beating with +the 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 that +loss for ever. But Isabel Bretherton was still among the living, the +warm, the beautiful, and every mile brought him nearer to the electric +joy of her presence. He took a sad strange pleasure in making the +contrast between the one picture and the other as vivid as possible. +Death and silence on the one side--oh, how true and how irreparable! But +on the other, he forced on his imagination till it drew for him an +image of youth and beauty so glowing that it almost charmed the sting out +of his grief. The English paper which he succeeded in getting at Calais +contained the announcement: 'Miss Bretherton has, we are glad to say, +completely recovered from the effects of the fainting fit which so much +alarmed the audience at the _Calliope_ last week. She was able to play +_Elvira_ as usual last night, and was greeted by a large and sympathetic +house.' He read it, and turned the page hastily, as if what the paragraph +suggested was wholly distasteful to him. He refused altogether to think +of her as weak or suffering; he shrank from his own past misgivings, his +own prophecies about her. The world would be a mere dark prison-house if +her bright beauty were over-clouded! She was not made for death, and she +should stand to him as the image of all that escapes and resists and +defies that tyrant of our years, and pain, his instrument and herald. + +He reached London in the midst of a rainy fog. The endless black streets +stretched before him in the dreary December morning like so many roads +into the nether regions; the gas-lamps scattered an unseasonable light +through the rain and fog; it was the quintessence of murky, cheerless +winter. + +He reached his own rooms, and found his man up and waiting for him, and a +meal ready. It was but three days since he had been last there, the open +telegram was still lying on the table. One of his first acts was to put +it hastily out of sight. Over his breakfast he planned his embassy to +Miss Bretherton. The best time to find her alone, he imagined, would be +about mid-day, and in the interval he would put his books and papers to +rights. They lay scattered about--books, proofs, and manuscript. As his +orderly hands went to work upon them, he was conscious that he had never +been so remote from all that they represented. But his nature was +faithful and tenacious, and under the outward sense of detachment there +was an inward promise of return. 'I will come back to you,' seemed to be +the cry of his thought. 'You shall be my only friends. But first I must +see her, and all my heart is hers!' + +The morning dragged away, and at half-past eleven he went out, carrying +the little case with him. As he stood outside the Bayswater house, in +which she had settled for the winter, he realised that he had never yet +been 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_, to +come and see her. But, instead of doing so, he had buried himself in his +Surrey lodging, striving to bring the sober and austere influences of the +country to bear upon the feverish indecision of his mood. Perhaps his +disappearance and silence had wounded her; after all, he knew that he +had some place in her thoughts. + +The servant who opened the door demurred to his request to see Miss +Bretherton. 'The doctor says, sir, that at home she must keep quiet; she +has not seen any visitors just lately.' But Kendal persisted, and his +card was taken in, while he waited the result. The servant hurried along +the ground-floor passage, knocked at the door at the farther end, went in +for a moment, and came out beckoning to him. He obeyed with a beating +heart, and she threw open the door for him. + +Inside stood Isabel Bretherton, with eager surprise and pleasure in her +whole attitude. She had just risen from her chair, and was coming +forward; a soft white cashmere shawl hung around her; her dress, of some +dark rich stuff, fell with the flowing, stately lines peculiar to it; her +face was slightly flushed, and the brilliancy of her colour, of her hair, +of her white, outstretched hand, seemed to Kendal to take all the chill +and gloom out of the winter air. She held some proof sheets of a new play +in her hand, and the rest lay piled beside her on a little table. + +'How kind of you, Mr. Kendal,' she said, advancing with her quick +impulsive step towards him. 'I thought you had forgotten us, and I have +been wanting your advice so badly! I have just been complaining of you a +little in a letter to Madame de Châteauvieux! She--' + +Then she suddenly stopped, checked and startled by his face. He was +always colourless and thin, but the two nights he had just passed through +had given him an expression of haggard exhaustion. His black eyes seemed +to have lost the keenness which was so remarkable in them, and his +prematurely gray hair gave him almost a look of age in spite of the +lightness 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 seeking +anxiously word by word how he might soften what, after all, could not be +softened. 'M. de Châteauvieux sent me to you at once, that you should +not hear in any other way. But it must be a shock to you--for you loved +her!' + +'Oh!' she cried, interrupting him, speaking in short, gasping words, and +answering not so much his words as his look. 'She is ill--she is in +danger--something has happened?' + +'I was summoned on Wednesday,' said Kendal, helpless after all in the +grip of the truth which would not be managed or controlled. 'When I got +there she had been two days ill, and there was no hope.' + +He paused; her eyes of agonised questioning implored him to go on. 'I was +with 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 from +cheek and lip; when he stopped, she gave a little cry. He let go her +hand, and she sank into a chair near, so white and breathless that he was +alarmed. + +'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, waiting +anxiously. She struggled against the physical oppression which had seized +upon her, and fought it down bravely. But he noticed with a pang now that +the flush was gone, that she looked fragile and worn, and, as his thought +went back for a moment to the Surrey Sunday and her young rounded beauty +among the spring green, he could have cried out in useless rebellion +against the unyielding physical conditions which press upon and imprison +the flame of life. + +At last the faintness passed off, and she sat up, her hands clasped round +her knees, and the tears running fast over her cheeks. Her grief was like +herself--frank, simple, expressive. + +'Will you tell me more about it? Oh, I cannot believe it! Why, only last +week when I was ill she talked of coming to me! I have just been writing +to her--there is my letter. I feel as if I could not bear it; she was +like 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, much +moved. And he went on to tell her the story of Marie's dying hours, +describing that gentle withdrawal from life with a manly tenderness of +feeling and a quick memory for all that could soften the impression of it +to the listener. And then he brought out the miniature and gave it to +her, and she accepted it with a fresh burst of sorrow, putting it to her +lips, studying it and weeping over it, with an absolute spontaneity and +self-abandonment which was lovely because it was so true. + +'Oh, poor M. de Châteauvieux!' she cried after a long pause, looking up +to 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 learn +to bear it.' + +She gazed at him with quick startled sympathy, and all her womanly nature +seemed to rise into her upturned face and yearning eyes. It was as though +her attention had been specially recalled to him; as though his +particular loss and sorrow were brusquely brought home to her. And then +she was struck by the strangeness and unexpectedness of such a meeting +between them. He had been to her a judge, an authority, an embodied +standard. His high-mindedness had won her confidence; his affection for +his sister had touched and charmed her. But she had never been conscious +of any intimacy with him. Still less had she ever dreamt of sharing a +common grief with him, of weeping at his side. And the contrast between +her old relation with him and this new solemn experience, rushing in upon +her, filled her with emotion. The memory of the Nuneham day woke again in +her--of the shock between her nature and his, of her overwhelming sense +of the intellectual difference between them, and then of the thrill which +his verdict upon _Elvira_ had stirred in her. The relation which she had +regarded as a mere intellectual and friendly one, but which had been far +more real and important to her than even she herself had ever guessed, +seemed to have transformed itself since he had entered the room into +something close and personal. His last words had called up in her a sharp +impression of the man's inmost nature as it was, beneath the polished +scholarly surface. They had appealed to her on the simplest, commonest, +human ground; she felt them impulsively as a call from him to her, and +her own heart overflowed. + +She rose, and went near to him, bending towards him like a spirit of +healing, her whole soul in her eyes 'Oh, I am so sorry for you!' she +exclaimed, and again the quick tears dropped. 'I know it is no common +loss to you. You were so much more to each other than brother and sister +often are. It is terrible for you.' + +His whole man was stirred by her pity, by the eager expansiveness of her +sympathy. + +'Say it again!' he murmured, as their eyes met; 'say it again. It is so +sweet--from you!' + +There was a long pause; she stood as if fascinated, her hands falling +slowly beside her. Her gaze wavered till the eyelids fell, and she stood +absolutely motionless, the tears still on her cheek. The strange +intoxicating force of feeling, set in motion by sorrow and pity, and the +unsuspected influence of his love, was sweeping them out into deep +waters. She could hardly breathe, but as he watched her all the manhood +in him rose, and from the midst of grief put forward an imperious claim +to the beloved and beautiful woman before him. He came forward a step, +took the cold, unresisting hands, and, bending before her, pressed them +to his lips, while her bewildered eyes looked down upon him. + +'Your pity is heavenly,' he said brokenly; 'but give me more, give me +more! 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 the +stretches of Surrey common, to the Nuneham woods, and all she had ever +seen or imagined of his feelings towards her. She had never, never +suspected him of loving her. She had sent him her friendly messages from +Venice in the simplest good faith; she had joined in his sister's +praises of him without a moment's self-consciousness. His approval of her +play in _Elvira_ had given her the same frank pleasure that a master's +good 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 and +certainty began to assert itself against the overmastering impulse which +had led him on. + +'I have startled you--shocked you,' he cried. 'I ought not to have +spoken--and at such a time. It was your pity overcame me--your sweet +womanly kindness. I have loved you, I think, ever since that first +evening after the _White Lady_. At least, when I look back upon my +feeling, I see that it was love from the beginning. After that day at +Nuneham I knew that it was love; but I would not acknowledge it; I fought +against it. It seemed to me that you would never forget that I had been +harsh, that I had behaved rather like an enemy than a friend. But you did +forget--you showed me how noble a woman could be, and every day after we +parted in July I loved you more. I thought of you all the summer when I +was buried in the Country--my days and nights were full of you. Then when +your great success came--it was base of me--but all the time while I was +sending my congratulations to you through my sister at Venice, I was +really feeling that there was no more hope for me, and that some cruel +force was carrying you away from me. Then came _Elvira_--and I seemed to +give you up for ever.' + +Her hands dropped from her face, and her great hazel eyes were fixed upon +him with that intent look he remembered long ago when she had asked him +for the 'truth' about herself and her position. But there was no pain in +it 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 made +him eloquent. + +'Why? Because I thought you must inevitably be absorbed, swallowed up by +the great new future before you; because my own life looked so gray and +dull beside yours. I felt it impossible you should stoop from your height +to 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 sank +lower still--'came the summons to Paris, and Marie on her death-bed tried +to 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 of +the depth, the tenacity, the rich, illimitable promise of the passion +which she had roused. The tenderness of Marie seemed to encompass them, +and a sacred pathetic sense of death and loss drew them together. Her +respect, her reverence, her interest had been yielded long ago; did this +troubled yearning within mean something more, something infinitely +greater? + +She raised herself suddenly, and, as he knelt beside her, he felt her +warm breath on his cheek, and a tear dropped on his hands, which her own +were blindly and timidly seeking. + +'Oh!' she whispered, or rather sobbed, 'I never dreamt of it. I never +thought of anything like this. But--do not leave me again. I could not +bear it.' + +Kendal bowed his head upon the hands nestling in his, and it seemed to +him as if life and time were suspended, as if he and she were standing +within the 'wind-warm space' of love, while death and sorrow and +parting--three grave and tender angels of benediction--kept watch and +ward without. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Miss Bretherton, by Mrs. Humphry Ward + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13432 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9fecce4 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #13432 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13432) diff --git a/old/13432-8.txt b/old/13432-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..69075ad --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13432-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5930 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Miss Bretherton, by Mrs. Humphry Ward + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Miss Bretherton + +Author: Mrs. Humphry Ward + +Release Date: September 11, 2004 [EBook #13432] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISS BRETHERTON *** + + + + +Produced by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + + MISS BRETHERTON + + BY MRS. HUMPHRY WARD + + 1888 + + + + +PREFATORY NOTE + +It ought to be stated that the account of the play _Elvira_, given in +Chapter VII. of the present story, is based upon an existing play, the +work 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 been +made on this little book since its appearance, that I may perhaps be +allowed a few words of answer to them in the shape of a short preface to +this new edition. It has been supposed that because the book describes a +London world, which is a central and conspicuous world with interests and +activities of a public and prominent kind, therefore all the characters +in it are drawn from real persons who may be identified if the seeker is +only clever enough. This charge of portraiture is constantly brought +against the novelist, and it is always a difficult one to meet; but one +may begin by pointing out that, in general, it implies a radical +misconception of the story-teller's methods of procedure. An idea, a +situation, is suggested to him by real life, he takes traits and +peculiarities from this or that person whom he has known or seen, but +this is all. When he comes to write--unless, of course, it is a case of +malice and bad faith--the mere necessities of an imaginative effort +oblige him to cut himself adrift from reality. His characters become to +him the creatures of a dream, as vivid often as his waking life, but +still a dream. And the only portraits he is drawing are portraits of +phantoms, of which the germs were present in reality, but to which he +himself has given voice, garb, and action. + +So the present little sketch was suggested by real life; the first hint +for it was taken from one of the lines of criticism--not that of the +author--adopted towards the earliest performances of an actress who, +coming among us as a stranger a year and a half ago, has won the respect +and admiration of us all. The share in dramatic success which, in this +country at any rate, belongs to physical gift and personal charm; the +effect of the public sensitiveness to both, upon the artist and upon art; +the difference between French and English dramatic ideals; these were the +various thoughts suggested by the dramatic interests of the time. They +were not new, they had been brought into prominence on more than one +occasion during the last few years, and, in a general sense, they are +common to the whole history of dramatic art. In dealing with them the +problem of the story-teller was twofold--on the one hand, to describe the +public in its two divisions of those who know or think they know, and +those whose only wish is to feel and to enjoy; and on the other hand, to +draw such an artist as should embody at once all the weakness and all the +strength involved in the general situation. To do this, it was necessary +to exaggerate and emphasise all the criticisms that had ever been brought +against beauty in high dramatic place, while, at the same time, charm and +loveliness were inseparable from the main conception. And further, it was +sought to show that, although the English susceptibility to physical +charm--susceptibility greater here, in matters of art, than it is in +France--may have, and often does have, a hindering effect upon the +artist, still, there are other influences in a great society which are +constantly tending to neutralise this effect; in other words, that even +in England an actress may win her way by youth and beauty, and still +achieve by labour and desert another and a greater fame. + +These were the ideas on which this little sketch was based, and in +working them out the writer has not been conscious of any portraiture of +individuals. Whatever attractiveness she may have succeeded in giving to +her heroine is no doubt the shadow, so to speak, of a real influence so +strong that no one writing of the English stage at the present moment can +easily escape it; but otherwise everything is fanciful, the outcome, and +indeed, too much the outcome, of certain critical ideas. And in the +details of the story there has been no chronicling of persons; all the +minor and subsidiary figures are imaginary, devised so as to illustrate +to the best of the writer's ability the various influences which are +continually brought to bear upon the artist in the London of to-day. +There are traits and reminiscences of actual experience in the +book,--what story was ever without them? But no living person has been +drawn, and no living person has any just reason to think himself or +herself aggrieved by any sentence which it contains. + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +It was the day of the private view at the Royal Academy. The great +courtyard of Burlington House was full of carriages, and a continuous +stream of guests was pressing up the red-carpeted stairs, over which +presided some of the most imposing individuals known to the eyes of +Londoners, second only to Her Majesty's beefeaters in glory of scarlet +apparel. Inside, however, as it was not yet luncheon-time, the rooms were +but moderately filled. It was possible to see the pictures, to appreciate +the spring dresses, and to single out a friend even across the Long +Gallery. The usual people were there: Academicians of the old school and +Academicians of the new; R.A.'s coming from Kensington and the 'regions +of culture,' and R.A.'s coming from more northerly and provincial +neighbourhoods where art lives a little desolately and barely, in want of +the graces and adornings with which 'culture' professes to provide her. +There were politicians still capable--as it was only the first week of +May--of throwing some zest into their amusements. There were art-critics +who, accustomed as they were by profession to take their art in large and +rapid draughts, had yet been unable to content themselves with the one +meagre 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 few +supplementary jottings taken in the intervals of conversation with their +lady friends. There were the great dealers betraying in look and gait +their profound, yet modest, consciousness that upon them rested the +foundations of the artistic order, and that if, in a superficial +conception of things, the star of an Academician differs from that of the +man who buys his pictures in glory, the truly philosophic mind assesses +matters differently. And, most important of all, there were the women, +old and young, some in the full freshness of spring cottons, as if the +east wind outside were not mocking the efforts of the May sun, and others +still wrapped in furs, which showed a juster sense of the caprices of the +English climate. Among them one might distinguish the usual shades and +species: the familiar country cousin, gathering material for the +over-awing of such of her neighbours as were unable to dip themselves +every year in the stream of London; the women folk of the artist world, +presenting greater varieties of type than the women of any other class +can boast; and lastly, a sprinkling of the women of what calls itself +'London Society,' as well dressed, as well mannered, and as well provided +with 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, making +every now and then hasty references to his catalogue, but in general +eyeing all he saw with the look of one in whom familiarity with the sight +before him had bred weariness, if not contempt. He was a handsome man, +with a broad brow and a pleasant gentleness of expression. The eyes were +fine and thoughtful, and there was a combination of intellectual force +with great delicacy of line in the contour of the head and face which was +particularly attractive, especially to women of the more cultivated and +impressionable sort. His thin grayish hair was rather long--not of that +pronounced length which inevitably challenges the decision of the +bystander as to whether the wearer be fool or poet, but still long enough +to fall a little carelessly round the head and so take off from the +spruce conventional effect of the owner's irreproachable dress and +general London air. + +Mr. Eustace Kendal--to give the person we have been describing his +name--was not apparently in a good temper with his surroundings. He was +standing with a dissatisfied expression before a Venetian scene drawn by +a brilliant member of a group of English artists settled on foreign soil +and 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 these +men--success and the amount of money there is going. The man who painted +this didn't get any pleasure out of it. But it's the same all round. It +is money and luxury and the struggle to live which are driving us all on +and killing the artist's natural joy in his work. And presently, as that +odd little Frenchman said to me last year, we shall have dropped +irretrievably into the "lowest depth of mediocrity."' + +'Kendal!' said an eager voice close to his ear, while a hand was laid on +his arm, 'do you know that girl?' + +Kendal turned in astonishment and saw a short oldish man, in whom he +recognised a famous artist, standing by, his keen mobile face wearing an +expression 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 know +her by sight! It's Miss Bretherton, the actress. Did you ever see such +beauty? I must get somebody to introduce me to her. There's nothing worth +looking at since she came in. But, by ill luck, nobody here seems to know +her.' + +Eustace Kendal, to whom the warm artist's temperament of his friend was +well known, turned with some amusement towards the picture named, and +noticed that flutter in the room which shows that something or some one +of interest is present. People trying to look unconcerned, and catalogue +in hand, were edging towards the spot where the lady in black stood, +glancing alternately at her and at the pictures, in the manner of those +equally determined to satisfy their curiosity and their sense of +politeness. The lady in question, meanwhile, conscious that she was being +looked at, but not apparently disturbed by it, was talking to another +lady, the only person with her, a tall, gaunt woman, also dressed in +black and gifted abundantly with the forbidding aspect which beauty +requires in its duenna. + +Kendal could see nothing more at first than a tall, slender figure, a +beautiful head, and a delicate white profile, in flashing contrast with +its black surroundings, and with lines of golden brown hair. But in +profile and figure there was an extraordinary distinction and grace which +reconciled him to his friend's eagerness and made him wish for the +beauty's next movement. Presently she turned and caught the gaze of the +two men full upon her. Her eyes dropped a little, but there was nothing +ill-bred or excessive in her self-consciousness. She took her companion's +arm with a quiet movement, and drew her towards one of the striking +pictures of the year, some little way off. The two men also turned and +walked 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 that +face light up, else I shall go home--one may as well. These daubs are not +worth the trouble of considering now!' + +'See what it is to be an "ideal painter,"' said Kendal, laughing. 'At +home one paints river goddesses, and tree-nymphs, and such like remote +creatures, 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're +not to be met with like that every day. _Je me connais en beauté_, my +dear fellow, and I never saw such perfection, both of line and colour, as +that. It is extraordinary; it excites one as an artist. Look, is that +Wallace 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 a +beaming smile and bright emphatic movements of the head, and the three +strolled on. + +'Yes, that is Edward Wallace,--very much in it, apparently. That is the +way Americans have. They always know everybody it's desirable to know. +But now's your chance, Forbes. Stroll carelessly past them, catch +Wallace's eye, and the thing is done.' + +Mr. Forbes had already dropped Kendal's arm, and was sauntering across +the room towards the chatting trio. Kendal watched the scene from a +distance with some amusement; saw his friend brush carelessly past the +American, look back, smile, stop, and hold out his hand; evidently a +whisper passed between them, for the next moment Mr. Forbes was making a +low bow to the beauty, and immediately afterwards Kendal saw his fine +gray head and stooping shoulders disappear into the next room, side by +side with Miss Bretherton's erect and graceful figure. + +Kendal betook himself once more to the pictures, and, presently finding +some acquaintances, made a rapid tour of the rooms with them, parting +with them at the entrance that he might himself go back and look at two +or three things in the sculpture room which he had been told were +important and promising. There he came across the American, Edward +Wallace, who at once took him by the arm with the manner of an old friend +and a little burst of laughter. + +'So you saw the introduction? What a man is Forbes! He is as young still +as 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 which +would have been awkward if it had been anybody else but such a +gentlemanly maniac as Forbes, and has almost made her promise to sit to +him. Miss Bretherton was a little bewildered, I think. She is so new to +London that she doesn't know who's who yet in the least. I had to take +her aside and explain to her Forbes's honours; then she fired up--there +is a naïve hero-worship about her just now that she is fresh from a +colony--and made herself as pleasant to him as a girl could be. I +prophesy Forbes will think of nothing else for the season.' + +'Well, she's a brilliant creature,' said Kendal. 'It's extraordinary how +she shone out beside the pretty English girls about her. It is an +intoxicating possession for a woman, such beauty as that; it's like +royalty; it places the individual under conditions quite unlike those of +common mortals. I suppose it's that rather than any real ability as an +actress that has made her a success? I noticed the papers said as +much--some more politely than others.' + +'Oh, she's not much of an actress; she has no training, no _finesse_. But +you'll see, she'll be the great success of the season. She has wonderful +grace 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-hearted +creature. 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 worth +calling a training. Her manager, Robinson, talks of her attempting all +the great parts; but it's absurd. She talks very naïvely and prettily +about "her art"; but really she knows no more about it than a baby, and +it is perhaps part of her charm that she is so unconscious of her +ignorance.' + +'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 is +that our feelings should be touched a little, but whether by the art or +the artist doesn't matter. She has not been long playing in London, has +she?' + +'Only a few weeks. It's only about two months since she landed from +Jamaica. She has a curious history, if you care to hear it; I don't think +I've seen you at all since I made friends with her?' + +'No,' said Kendal; 'I was beginning to suspect that something absorbing +had 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 busy +that 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, the +National Gallery, and so forth. She is very keen about everything, and +the 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 far +from Kingston, and he married an Italian, one of your fair Venetian +type--a strange race-combination; I suppose it's the secret of the +brilliancy and out-of-the-wayness of the girl's beauty. Her mother died +when 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 to +be made out of her. She had already shown a turn for reciting, and had +performed at various places--in the schoolroom belonging to the estate, +and so on. The father didn't encourage her fancy for it, naturally, being +Scotch and Presbyterian. However, he died of fever, and then the child at +sixteen fell into her uncle's charge. He seems to have seen at once +exactly what line to take. To put it cynically, I imagine he argued +something like this: "Beauty extraordinary--character everything that +could be desired--talent not much. So that the things to stake on are the +beauty and the character, and let the talent take care of itself." +Anyhow, he got her on to the Kingston theatre--a poor little place +enough--and he and the aunt, that sour-looking creature you saw with her, +looked after her like dragons. Naturally, she was soon the talk of +Kingston: what with her looks and her grace and the difficulty of coming +near her, the whole European society, the garrison, Government House, and +all, were at her feet. Then the uncle played his cards for a European +engagement. You remember that Governor Rutherford they had a little time +ago? the writer of that little set of drawing-room plays--_Nineteenth +Century Interludes_, I think he called them? It was his last year, and he +started for home while Isabel Bretherton was acting at Kingston. He came +home full of her, and, knowing all the theatrical people here, he was +able to place her at once. Robinson decided to speculate in her, +telegraphed out for her, and here she is, uncle, aunt, and invalid sister +into the bargain.' + +'Oh, she has a sister?' + +'Yes; a little, white, crippled thing, peevish--cripples generally +are--but full of a curious force of some hidden kind. Isabel is very good +to her, and rather afraid of her. It seems to me that she is afraid of +all her belongings. I believe they put upon her, and she has as much +capacity as anybody I ever knew for letting herself be trampled upon.' + +'What, that splendid, vivacious creature!' said Kendal incredulously. 'I +think I'd back her for holding her own.' + +'Ah, well, you see,' said the American, with the quiet superiority of a +three weeks' acquaintance, 'I know something of her by now, and she's not +quite what you might think her at first sight. However, whether she is +afraid 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 London +tries her. The piece they have chosen for her is a heavy one, and then of +course 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 a +little bored with the subject of Miss Bretherton, and turning, eye-glass +in 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's +next Friday. She will be there at afternoon tea. I told Agnes I should +ask anybody I liked. I warned her--you know her little weaknesses!--that +she had better be first in the field: a month hence, it will be +impossible to get hold of Miss Bretherton at all.' + +'Then I'll certainly come, and do my worshipping before the crowd +collects,' said Kendal, adding, as he half-curiously shifted his +eye-glass so as to take in Wallace's bronzed, alert countenance, 'How did +you 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 to +see Mrs. Stuart; it's ages since I saw her last.' + +The American nodded cordially to him, and walked away. He was one of +those pleasant, ubiquitous people who know every one and find time for +everything--a well-known journalist, something of an artist, and still +more of a man of the world, who went through his London season with some +outward grumbling, but with a real inward zest such as few popular +diners-out are blessed with. That he should have attached himself to the +latest star was natural enough. He was the most discreet and profitable +of cicerones, with a real talent for making himself useful to nice +people. His friendship for Miss Bretherton gave her a certain stamp in +Kendal's eyes, for Wallace had a fastidious taste in personalities and +seldom made a mistake. + +Kendal himself walked home, busy with very different thoughts, and was +soon established at his writing-table in his high chambers overlooking an +inner court of the Temple. It was a bright afternoon; the spring sunshine +on 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 and +orange surface of the tiles. Below, the court was half in shadow, and +utterly quiet and deserted. To the left there was a gleam of green, +atoning for its spring thinness and scantiness by a vivid energy of +colour; while straight across the court, beyond the rich patchwork of the +roofs and the picturesque outlines of the chimneys, a delicate piece of +white stone-work rose into air--the spire of one of Wren's churches, as +dainty, as perfect, and as fastidiously balanced as the hand of man could +leave it. + +Inside, the room was such as fitted a studious bachelor of means. The +book-cases on the walls held old college classics and law-books +underneath, and above a miscellaneous literary library, of which the +main bulk was French, while the side-wings, so to speak, had that +tempting miscellaneous air--here a patch of German, there an island +of Italian; on this side rows of English poets, on the other an +abundance of novels of all languages--which delights the fond heart of +the book-lover. The pictures were mostly autotypes and photographs from +subjects of Italian art, except in one corner, where a fine little +collection of French historical engravings completely covered the wall, +and drew a visitor's attention by the brilliancy of their black and +white. On the writing-table were piles of paper-covered French books, +representing for the most part the palmy days of the Romantics, though +every here and there were intervening strata of naturalism, balanced in +their turn by recurrent volumes of Sainte-Beuve. The whole had a studious +air. The books were evidently collected with a purpose, and the piles of +orderly MSS. lying on the writing-table seemed to sum up and explain +their surroundings. + +The only personal ornament of the room was a group of photographs on the +mantelpiece. Two were faded and brown, and represented Kendal's parents, +both of whom had been dead some years. The other was a large cabinet +photograph 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 Eustace +Kendal, and she was indeed his elder and only sister, the wife of a +French senator, and her brother's chief friend and counsellor. Madame de +Châteauvieux was a very noticeable person, and her influence over Eustace +had been strong ever since their childish days. She was a woman who would +have justified a repetition in the present day of Sismondi's enthusiastic +estimate of the women of the First Empire. She had that _mélange du +meilleur ton_, 'with the purest elegance of manner, and a store of varied +information, with vivacity of impression and delicacy of feeling, which,' +as he declared to Madame d'Albany, 'belongs only to your sex, and is +found in its perfection only in the best society of France.' + +In the days when she and Eustace had been the only children of a +distinguished and wealthy father, a politician of some fame, and +son-in-law to the Tory premier of his young days, she had always led and +influenced her brother. He followed her admiringly through her London +seasons, watching the impression she made, triumphing in her triumphs, +and at home discussing every new book with her and sharing, at least in +his college vacations, the secretary's work for their father, which she +did excellently, and with a quick, keen, political sense which Eustace +had never seen in any other woman. She was handsome in her own refined +and delicate way, especially at night, when the sparkle of her white neck +and arms and the added brightness of her dress gave her the accent and +colour she was somewhat lacking in at other times. Naturally, she was in +no want of suitors, for she was rich and her father was influential, but +she said 'No' many times, and was nearly thirty before M. de +Châteauvieux, the first secretary of the French Embassy, persuaded her to +marry him. Since then she had filled an effective place in Parisian +society. Her husband had abandoned diplomacy for politics, in which his +general tendencies were Orleanist, while in literature he was well known +as a constant contributor to the _Revue des Deux Mondes_. He and his wife +maintained an interesting, and in its way influential, _salon_, which +provided a meeting ground for the best English and French society, and +showed off at once the delicate quality of Madame de Châteauvieux's +intelligence and the force and kindliness of her womanly tact. + +Shortly after her marriage the father and mother died, within eighteen +months of each other, and Eustace found his lot in life radically +changed. He had been his father's secretary after leaving college, which +prevented his making any serious efforts to succeed at the bar, and in +consequence his interest, both of head and heart, had been more +concentrated than is often the case with a young man within the walls of +his home. He had admired his father sincerely, and the worth of his +mother's loquacious and sometimes meddlesome tenderness he never realised +fully till he had lost it. When he was finally alone, it became necessary +for him to choose a line in life. His sister and he divided his father's +money between them, and Eustace found himself with a fortune such as in +the eyes of most of his friends constituted a leading of Providence +towards 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 that +without the stimulus of the father's presence, Eustace's interest in +politics was less real than his interest in letters, nor did the times +seem to her propitious to that philosophic conservatism which might be +said to represent the family type of mind. So she stirred him up to +return to some of the projects of his college days when he and she were +first bitten with a passion for that great, that fascinating French +literature which absorbs, generation after generation, the interests of +two-thirds of those who are sensitive to the things of letters. She +suggested a book to him which took his fancy, and in planning it +something of the old zest of life returned to him. Moreover, it was a +book which required him to spend a part of every year in Paris, and the +neighbourhood of his sister was now more delightful to him than ever. + +So, after a time, he settled down contentedly in his London chambers with +his books about him, and presently found that glow of labour stealing +over him which is at once the stimulus and the reward of every true son +of knowledge. His book reconciled him to life again, and soon he was as +often seen in the common haunts of London society as before. He dined +out, he went to the theatre, he frequented his club like other men, and +every year he spent three of the winter months in Paris, living in the +best 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 in +the studios of some of the more eminent of French artists, a fastidious +critical temper, which was rapidly becoming more and more exacting, more +and more master of the man. + +Now, on this May afternoon, as he settled himself down to his work, it +would have given any of those who liked Eustace Kendal--and they were +many--pleasure to see how the look of fatigue with which he had returned +from his round of the Academy faded away, how he shook back the tumbling +gray locks from his eyes with the zest and the eagerness of one setting +forth to battle, and how, as time passed on and the shadows deepened on +the white spire opposite, the contentment of successful labour showed +itself in the slow unconscious caress which fell upon the back of the +sleeping cat curled up in the chair beside him, or in the absent but +still kindly smile with which he greeted the punctual entrance of the +servant, who at five o'clock came to put tea and the evening paper beside +him and to make up the fire, which crackled on with cheery companionable +sounds through the lamp-lit evening and far into the night. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +Two or three days afterwards, Kendal, in looking over his +engagement-book, in which the entries were methodically kept, noticed +'Afternoon tea, Mrs. Stuart's, Friday,' and at once sent off a note to +Edward Wallace, suggesting that they should go to the theatre together on +Thursday evening to see Miss Bretherton, 'for, as you will see,' he +wrote, 'it will be impossible for me to meet her with a good conscience +unless I have done my duty beforehand by going to see her perform.' To +this the American replied by a counter proposal. 'Miss Bretherton,' he +wrote, 'offers my sister and myself a box for Friday night; it will hold +four or five; you must certainly be of the party, and I shall ask +Forbes.' + +Kendal felt himself a little entrapped, and would have preferred to see +the 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 mind +as possible. + +On Friday afternoon, after a long and fruitful day's work, he found +himself driving westward towards the old-fashioned Kensington house of +which Mrs. Stuart, with her bright, bird-like, American ways, had +succeeded in making a considerable social centre. His mind was still full +of his work, phrases of Joubert or of Stendhal seemed to be still +floating about him, and certain subtleties of artistic and critical +speculation were still vaguely arguing themselves out within him as he +sped westward, drawing in the pleasant influences of the spring sunshine, +and delighting his eyes in the May green which was triumphing more and +more every day over the grayness of London, and would soon have reached +that lovely short-lived pause of victory which is all that summer can +hope to win amid the dust and crowd of a great city. + +Kendal was in that condition which is proper to men possessed of the true +literary temperament, when the first fervour of youth for mere living is +gone, when the first crude difficulties of accumulation are over, and +when the mind, admitted to regions of an ampler ether and diviner air +than any she has inhabited before, feels the full charm and spell of +man's vast birthright of knowledge, and is seized with subtler +curiosities and further-reaching desires than anything she has yet been +conscious of. The world of fact and of idea is open, and the explorer's +instruments are as perfect as they can be made. The intoxication of +entrance is full upon him, and the lassitude which is the inevitable +Nemesis of an unending task, and the chill which sooner or later descends +upon every human hope, are as yet mere names and shadows, counting for +nothing in the tranquil vista of his life, which seems to lie spread out +before him. It is a rare state, for not many men are capable of the +apprenticeship which leads to it, and a breath of hostile circumstance +may put an end to it; but in its own manner and degree, and while it +lasts, it is one of the golden states of consciousness, and a man +enjoying it feels this mysterious gift of existence to have been a kindly +boon from some beneficent power. + +Arrived at Mrs. Stuart's, Kendal found a large gathering already filling +the pleasant low rooms looking out upon trees at either end, upon which +Mrs. Stuart had impressed throughout the stamp of her own keen little +personality. She was competent in all things--competent in her criticism +of a book, and more than competent in all that pertained to the niceties +of house management. Her dinner-parties, of which each was built up from +foundation to climax with the most delicate skill and unity of plan; her +pretty dresses, in which she trailed about her soft-coloured rooms; her +energy, her kindliness, and even the evident but quite innocent pursuit +of social perfection in which she delighted--all made her popular; and it +was not difficult for her to gather together whom she would when she +wished to launch a social novelty. On the present occasion she was very +much in her element. All around her were people more or less +distinguished in the London world; here was an editor, there an artist; a +junior member of the Government chatted over his tea with a foreign +Minister, and a flow of the usual London chatter of a superior kind was +rippling through the room when Kendal entered. + +Mrs. Stuart put him in the way of a chair and of abundant chances of +conversation, and then left him with a shrug of her shoulders and a +whisper, 'The beauty is shockingly late! Tell me what I shall do if all +these people are disappointed.' In reality, Mrs. Stuart was beginning to +be restless. Kendal had himself arrived very late, and, as the talk +flowed faster, and the room filled fuller of guests eager for the new +sensation which had been promised them, the spirits of the little hostess +began to sink. The Minister had surreptitiously looked at his watch, and +a tiresome lady friend had said good-bye in a voice which might have been +lower, and with a lament which might have been spared. Mrs. Stuart set +great store upon the success of her social undertakings, and to gather a +crowd of people to meet the rising star of the season, and then to have +to send them home with only tea and talk to remember, was one of those +failures which no one with any self-respect should allow themselves to +risk. + +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, but +depressing condolences of the barrister standing by her, who was +describing to her the 'absurd failure' of a party to meet the leading +actress of the _Comédie Française_, to which he had been invited in the +previous season, when the sound of wheels was heard outside. Mrs. Stuart +made a quick step forward, leaving her Job's comforter planted in the +middle of his story; the hum of talk dropped in an instant, and the crowd +about the door fell hastily back as it was thrown open and Miss +Bretherton entered. + +What a glow and radiance of beauty entered the room with her! She came in +rapidly, her graceful head thrown eagerly back, her face kindling and her +hands outstretched as she caught sight of Mrs. Stuart. There was a vigour +and splendour of life about her that made all her movements large and +emphatic, and yet, at the same time, nothing could exceed the delicate +finish of the physical structure itself. What was indeed characteristic +in her was this combination of extraordinary perfectness of detail, with +a flash, a warmth, a force of impression, such as often raises the lower +kinds of beauty into excellence and picturesqueness, but is seldom found +in connection with those types where the beauty is, as it were, +sufficient in and by itself, and does not need anything but its own +inherent harmonies of line and hue to impress itself on the beholders. + +There were some, indeed, who maintained that the smallness and delicacy +of her features was out of keeping with her stature and her ample gliding +motions. But here, again, the impression of delicacy was transformed half +way into one of brilliancy by the large hazel eyes and the vivid +whiteness of the skin. Kendal watched her from his corner, where his +conversation with two musical young ladies had been suddenly suspended by +the arrival of the actress, and thought that his impression of the week +before had been, if anything, below the truth. + +'She comes into the room well, too,' he said to himself critically; 'she +is not a mere milkmaid; she has some manner, some individuality. Ah, now +Fernandez'--naming the Minister--'has got hold of her. Then, I suppose, +Rushbrook (the member of the Government) will come next, and we commoner +mortals in our turn. What absurdities these things are!' + +His reflections, however, were stopped by the exclamations of the girls +beside him, who were already warm admirers of Miss Bretherton, and wild +with enthusiasm at finding themselves in the same room with her. They +discovered 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 crowded +state of the theatre and on the plaudits which greeted Miss Bretherton's +first appearance in the ballroom scene in the first act, and they allowed +themselves--being aesthetic damsels robed in sober greenish-grays--a +gentle lament over the somewhat violent colouring of one of the actress's +costumes, while all the time keeping their eyes furtively fixed on the +gleaming animated profile and graceful shoulders over which, in the +entrance of the second drawing-room, the Minister's gray head was +bending. + +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 poor +professionals, you know, must dine at four. That made me late, and now I +find I am such a long way from home that six is the latest moment I can +stay.' So that Mrs. Stuart was put to it to get through all the +introductions she had promised. But she performed her task without +flinching, killing remorselessly each nascent conversation in the bud, +giving artist, author, or member of Parliament his proper little sentence +of introduction, and at last beckoning to Eustace Kendal, who left his +corner feeling society to be a foolish business, and wishing the ordeal +were over. + +Miss Bretherton smiled at him as she had smiled at all the others, and he +sat 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 have +the pleasure for the first time of making one of your admirers.' + +'I hope it will please you,' she said, with a shyness that was still +bright and friendly. 'You will be sure to come and see me afterwards? I +have been arranging it with Mrs. Stuart. I am never fit to talk to +afterwards, I get so tired. But it does one good to see one's friends; it +makes 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 all +such a new experience after that little place Kingston. I should have my +head turned, I think,' she added, with a happy little laugh, 'but that +when one cares about one's art one is not likely to think too much of +one's self. I am always despairing over what there is still to do, and +what one may have done seems to make no matter.' + +She spoke with a pretty humility, evidently meaning what she said, and +yet there was such a delightful young triumph in her manner, such an +invulnerable consciousness of artistic success, that Kendal felt a secret +stir of amusement as he recalled the criticisms which among his own set +he had most commonly heard applied to her. + +'Yes, indeed,' he answered pleasantly. 'I suppose every artist feels the +same. We all do if we are good for anything--we who scribble as well as +you who act.' + +'Oh yes,' she said, with kindly, questioning eyes, 'you write a great +deal? I know; Mr. Wallace told me. He says you are so learned, and that +your book will be splendid. It must be grand to write books. I should +like 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 in +such a rage when all your own grand ideas are spoilt because the leading +gentleman won't do anything different from what he has been used to, or +the next lady wants to show off, or the stage manager has a grudge +against you! Something always happens.' + +'Apparently the only thing that always happens to you is success,' said +Kendal, rather hating himself for the cheapness of the compliment. 'I +hear wonderful reports of the difficulty of getting a seat at the +_Calliope_; and his friends tell me that Mr. Robinson looks ten years +younger. Poor man! it is time that fortune smiled on him.' + +'Yes, indeed; he had a bad time last year. That Miss Harwood, the +American actress, that they thought would be such a success, didn't come +off at all. She didn't hit the public. It doesn't seem to me that the +English public is hard to please. At that wretched little theatre in +Kingston I wasn't nearly so much at my ease as I am here. Here one can +always do one's best and be sure that the audience will appreciate it. I +have all sorts of projects in my head. Next year I shall have a theatre +of 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, and +nothing 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 the +room. Miss Bretherton was going. She came forward in her long flowing +black garments, holding Mrs. Stuart by the hand, the crowd dividing as +she 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. The +actress suddenly stooped to her, lifted her up with the ease of physical +strength into the midst of her soft furs and velvets, and kissed her with +a gracious queenliness. The child threw its little white arms around her, +smiled upon her, and smoothed her hair, as though to assure itself that +the fairy princess was real. Then it struggled down, and in another +minute the bright vision was gone, and the crowded room seemed to have +grown suddenly dull and empty. + +'That was prettily done,' said Edward Wallace to Kendal as they stood +together looking on. 'In another woman those things would be done for +effect, but I don't think she does them for effect. It is as though she +felt herself in such a warm and congenial atmosphere, she is so sure of +herself 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 knows +of her own deficiencies, she is really modest--' + +'Very possibly,' said Kendal; 'it is a curious study, a character taken +so much _au naturel_, and suddenly transported into the midst of such a +London triumph as this. I have certainly been very much attracted, and +feel inclined to quarrel with you for having run her down. I believe I +shall 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 to +be said for her as an actress. But as a human being she is very nearly +perfection.' + +The afternoon guests departed, and just as the last had gone, Mr. Forbes +was announced. He came in in a bad temper, having been delayed by +business, and presently sat down to dinner with Mrs. Stuart and Wallace +and Kendal in a very grumbling frame of mind. Mr. Stuart, a young and +able lawyer, in the first agonies of real success at the bar, had sent +word 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 with +you two carping fellows,' he began, combatively, over his soup. 'She +won'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 will +see I shall behave like an angel. I shall allow myself no unpleasant +remarks, 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; and +I 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 a +judicial 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 our +mouths on the subject of Miss Bretherton.' + +'Hawes does his best,' said Forbes, with a touch of obstinacy. 'He looks +well, he strides well, he is a fine figure of a man with a big bullying +voice; I don't know what more you want in a German prince. It is this +everlasting hypercriticism which spoils all one's pleasure and frightens +all the character out of the artists!' + +At which Mrs. Stuart laughed, and, woman-like, observed that she supposed +it was only people who, like Forbes, had succeeded in disarming the +critics, who could afford to scoff at them,--a remark which drew a funny +little bow, half-petulant, half-pleased, out of the artist, in whom one +of the strongest notes of character was his susceptibility to the +attentions of women. + +'You've seen her already, I believe,' said Wallace to Forbes. 'I think +Miss 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't +want to whittle away the few pleasures that this dull life can provide me +with by this perpetual discontent with what's set before one. Why can't +you 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 of +life in her, give me every sort of artistic pleasure. What a curmudgeon I +should be--what a grudging, ungrateful fellow, if, after all she has done +to delight me, I should abuse her because she can't speak out her +tiresome speeches--which are of no account, and don't matter, to my +impression at all,--as well as one of your thin, French, snake-like +creatures who have nothing but their _art_, as you call it; nothing but +what they have been carefully taught, nothing but what they have +laboriously learnt with time and trouble, to depend upon!' + +Having delivered himself of this tirade, the artist threw himself back in +his chair, tossed back his gray hair from his glowing black eyes, and +looked 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. You +are praising her for qualities which are not properly dramatic at all. In +your studio they would be the only thing that a man need consider; on the +stage they naturally come second.' + +'Ah, well,' said Forbes, falling to upon his dinner again at a gentle +signal from Mrs. Stuart that the carriage would soon be round, 'I knew +very well how you and Wallace would take her. You and I will have to +defend each other, Mrs. Stuart, against those two shower-baths, and when +we go to see her afterwards I shall be invaluable, for I shall be able to +save Kendal and Wallace the humbug of compliments.' + +Whereupon the others protested that they would on no account be deprived +of their share of the compliments, and Wallace especially laid it down +that a man would be a poor creature who could not find smooth things to +say upon any conceivable occasion to Isabel Bretherton. Besides, he saw +her every day, and was in excellent practice. Forbes looked a little +scornful, but at this point Mrs. Stuart succeeded in diverting his +attention to his latest picture, and the dinner flowed on pleasantly till +the 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 the +stage--too close, indeed, for purposes of seeing well. The house was +already crowded, and Kendal noticed, as he scanned the stalls and boxes +through his opera-glass, that it contained a considerable sprinkling of +notabilities of various kinds. It was a large new theatre, which hitherto +had enjoyed but a very moderate share of popular favour, so that the +brilliant and eager crowd with which it was now filled was in itself a +sufficient testimony to the success of the actress who had wrought so +great a transformation. + +'What an experience this is for a girl of twenty-one,' whispered Kendal +to Mrs. Stuart, who was comfortably settled in the farther corner of the +box, 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 man +or woman's individuality, that it must call every power into action, and +strike sparks out of the dullest.' + +'Yes; but how seldom it is so!' + +'Well, in England, at any rate, the fact is, their training is so +imperfect they daren't let themselves go. It's only when a man possesses +the lower secrets of his art perfectly that he can aim at the higher. But +the band is nearly through the overture. Just tell me before the curtain +goes 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 legend +of the White Lady.' + +'What? the warning phantom of the Hohenzollerns?' + +Mrs. Stuart nodded. 'A Crown-Prince of Prussia is in love with the +beautiful Countess Hilda von Weissenstein. Reasons of State, however, +oblige him to throw her over and to take steps towards marriage with a +Princess of Würtemberg. They have just been betrothed when the Countess, +mad with jealousy, plays the part of the White Lady and appears to the +Princess, 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 White +Lady is really the _raison d'etre_ of the piece. But hush! there is the +signal. Make up your mind to be bored by the Princess; she is one of the +worst sticks I ever saw!' + +The first scene represented the ballroom at the Schloss, or rather the +royal anteroom, beyond which the vista of the ballroom opened. The +Prussian and Würtemberg royalties had not yet arrived, with the exception +of the Prince Wilhelm, on whose matrimonial prospects the play was to +turn. He was engaged in explaining the situation to his friend, Waldemar +von Rothenfels, the difficulties in which he was placed, his passion for +the Countess Hilda, the political necessities which forced him to marry a +daughter of the House of Würtemberg, the pressure brought to bear upon +him by his parents, and his own despair at having to break the news to +the Countess. + +The story is broken off by the arrival of the royalties, including the +pink-and-white maiden who is to be Prince Wilhelm's fate, and the royal +quadrille begins. The Prince leads his Princess to her place, when it is +discovered 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 the +dazzling figure in its trailing, pearl-embroidered robes appeared in the +doorway 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 to +display the peculiar gifts of the actress. The quadrille was a stately +spectacular display, in which splendid dress and stirring music and the +effects of rhythmic motion had been brought freely into play for the +delight of the beholders. Between the figures there was a little +skilfully-managed action, mostly in dumb show. The movements of the +jealous beauty and of her faithless lover were invested throughout with +sufficient dramatic meaning to keep up the thread of the play. But it was +not the dramatic aspect of the scene for which the audience cared, it was +simply for the display which it made possible of Isabel Bretherton's +youth and grace and loveliness. They hung upon her every movement, and +Kendal found himself following her with the same eagerness of eye as +those about him, lest any phase of that embodied poetry should escape +him. + +In this introductory scene, the elements which went to make up the spell +she exercised over her audience were perfectly distinguishable. Kendal's +explanation of it to himself was that it was based upon an exceptional +natural endowment of physical perfection, informed and spiritualised by +certain moral qualities, by simplicity, frankness, truth of nature. There +was a kind of effluence of youth, of purity, of strength, about her which +it was impossible not to feel, and which evidently roused the +enthusiastic sympathy of the great majority of those who saw her. + +Forbes was sitting in the front of the box with Mrs. Stuart, his shaggy +gray head and keen lined face attracting considerable attention in their +neighbourhood. He was in his most expansive mood; the combativeness of an +hour before had disappeared, and the ardent susceptible temperament of +the man was absorbed in admiration, in the mere sensuous artist's delight +in a stirring and beautiful series of impressions. When the white dress +disappeared through the doorway of the ballroom, he followed it with a +sigh of regret, and during the scene which followed between the Prince +and his intended bride, he hardly looked at the stage. The Princess, +indeed, was all that Mrs. Stuart had pronounced her to be; she was +stiffer and clumsier than even her Teutonic _rôle_ could justify, and she +marched laboriously through her very proper and virtuous speeches, +evidently driven on by an uneasy consciousness that the audience was only +eager to come to the end of them and of her. + +In the little pause which followed the disappearance of the +newly-betrothed pair into the distant ballroom, Mrs. Stuart leant +backward over her chair and said to Kendal: + +'Now then, Mr. Kendal, prepare your criticisms! In the scene which is +just coming Miss Bretherton has a good deal more to do than to look +pretty!' + +'Oh, but you forget our compact!' said Kendal. 'Remember you are to be +the judge of our behaviour at the end. It is not the part of a judge to +tempt 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 like +in, so long as you let Mr. Forbes perform his devotions undisturbed.' + +At this Forbes half turned round, and shook his great mane, under which +gleamed a countenance of comedy menace, at the two men behind him. But in +another instant the tones of Isabel Bretherton's voice riveted his +attention, and the eyes of all those in the box were once more turned +towards the stage. + +The scene which followed was one of the most meritorious passages in the +rather heavy German play from which the _White Lady_ had been adapted. It +was intended to show the romantic and passionate character of the +Countess, and to suggest that vein of extravagance and daring in her +which was the explanation of the subsequent acts. In the original the +dialogue had a certain German force and intensity, which lost nothing of +its occasional heaviness in the mouth of Hawes, the large-boned +swaggering personage who played the Prince. An actress with sufficient +force of feeling, and an artistic sense subtle enough to suggest to her +the necessary modulations, could have made a great mark in it. But the +first words, almost, revealed Isabel Bretherton's limitations, and before +two minutes were over Kendal was conscious of a complete collapse of that +sympathetic relation between him and the actress which the first scene +had produced. In another sentence or two the spell had been irrevocably +broken, and he seemed to himself to have passed from a state of +sensitiveness to all that was exquisite and rare in her to a state of +mere irritable consciousness of her defects. It was evident to him that +in a scene of great capabilities she never once rose beyond the tricks of +an elementary elocution, that her violence had a touch of commonness in +it which was almost vulgarity, and that even her attitudes had lost half +their charm. For, in the effort--the conscious and laboured effort of +acting--her movements, which had exercised such an enchantment over him +in the first scene, had become mere strides and rushes, never indeed +without grace, but often without dignity, and at all times lacking in +that 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 to +watch her. Edward Wallace, who had seen her some two or three times in +the part, was perfectly conscious of the change, and had been looking out +for 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 the +box. 'Where did she get those tiresome tricks she has, that see-saw +intonation she puts on when she wants to be pathetic, and that absurd +restlessness which spoils everything? It's a terrible pity. Sometimes I +think I catch a gleam of some original power at the bottom, but there is +such a lack of intelligence--in the artist's sense. It is a striking +instance of how much and how little can be done without education.' + +'It is curiously bad, certainly,' said Kendal, while the actress's +denunciations of her lover were still ringing through the theatre. 'But +look at the house! What folly it is ever to expect a great dramatic art +in England. We have no sense for the rudiments of the thing. The French +would no more tolerate such acting as this because of the beauty of the +actress than they would judge a picture by its frame. However, if men +like Forbes leave their judgment behind them, it's no wonder if commoner +mortals follow suit.' + +'There!' said Wallace, with a sigh of relief as the curtain fell on the +first act, 'that's done with. There are two or three things in the second +act that are beautiful. In her first appearance as the White Lady she is +as wonderful as ever, but the third act is a nuisance--' + +'No whispering there,' said Forbes, looking round upon them. 'Oh, I know +what you're after, Edward, perfectly. I hear it all with one ear.' + +'That,' said Wallace, moving up to him, 'is physically impossible. Don't +be so pugnacious. We leave you the front of the box, and when we appear +in your territory our mouths are closed. But in our own domain we claim +the rights of free men.' + +'Poor girl!' said Forbes, with a sigh. 'How she manages to tame London as +she does is a marvel to me! If she were a shade less perfect and +wonderful than she is, she would have been torn to pieces by you critics +long ago. You have done your best as it is, only the public won't listen +to you. Oh, don't suppose I don't see all that you see. The critical +poison's in my veins just as it is in yours, but I hold it in check--it +shan't master me. I will have my pleasure in spite of it, and when I come +across anything in life that makes me _feel_, I will protect my feeling +from it with all my might.' + +'We are dumb,' said Kendal, with a smile; 'otherwise I would pedantically +ask you to consider what are the feelings to which the dramatic art +properly and legitimately appeals.' + +'Oh, hang your dramatic art,' said Forbes, firing up; 'can't you take +things simply and straightforwardly? She is there--she is doing her best +for you--there isn't a movement or a look which isn't as glorious as that +of 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 are +yourselves! Well, it's your loss, not hers.' + +'My dear Mr. Forbes,' said Mrs. Stuart, with her little judicial +peace-making air, 'we shall all go away contented. You will have had your +sensation, 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 Miss +Bretherton with your eyes, and yet, as Edward will get hold of me on the +way home, I shan't go to bed without having experienced all the joys of +criticism! Oh! but now hush, and listen to this music. It is one of the +best 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 most +satisfactory feature in the performance, broke into some weird +Mendelssohnian music, and when the note of plaintiveness and mystery had +been well established, the curtain rose upon the great armoury of the +castle, a dim indistinguishable light shining upon its fretted roof and +masses of faintly gleaming steel. The scene which followed, in which the +Countess Hilda, disguised as the traditional phantom of the +Hohenzollerns, whose appearance bodes misfortune and death to those who +behold it, throws herself across the path of her rival in the hope of +driving her and those interested in her by sheer force of terror from the +castle and from Berlin, had been poetically conceived, and it furnished +Miss Bretherton with an admirable opportunity. As the White Lady, gliding +between rows of armed and spectral figures on either hand, and startling +the Princess and her companion by her sudden apparition in a gleam of +moonlight across the floor, she was once more the representative of all +that is most poetical and romantic in physical beauty. Nay, more than +this; as she flung her white arms above her head, or pointed to the +shrinking and fainting figure of her rival while she uttered her wailing +traditional prophecy of woe, her whole personality seemed to be invested +with a dramatic force of which there had been no trace in the long and +violent scene with the Prince. It was as though she was in some sort +capable of expressing herself in action and movement, while in all the +arts of speech she was a mere crude novice. At any rate, there could be +no doubt that in this one scene she realised the utmost limits of the +author's ideal, and when she faded into the darkness beyond the moonlight +in which she had first appeared, the house, which had been breathlessly +silent during the progress of the apparition, burst into a roar of +applause, in which Wallace and Kendal heartily joined. + +'Exquisite!' said Kendal in Mrs. Stuart's ear, as he stood behind her +chair. 'She was romance itself! Her acting should always be a kind of +glorified and poetical pantomime; she would be inimitable so.' + +Mrs. Stuart looked up and smiled agreement. 'Yes, that scene lives with +one. If everything else in the play is poor, she is worth seeing for that +alone. _Remember it_!' + +The little warning was in season, for the poor White Lady had but too +many after opportunities of blurring the impression she had made. In the +great situation at the end of the second act, in which the Countess has +to give, in the presence of the Court, a summary of the supposed story of +the White Lady, her passion at once of love and hatred charges it with a +force and meaning which, for the first time, rouses the suspicions of the +Prince as to the reality of the supposed apparition. In the two or three +fine and dramatic speeches which the situation involved, the actress +showed the same absence of knowledge and resources as before, the same +powerlessness to create a personality, the same lack of all those quicker +and more delicate perceptions which we include under the general term +'refinement,' and which, in the practice of any art, are the outcome of +long and complex processes of education. There, indeed, was the bald, +plain fact--the whole explanation of her failure as an artist lay in her +lack both of the lower and of the higher kinds of education. It was +evident that her technical training had been of the roughest. In all +technical respects, indeed, her acting had a self-taught, provincial air, +which showed you that she had natural cleverness, but that her models had +been of the poorest type. And in all other respects--when it came to +interpretation or creation--she was spoilt by her entire want of that +inheritance from the past which is the foundation of all good work in the +present. For an actress must have one of the two kinds of knowledge: she +must have either the knowledge which comes from a fine training--in +itself the outcome of a long tradition--or she must have the knowledge +which comes from mere living, from the accumulations of personal thought +and experience. Miss Bretherton had neither. She had extraordinary beauty +and charm, and certainly, as Kendal admitted, some original quickness. He +was 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 on +the physical side, seemed to him to have no future in her. 'It will be +checked,' 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 that +only. The whole pressure of her success is and will be that way.' + +Miss Bretherton's inadequacy, indeed, became more and more visible as the +play was gradually and finely worked up to its climax in the last act. In +the final scene of all, the Prince, who by a series of accidents has +discovered the Countess Hilda's plans, lies in wait for her in the +armoury, where he has reason to know she means to try the effect of a +third and last apparition upon the Princess. She appears; he suddenly +confronts her; and, dragging her forward, unveils before himself and the +Princess the death-like features of his old love. Recovering from the +shock of detection, the Countess pours out upon them both a fury of +jealous passion, sinking by degrees into a pathetic, trance-like +invocation of the past, under the spell of which the Prince's anger melts +away, and the little Princess's terror and excitement change into eager +pity. Then, when she sees him almost reconquered, and her rival weeping +beside her, she takes the poison phial from her breast, drinks it, and +dies 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. The +scene was so obviously beyond Miss Bretherton's resources that even the +enthusiastic house, Kendal fancied, cooled down during the progress of +it. There were signs of restlessness, there was even a little talking in +some of the back rows, and at no time during the scene was there any of +that breathless absorption in what was passing on the stage which the +dramatic 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 on +something unsound, and one feels that disaster is not far off. The whole +thing impresses me most painfully. She has some capacity, of course; if +only the conditions had been different--if she had been born within a +hundred miles of the Paris Conservatoire, if her youth had been passed in +a society of more intellectual weight,--but, as it is, this very applause +is ominous, for the beauty must go sooner or later, and there is nothing +else.' + +'You remember Desforêts in this same theatre last year in _Adrienne +Lecouvreur_?' said Wallace. 'What a gulf between the right thing and the +wrong! But come, we must do our duty;' and he drew Kendal forward towards +the front of the box, and they saw the whole house on its feet, clapping +and shouting, and the curtain just being drawn back to let the White Lady +and the Prince appear before it. She was very pale, but the storm of +applause which greeted her seemed to revive her, and she swept her +smiling glance round the theatre, until at last it rested with a special +gleam of recognition on the party in the box, especially on Forbes, who +was outdoing himself in enthusiasm. She was called forward again and +again, until at last the house was content, and the general exit began. + +The instant after her white dress had disappeared from the stage, a +little page-boy knocked at the door of the box with a message that 'Miss +Bretherton 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 themselves +in the wings, the great stage, on which the scenery was being hastily +shifted, lying to their right. The lights were being put out; only a few +gas-jets were left burning round a pillar, beside which stood Isabel +Bretherton, her long phantom dress lying in white folds about her, her +uncle and aunt and her manager standing near. Every detail of the +picture--the spot of brilliant light bounded on all sides by dim, +far-reaching vistas of shadow, the figures hurrying across the back of +the stage, the moving ghost-like workmen all around, and in the midst +that white-hooded, languid figure--revived in Kendal's memory whenever in +after days his thoughts went wandering back to the first moment of real +contact between his own personality and that of Isabel Bretherton. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +A few days after the performance of the _White Lady_, Kendal, in the +course of his weekly letter to his sister, sent her a fairly-detailed +account 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 such +as might balance the impression of her artistic defects, which I suppose +this account of mine cannot but leave on you. When I came away that night +after our conversation with her I had entirely forgotten her failure as +an actress, and it is only later, since I have thought over the evening +in detail, that I have returned to my first standpoint of wonder at the +easy toleration of the English public. When you are actually with her, +talking to her, looking at her, Forbes's attitude is the only possible +and reasonable one. What does art, or cultivation, or training matter!--I +found myself saying, as I walked home, in echo of him,--so long as Nature +will only condescend once in a hundred years to produce for us a creature +so perfect, so finely fashioned to all beautiful uses! Let other people +go through the toil to acquire; their aim is truth: but here is beauty in +its quintessence, and what is beauty but three parts of truth? Beauty is +harmony with the universal order, a revelation of laws and perfections of +which, in our common groping through a dull world, we find in general +nothing to remind us. And if so, what folly to ask of a human creature +that 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 of +life, and cross-examine it for its credentials instead of raising our +altar and sacrificing to it with grateful hearts! + +'That was my latest impression of Friday night. But, naturally, by +Saturday morning I had returned to the rational point of view. The mind's +morning climate is removed by many degrees from that of the evening; and +the critical revolt which the whole spectacle of the _White Lady_ had +originally roused in me revived in all its force. I began, indeed, to +feel as if I and humanity, with its long laborious tradition, were on one +side, holding our own against a young and arrogant aggressor--namely, +beauty, in the person of Miss Bretherton! How many men and women, I +thought, have laboured and struggled and died in the effort to reach a +higher and higher perfection in one single art, and are they to be +outdone, eclipsed in a moment, by something which is a mere freak of +nature, something which, like the lilies of the field, has neither toiled +nor spun, and yet claims the special inheritance and reward of those who +have! It seemed to me as though my feeling in her presence of the night +before, as if the sudden overthrow of the critical resistance in me had +been a kind of treachery to the human cause. Beauty has power enough, I +found myself reflecting with some fierceness,--let us withhold from her a +sway and a prerogative which are not rightfully hers; let us defend +against her that store of human sympathy which is the proper reward, not +of her facile and heaven-born perfections, but of labour and +intelligence, of all that is complex and tenacious in the workings of the +human spirit. + +'And then, as my mood cooled still further, I began to recall many an +evening at the _Français_ with you, and one part after another, one actor +after another, recurred to me, till, as I realised afresh what dramatic +intelligence and dramatic training really are, I fell into an angry +contempt for our lavish English enthusiasms. Poor girl! it is not her +fault if she believes herself to be a great actress. Brought up under +misleading conditions, and without any but the most elementary education, +how is she to know what the real thing means? She finds herself the rage +within 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 cannot +harmonise all my different impressions of her. Let me begin again. Why is +it 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 impress +themselves upon you. I felt this very strongly two or three times after +the play on Friday night. In her talk with Forbes, for instance, whom she +has altogether in her toils, and whom she plays with as though he were +the gray-headed Merlin and she an innocent Vivien, weaving harmless +spells about him. And then, from this mocking war of words and looks, +this gay camaraderie, in which there was not a scrap of coquetry or +self-consciousness, she would pass into a sudden outburst of anger as to +the impertinence of English rich people--the impertinence of rich +millionaires who have tried once or twice to "order" her for their +evening parties as they would order their ices, or the impertinence of +the young "swell about town" who thinks she has nothing to do behind the +scenes but receive his visits and provide him with entertainment. And, as +the quick impetuous words came rushing out, you felt that here for once +was a woman speaking her real mind to you, and that with a flashing eye +and curving lip, an inborn grace and energy which made every word +memorable. If she would but look like that or speak like that on the +stage! But there, of course, is the rub. The whole difficulty of art +consists in losing your own personality, so to speak, and finding it +again transformed, and it is a difficulty which Miss Bretherton has never +even understood. + +'After this impression of spontaneity and natural force, I think what +struck me most was the physical effect London has already exercised upon +her in six weeks. She looks superbly sound and healthy; she is tall and +fully developed, and her colour, for all its delicacy, is pure and +glowing. But, after all, she was born in a languid tropical climate, and +it is the nervous strain, the rush, the incessant occupation of London +which seem to be telling upon her. She gave me two or three times a +painful impression of fatigue on Friday--fatigue and something like +depression. After twenty minutes' talk she threw herself back against the +iron pillar behind her, her White Lady's hood framing a face so pale and +drooping that we all got up to go, feeling that it was cruelty to keep +her up a minute longer. Mrs. Stuart asked her about her Sundays, and +whether she ever got out of town. "Oh," she said, with a sigh and a look +at her uncle, who was standing near, "I think Sunday is the hardest day +of all. It is our 'at home' day, and such crowds come--just to look at +me, 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 as +well as its pleasures, and that his dear niece could hardly escape her +social duties after the flattering manner in which London had welcomed +her. Miss Bretherton answered, with a sort of languid rebellion, that her +social duties would soon be the death of her. But evidently she is very +docile at home, and they do what they like with her. It seems to me that +the uncle and aunt are a good deal shrewder than the London public; it is +borne in upon me by various indications that they know exactly what their +niece's popularity depends on, and that it very possibly may not be a +long-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 be +made; and, secondly, that she shall find her way into London society, and +secure, if possible, a great _parti_ before the enthusiasm for her has +had time to chill. One hears various stories of the uncle, all in this +sense; 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 League +for the protection of Miss Bretherton from her family; in other words, +we mean to secure that she has occasional rest and country air on +Sunday--her only free day. Mrs. Stuart has already wrung out of Mrs. +Worrall, by a little judicious scaring, permission to carry her off for +two Sundays--one this month and one next--and Miss Bretherton's romantic +side, which is curiously strong in her, has been touched by the +suggestion that the second Sunday should be spent at Oxford. + +'Probably for the first Sunday--a week hence--we shall go to Surrey. You +remember Hugh Farnham's property near Leith Hill? I know all the farms +about there from old shooting days, and there is one on the edge of some +great commons, which would be perfection on a May Sunday. I will write +you a full account of our day. The only rule laid down by the League is +that things are to be so managed that Miss Bretherton is to have no +possible excuse for fatigue so long as she is in the hands of the +society. + +'My book goes on fairly well. I have been making a long study of De +Musset, with the result that the poems seem to me far finer than I had +remembered, and the _Confessions d' un Enfant du Siècle_ a miserable +performance. How was it it impressed me so much when I read it first? His +poems have reminded me of you at every step. Do you remember how you used +to read them aloud to our mother and me after dinner, while the father +had his sleep before going down to the House?' + +Ten days later Kendal spent a long Monday evening in writing the +following letter to his sister:-- + +'Our yesterday's expedition was, I think, a great success. Mrs. Stuart +was happy, because she had for once induced Stuart to put away his papers +and allow himself a holiday; it was Miss Bretherton's first sight of the +genuine English country, and she was like a child among the gorse and the +hawthorns, while Wallace and I amused our manly selves extremely well in +befriending the most beautiful woman in the British Isles, in drawing her +out 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 the +crisis of his fortunes that he should enjoy ten hours' divorce from his +briefs; but he did his best to reach the common level, and his wife, who +is devoted to him, and might as well not be married at all, from the +point of view of marital companionship, evidently thought him perfection. +The day more than confirmed my liking for Mrs. Stuart; there are certain +little follies about her; she is too apt to regard every distinguished +dinner-party she and Stuart attend as an event of enormous and universal +interest, and beyond London society her sympathies hardly reach, except +in that vague charitable form which is rather pity and toleration than +sympathy. But she is kindly, womanly, soft; she has no small jealousies +and none of that petty self-consciousness which makes so many women +wearisome to the great majority of plain men, who have no wish to take +their social exercises too much _au sérieux._ + +'I was curious to see what sort of a relationship she and Miss Bretherton +had developed towards each other. Mrs. Stuart is nothing if not +cultivated; her light individuality floats easily on the stream of London +thought, now with this current, now with that, but always in movement, +never left behind. She has the usual literary and artistic topics at her +fingers' end, and as she knows everybody, whenever the more abstract +sides of a subject begin to bore her, she can fall back upon an endless +store of gossip as lively, as brightly-coloured, and, on the whole, as +harmless as she herself is. Miss Bretherton had till a week or two ago +but two subjects--Jamaica and the stage--the latter taken in a somewhat +narrow sense. Now, she has added to her store of knowledge a great number +of first impressions of London notorieties, which naturally throw her +mind and Mrs. Stuart's more frequently into contact with each other. But +I see that, after all, Mrs. Stuart had no need of any bridges of this +kind to bring her on to common ground with Isabel Bretherton. Her strong +womanliness and the leaven of warm-hearted youth still stirring in her +would be quite enough of themselves, and, besides, there is her critical +delight in the girl's beauty, and the little personal pride and +excitement she undoubtedly feels at having, in so creditable and natural +a manner, secured a hold on the most interesting person of the season. It +is curious to see her forgetting her own specialities, and neglecting to +make her own points, that she may bring her companion forward and set her +in the best light. Miss Bretherton takes her homage very prettily; it is +natural to her to be made much of, and she does not refuse it, but she in +her turn evidently admires enormously her friend's social capabilities +and cleverness, and she is impulsively eager to make some return for Mrs. +Stuart's kindness--an eagerness which shows itself in the greatest +complaisance towards all the Stuarts' friends, and in a constant +watchfulness for anything which will please and flatter them. + +'However, here I am as usual wasting time in analysis instead of +describing to you our Sunday. It was one of those heavenly days with +which May startles us out of our winter pessimism, sky and earth seemed +to be alike clothed in a young iridescent beauty. We found a carriage +waiting for us at the station, and we drove along a great main road until +a sudden turn landed us in a green track traversing a land of endless +commons, as wild and as forsaken of human kind as though it were a region +in some virgin continent. On either hand the gorse was thick and golden, +great oaks, splendid in the first dazzling sharpness of their spring +green, threw vast shadows over the fresh moist grass beneath, and over +the lambs sleeping beside their fleecy mothers, while the hawthorns rose +into the sky in masses of rose-tinted snow, each tree a shining miracle +of white set in the environing blue. + +'Then came the farmhouse--old, red-brick, red-tiled, +casemented--everything that the aesthetic soul desires--the farmer and +his wife looking out for us, and a pleasant homely meal ready in the +parlour, 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, made +in the intervals of eating, of the sitters whose portraits he has +condescended to take this year. They range from a bishop and a royalty +down to a little girl picked up in the London streets, and his +presentation of the characteristic attitudes of each--those attitudes +which, according to him, betray the "inner soul" of the bishop or the +foundling--was admirable. Then he fell upon the Academy--that respected +body of which I suppose he will soon be the President--and tore it limb +from limb. With what face I shall ever sit at the same table with him at +the Academy dinners of the future--supposing fortune ever exalts me again +as 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 could +not say it was ill-natured; it was simply the bare truth of things put in +the whimsical manner which is natural to Forbes. + +'Miss Bretherton listened to and laughed at it all, finding her way +through the crowd of unfamiliar names and allusions with a woman's +cleverness, looking adorable all the time in a cloak of some brown velvet +stuff, and a large hat also of brown velvet. She has a beautiful hand, +fine and delicate, not specially small, but full of character; it was +pleasant to watch it playing with her orange, or smoothing back every now +and then the rebellious locks which will stray, do what she will, beyond +the boundaries assigned to them. Presently Wallace was ill-advised enough +to ask her which pictures she had liked best at the Private View; she +replied by picking out a ballroom scene of Forth's and an unutterable +mawkish thing of Halford's--a troubadour in a pink dressing-gown, +gracefully intertwined with violet scarves, singing to a party of robust +young women in a "light which never was on sea or land." "You could count +all 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, remembering +the rodomontade with which Wallace and had been crushed on the night of +the _White Lady_, to see him wince under Miss Bretherton's liking of the +worst art in England! Is the critical spirit worth something, or is it +superfluous in theatrical matters and only indispensable in matters of +painting! I think he caught the challenge in my eye, for he evidently +felt himself in some little difficulty. + +'"Oh, you couldn't," he said with a groan, "you couldn't like that +ballroom,--and that troubadour, Heaven forgive us! Well, there must be +something in it,--there must be something in it, if it really gives you +pleasure,--I daresay there is; we're so confoundedly uppish in the way we +look at things. If either of them had a particle of drawing or a scrap of +taste, if both of them weren't as bare as a broomstick of the least +vestige of gift, or any suspicion of knowledge, there might be a good +deal to say for them! Only, my dear Miss Bretherton, you see it's really +not a matter of opinion; I assure you it isn't. I could prove to you as +plain as that two and two make four, that Halford's figures don't join in +the middle, and that Forth's men and women are as flat as my hand--there +isn't a back among them! And then the taste, and the colour, and the +clap-trap idiocy of the sentiment! No, I don't think I can stand it. I am +all for people getting enjoyment where they can," with a defiant look at +me, "and snapping their fingers at the critics. But one must draw the +line 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 I +wouldn'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 white +brows. Mrs. Stuart and Wallace kept their countenances to perfection; but +I had him, there's no denying it. + +'"Oh, I know nothing about it," said Isabel Bretherton, divinely +unconscious of the little skirmish going on around her. "You must teach +me, Mr. Forbes. I only know what touches me, what I like--that's all I +know in anything." + +'"It's all we any of us know," said Wallace airily. "We begin with 'I +like' and 'I don't like,' then we begin to be proud, and make +distinctions and find reasons; but the thing beats us, and we come back +in the end to 'I like' and 'I don't like.'" + +'The lunch over, we strolled out along the common, through heather which +as yet was a mere brown expanse of flowerless undergrowth, and copses +which overhead were a canopy of golden oak-leaf, and carpeted underneath +with primroses and the young up-curling bracken. Presently through a +little wood we came upon a pond lying wide and blue before us under the +breezy May sky, its shores fringed with scented fir-wood and the whole +air alive with birds. We sat down under a pile of logs fresh-cut and +fragrant, and talked away vigorously. It was a little difficult often to +keep the conversation on lines which did not exclude Miss Bretherton. +Forbes, the Stuarts, Wallace, and I are accustomed to be together, and +one never realises what a freemasonry the intercourse even of a capital +is until one tries to introduce an outsider into it. We talked the +theatre, of course, the ways of different actors, the fortunes of +managers. Isabel Bretherton naturally has as yet seen very little; her +comments were mainly personal, and all of a friendly, enthusiastic kind, +for the profession has been very cordial to her. A month or five weeks +more and her engagement at the _Calliope_ will be over. There are other +theatres 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, I +imagine, made so much money this season that the family cannot in decency +object to her having her own way. "I am wild to get to Italy," she said +to me in her emphatic, impetuous way. "Sir Walter Rutherford has talked +to me so much about it that I am beginning to dream of it. I long to have +done with London and be off! This English sun seems to me so chilly," and +she drew her winter cloak about her with a little shiver, although the +day was really an English summer day, and Mrs. Stuart was in cotton. "I +come from such warmth, and I loved it. I have been making acquaintance +with all sorts of horrors since I came to London--face-ache and +rheumatism and colds!--I scarcely knew there were such things in the +world. And I never knew what it was to be tired before. Sometimes I can +hardly drag through my work. I hate it so: it makes me cross like a +naughty child!" + +'"Do you know," I said, flinging myself down beside her on the grass and +looking up at her, "that it's altogether wrong? Nature never meant you to +feel 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 that +is so prettily pathetic. "I have the roar in my ears all day, and it +seems to be humming through my sleep at night. And then the crowd, and +the hurry people are in, and the quickness and sharpness of things! But I +have only a few weeks more," she added, brightening, "and then by October +I shall be more used to Europe--the climate and the life." + +'I am much impressed, and so is Mrs. Stuart, by the struggle her nervous +strength is making against London. All my nursing of you, Marie, and of +our mother has taught me to notice these things in women, and I find +myself taking often a very physical and medical view of Miss Bretherton. +You see, it is a case of a northern temperament and constitution relaxed +by tropical conditions, and then exposed once more in an exceptional +degree to the strain and stress of northern life. I rage when I think of +such a piece of physical excellence marred and dimmed by our harsh +English 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 a +sense of tragic waste about it. Suppose London destroys her health--there +are some signs of it--what a futile, ironical pathos there would be in +it. 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 moved +on to the other side of the pond and were basking in the fir-wood. The +afternoon sun was slanting through the branches on to the bosom of the +pond; a splendid Scotch fir just beside us tossed out its red-limbed +branches over a great bed of green reeds, starred here and there with +yellow irises. The woman from the keeper's cottage near had brought us +out some tea, and most of us had fallen into a sybaritic frame of mind in +which talk seemed to be a burden on the silence and easeful peace of the +scene. Suddenly Wallace and Forbes fell upon the question of Balzac, of +whom Wallace has been making a study lately, and were soon landed in a +discussion of Balzac's method of character-drawing. Are Eugène de +Rastignac, le Père Goriot, and old Grandet real beings or mere +incarnations of qualities, mathematical deductions from a given point? At +last I was drawn in, and the Stuarts: Stuart has trained his wife in +Balzac, and she has a dry original way of judging a novel, which is +stimulating and keeps the ball rolling. It was the first time that the +talk had not centred in one way or another round Miss Bretherton, who, of +course, was the first consideration throughout the day in all our minds. +We grew vehement and forgetful, till at last a little movement of hers +diverted the general current. She had taken off her hat and was leaning +back against the oak under which she sat, watching with parted lips and a +gaze of the purest delight and wonder the movements of a nut-hatch +overhead, a creature of the woodpecker kind, with delicate purple gray +plumage, who was tapping the branch above her for insects with his large +disproportionate bill, and then skimming along to a sand-bank a little +distance off, where he disappeared with his prey into his nest. + +'"Ha!" said Wallace, who is a bird-lover, "a truce to Balzac, and let us +watch those nut-hatches! Miss Bretherton's quite right to prefer them to +French novels." + +'"French novels!" she said, withdrawing her eyes from the branch above +her, and frowning a little at Wallace as she spoke. "Please don't expect +me to talk about them--I know nothing about them--I have never wished +to." + +'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 and +her own opinion. I connected it, too, with all one hears of her +determination to look upon herself as charged with a mission for the +reform of stage morals. French novels and French actresses! apparently +she regards them all as so many unknown horrors, standing in the way of +the purification of dramatic art by a beautiful young person with a high +standard of duty. It is very odd! Evidently she is the Scotch +Presbyterian's daughter still, for all her profession, and her success, +and her easy ways with the Sabbath! Her remark produced a good deal of +unregenerate irritation in me. If she were a first-rate artist to begin +with, I was inclined to reflect, this moral enthusiasm would touch and +charm one a good deal more; as it is, considering her position, it is +rather putting the cart before the horse. But, of course, one can +understand that it is just these traits in her that help her to make the +impression she does on London society and the orthodox public in general. + +'Wallace and I went off after the nut-hatches, enjoying a private laugh +by the way over Mrs. Stuart's little look of amazement and discomfort as +Miss Bretherton delivered herself. When we came back we found Forbes +sketching her--she sitting rather flushed and silent under the tree, and +he drawing away and working himself at every stroke into a greater and +greater enthusiasm. And certainly she was as beautiful as a dream, +sitting against that tree, with the brown heather about her and the young +oak-leaves overhead. But I returned in an antagonistic frame of mind, a +little out of patience with her and her beauty, and wondering why Nature +always blunders somewhere! + +'However, on the way home she had another and a pleasanter surprise for +me. A carriage was waiting for us on the main road, and we strolled +towards it through the gorse and the trees and the rich level evening +lights. I dropped behind for some primroses still lingering in bloom +beside a little brook; she stayed too, and we were together, out of +ear-shot of the rest. + +'"Mr. Kendal," she said, looking straight at me, as I handed the flowers +to her, "you may have misunderstood something just now. I don't want to +pretend to what I haven't got. I don't know French, and I can't read +French 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 suddenly +I thought to myself that I too would speak my mind. + +'"Well," I said deliberately, walking on beside her; "you lose a good +deal. There are hosts of French novels which I would rather not see a +woman touch with the tips of her fingers; but there are others, which +take one into a bigger world than we English people with our parochial +ways of writing and seeing have any notion of. George Sand carries you +full into the mid-European stream--you feel it flowing, you are brought +into contact with all the great ideas, all the big interests; she is an +education in herself. And then Balzac! he has such a range and breadth, +he teaches one so much of human nature, and with such conscience, such +force of representation! It's the same with their novels as with their +theatre. Whatever other faults he may have, a first-rate Frenchman of the +artistic sort takes more pains over his work than anybody else in the +world. They don't shirk, they throw their life-blood into it, whether +it's acting, or painting, or writing. You've never seen Desforêts, I +think?--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, and +flung it away from her with one of her nervous gestures. "I am not +sorry," she said. "Nothing would have induced me to go and see her." + +'"Indeed!" I said, waiting a little curiously for what she would say +next. + +'"It's not that I am jealous of her," she exclaimed, with a quick proud +look at me; "not that I don't believe she's a great actress; but I can't +separate her acting from what she is herself. It is women like that who +bring discredit on the whole profession--it is women like that who make +people think that no good woman can be an actress. I resent it, and I +mean to take the other line. I want to prove, if I can, that a woman may +be an actress and still be a lady, still be treated just as you treat the +women you know and respect! I mean to prove that there need never be a +word breathed against her, that she is anybody's equal, and that her +private life is her own, and not the public's! It makes my blood boil to +hear the way people--especially men--talk about Madame Desforêts; there +is not one of you who would let your wife or your sister shake hands with +her, and yet how you rave about her, how you talk as if there were +nothing in the world but genius--and French genius!" + +'It struck me that I had got to something very much below the surface in +Miss Bretherton. It was a curious outburst; I remembered how often her +critics had compared her to Desforêts, greatly to her disadvantage. Was +this championship of virtue quite genuine? or was it merely the best +means of defending herself against a rival by the help of British +respectability? + +'"Mme. Desforêts," I said, perhaps a little drily, "is a riddle to her +best friends, and probably to herself; she does a thousand wild, +imprudent, _bad_ things if you will, but she is the greatest actress the +modern world has seen, and that's something to have done for your +generation. To have moved the feelings and widened the knowledge of +thousands by such delicate, such marvellous, such conscientious work as +hers--there is an achievement so great, so masterly, that I for one will +throw no stones at her!" + +'It seemed to me all through as though I were speaking perversely; I +could have argued on the other side as passionately as Isabel Bretherton +herself; but I was thinking of her dialogue with the Prince, of that +feeble, hysterical death-scene, and it irritated me that she, with her +beauty, and with British Philistinism and British virtue to back her, +should be trampling on Desforêts and genius. But I was conscious of my +audacity. If a certain number of critics have been plain-spoken, Isabel +Bretherton has none the less been surrounded for months past with people +who have impressed upon her that the modern theatre is a very doubtful +business, that her acting is as good as anybody's, and that her special +mission 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 personal +short-comings, her generation has cause to be grateful to her--must be +repugnant to her. She, too, talks about art, but it is like a child who +learns a string of long words without understanding them. She walked on +beside me while I cooled down and thought what a fool I had been to +endanger a friendship which had opened so well,--her wonderful lips +opening once or twice as though to speak, and her quick breath coming and +going as she scattered the yellow petals of the flowers far and wide with +a sort of mute passion which sent a thrill through me. It was as though +she could not trust herself to speak, and I waited awkwardly on +Providence, wishing the others were not so far off. But suddenly the +tension of her mood seemed to give way. Her smile flashed out, and she +turned upon me with a sweet, eager graciousness, quite indescribable. + +'"No, we won't throw stones at her! She _is_ great, I know, but that +other feeling is so strong in me. I care for my art; it seems to me +grand, magnificent!--but I think I care still more for making people +feel it is work a good woman can do, for holding my own in it, and +asserting myself against the people who behave as if all actresses had +done the things that Madame Desforêts has done. Don't think me narrow and +jealous. I should hate you and the Stuarts to think that of me. You have +all been so kind to me--such good, real friends! I shall never forget +this day--Oh! look, there is the carriage standing up there. I wish it +was the morning and not the evening, and that it might all come again! I +hate the thought of London and that hot theatre to-morrow night. Oh, my +primroses! What a wretch I am! I've lost them nearly all. Look, just that +bunch over there, Mr. Kendal, before we leave the common." + +'I sprang to get them for her, and brought back a quantity. She took them +in her hand--how unlike other women she is after all, in spite of her +hatred of Bohemia!--and, raising them to her lips, she waved a farewell +through them to the great common lying behind us in the evening sun. "How +beautiful! 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 a +winning, spontaneous charm. I cannot say what pleasure I got out of those +primroses lying in her soft ungloved hand all the way home. Henceforward, +I feel she may make what judgments and draw what lines she pleases; she +won't change me, and I have some hopes of modifying her; but I am not +very 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 understand +it--but I won't quarrel with her, even in my thoughts, any more! + + * * * * * + +'On looking over this letter it seems to me that if +you were not you, and I were not I, you might with +some plausibility accuse me of being--what?--in love +with Miss Bretherton? But you know me too well. +You know I am one of the old-fashioned people who +believe in community of interests--in belonging to the +same world. When I come coolly to think about it, I +can hardly imagine two worlds, whether outwardly or +inwardly, more wide apart than mine and Miss +Bretherton'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 under +varying circumstances. One night he took it into his head to go to the +pit of the _Calliope_, and came away more persuaded than before that as +an actress there was small prospect for her. Had she been an ordinary +mortal, he thought the original stuff in her might have been disciplined +into something really valuable by the common give and take, the normal +rubs and difficulties of her profession. But, as it was, she had been +lifted at once by the force of one natural endowment into a position +which, from the artistic point of view, seemed to him hopeless. Her +instantaneous success--dependent as it was on considerations wholly +outside those of dramatic art--had denied her all the advantages which +are to be won from struggle and from laborious and gradual conquest. And +more than this, it had deprived her of an ideal; it had tended to make +her take her own performance as the measure of the good and possible. +For, naturally, it was too much to expect that she herself should analyse +truly the sources and reasons of her popularity. She must inevitably +believe that some, at least, of it was due to her dramatic talent in +itself. 'Perhaps some of it is,' Kendal would answer himself. 'It is very +possible that I am not quite fair to her. She has all the faults which +repel me most. I could get over anything but this impression of bare +blank ignorance which she makes upon me. And as things are at present, it +is impossible that she should learn. It might be interesting to have the +teaching of her! But it could only be done by some one with whom she came +naturally 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 whom +Mrs. Stuart had a warm but very respectful admiration. They had met two +or three times in London, and Madame de Châteauvieux's personal +distinction, her refinement, her information, her sweet urbanity of +manner, had made a great impression upon the lively little woman, who, +from the lower level of her own more commonplace and conventional success +in society, felt an awe-struck sympathy for anything so rare, so unlike +the ordinary type. Her intimacy with Miss Bretherton had not gone far +before the subject of 'Mr. Kendal's interesting sister' had been +introduced, and on this particular afternoon, as Kendal entered her +drawing-room, his ear was caught at once by the sound of Marie's name. +Miss Bretherton drew him impulsively into the conversation, and he found +himself 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 in +the public discussion of any subject connected with himself. But Isabel +Bretherton's frank curiosity, her kindling eyes and sweet parted lips, +and that strain of romance in her which made her so quickly responsive to +anything which touched her imagination, were not easy to resist. She was +delightful to his eye and sense, and he was as conscious as he had ever +been of her delicate personal charm. Besides, it was pleasant to him to +talk of that Parisian world, in which he was himself vitally interested, +to any one so naive and fresh. Her ignorance, which on the stage had +annoyed him, in private life had its particular attractiveness. And, with +regard to this special subject, he was conscious of breaking down a +prejudice; he felt the pleasure of conquering a great reluctance in her. +Evidently on starting in London she had set herself against everything +that she identified with the great Trench actress who had absorbed the +theatre-going public during the previous season; not from personal +jealousy, as Kendal became ultimately convinced, but from a sense of keen +moral revolt against Madame Desforêts's notorious position and the +stories of her private life which were current in all circles. She had +decided in her own mind that French art meant a tainted art, and she had +shown herself very restive--Kendal had seen something of it on their +Surrey expedition--under any attempts to make her share the interest +which certain sections of the English cultivated public feel in foreign +thought, and especially in the foreign theatre. Kendal took particular +pains, when they glided off from the topic of his sister to more general +matters, to make her realise some of the finer aspects of the French +world of which she knew so little, and which she judged so harshly; the +laborious technical training to which the dwellers on the other side of +the channel submit themselves so much more readily than the English in +any matter of art; the intellectual conscientiousness and refinement due +to the pressure of an organised and continuous tradition, and so on. He +realised that a good deal of what he said or suggested must naturally be +lost upon her. But it was delightful to feel her mind yielding to his, +while it stimulated her sympathy and perhaps roused her surprise to find +in him every now and then a grave and unpretending response to those +moral enthusiasms in herself which were too real and deep for much direct +expression. + +'Whenever I am next in Paris, she said to him, when she perforce rose to +go, with that pretty hesitation of manner which was so attractive in her, +'would you mind--would Madame de Châteauvieux,--if I asked you to +introduce me to your sister? It would be a great pleasure to me.' + +Kendal made a very cordial reply, and they parted knowing more of each +other than they had yet done. Not that his leading impression of her was +in any way modified. Incompetent and unpromising as an artist, delightful +as a woman,--had been his earliest verdict upon her, and his conviction +of its reasonableness had been only deepened by subsequent experience; +but perhaps the sense of delightfulness was gaining upon the sense of +incompetence? After all, beauty and charm and sex have in all ages been +too much for the clever people who try to reckon without them. Kendal was +far too shrewd not to recognise the very natural and reasonable character +of the proceeding, and not to smile at the first sign of it in his own +person. Still, he meant to try, if he could, to keep the two estimates +distinct, and neither to confuse himself nor other people by confounding +them. It seemed to him an intellectual point of honour to keep his head +perfectly cool on the subject of Miss Bretherton's artistic claims, but +he was conscious that it was not always very easy to do--a consciousness +that made him sometimes all the more recalcitrant under the pressure of +her celebrity. + +For it seemed to him that in society he heard of nothing but her--her +beauty, her fascination, and her success. At every dinner-table he heard +stories of her, some of them evident inventions, but all tending in the +same direction--that is to say, illustrating either the girl's proud +independence and her determination to be patronised by nobody, not even +by royalty itself, or her lavish kind-heartedness and generosity towards +the poor and the inferiors of her own profession. She was for the moment +the great interest of London, and people talked of her popularity and +social prestige as a sign of the times and a proof of the changed +position of the theatre and of those belonging to it. Kendal thought it +proved no more than that an extremely beautiful girl of irreproachable +character, brought prominently before the public in any capacity +whatever, is sure to stir the susceptible English heart, and that Isabel +Bretherton's popularity was not one which would in the long run affect +the stage at all. But he kept his reflections to himself, and in general +talked about her no more than he was forced to do. He had a sort of +chivalrous feeling that those whom the girl had made in any degree her +personal friends ought, as far as possible, to stand between her and this +inquisitive excited public. And it was plain to him that the enormous +social success was not of her seeking, but of her relations. + +One afternoon, between six and seven, Kendal was working alone in his +room with the unusual prospect of a clear evening before him. He had +finished a piece of writing, and was standing before the fire deep in +thought over the first paragraphs of his next chapter, when he heard a +knock; the door opened, and Wallace stood on the threshold. + +'May I come in? It's a shame to disturb you; but I've really got +something 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? or +will you stay and dine? I must dine early to-night for my work. I'll ring +and tell Mason.' + +'No, don't; I can't stay. I must be in Kensington at eight.' He threw +himself into Kendal's deep reading-chair, and looked up at his friend +standing silent and expectant on the hearth-rug. 'Do you remember that +play of mine I showed you in the spring?' + +Kendal took time to think. + +'Perfectly; you mean that play by that young Italian fellow which you +altered and translated? I remember it quite well. I have meant to ask you +about it once or twice lately.' + +'You thought well of it, I know. Well, my sister has got me into the most +uncomfortable 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 want +of money just now, and I had set my heart on the thing's being really +good--well written and well acted. Well, Agnes, in a rash moment two or +three days ago, and without consulting me, told Miss Bretherton the whole +story of the play, and said that she supposed I should soon want somebody +to bring it out for me. Miss Bretherton was enormously struck with the +plot, as Agnes told it to her, and the next time I saw her she insisted +that I should read some scenes from it to her--' + +'Good heavens! and now she has offered to produce it and play the +principal part in it herself,' interrupted Kendal. + +Wallace nodded. 'Just so; you see, my relations with her are so friendly +that it was impossible for me to say no. But I never was in a greater +fix. She was enthusiastic. She walked up and down the room after I'd done +reading, repeating some of the passages, going through some of the +situations, and wound up by saying, "Give it me, Mr. Wallace! It shall be +the first thing I bring out in my October season--if you will let me have +it." 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 of +its lessening. Any piece she plays in is bound to be a success, and I +suppose 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 the +part of Elvira--you remember the plot?--even decently. It's an extremely +difficult part. It would be superb--I think so, at least--in the hands +of an actress who really understood her business; but Miss Bretherton +will 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 the +name of fortune, am I to get out of it?' + +'You had thought,' said Kendal, 'I remember, of Mrs. Pearson for the +heroine.' + +'Yes; I should have tried her. She is not first-rate, but at least she is +intelligent; she understands something of what you want in a part like +that. But for poor Isabel Bretherton, and those about her, the great +points in the play will be that she will have long speeches and be able +to wear "medieval" dresses! I don't suppose she ever heard of Aragon in +her life. Just imagine her playing a high-born Spanish woman of the +fifteenth century! Can't you see her?' + +'Well, after all,' said Kendal, with a little laugh, 'I should see what +the public goes for mostly--that is to say, Isabel Bretherton in +effective costume. No, it would be a great failure--not a failure, of +course, in the ordinary sense. Her beauty, the medieval get-up, and the +romantic plot of the piece, would carry it through, and, as you say, you +would probably make a great deal by it. But, artistically, it would be a +ghastly failure. And Hawes! Hawes, I suppose, would play Macias? Good +heavens!' + +'Yes,' said Wallace, leaning his head on his hands and looking gloomily +out 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 the +least in love with that girl, Kendal, but there isn't anything she asked +me to do for her that I wouldn't do if I could. She's the warmest-hearted +creature--one of the kindest, frankest, sincerest women that ever +stepped. I feel at times that I'd rather cut my hand off than hurt her +feelings by throwing her offer in her face, and yet, that play has been +the apple of my eye to me for months; the thought of seeing it spoilt by +clumsy handling is intolerable to me.' + +'I suppose it would hurt her feelings,' said Kendal meditatively, 'if you +refused?' + +'Yes,' said Wallace emphatically; 'I believe it would wound her +extremely. You see, in spite of all her success, she is beginning to be +conscious that there are two publics in London. There is the small +fastidious public of people who take the theatre seriously, and there is +the large easy-going public who get the only sensation they want out of +her beauty and her personal prestige. The enthusiasts have no difficulty, +as yet, in holding their own against the scoffers, and for a long time +Miss 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 more +than she did. It seems to me that there is a little growing soreness in +her mind, and just now if I refuse to let her have that play it will +destroy 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's +sake, Kendal, help me to some plausible fiction or other!' + +'I wish I could,' said Kendal, pacing up and down, his gray hair falling +forward over his brow. There was a pause, and then Kendal walked +energetically 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 on +that. You know how much I like her. She's all you say, and more; but art +is art, and acting is acting. I, at any rate, take these things +seriously, 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 make +one despair. Sometimes I think it will throw back the popular dramatic +taste for years. At any rate, I am clear that if a man has got hold of a +fine work of art, as you have in that play, he has a duty to it and to +the public. You are bound to see it brought out under the best possible +conditions, and we all know that Miss Bretherton's acting, capped with +Hawes's, would kill it, from the artistic point of view.' + +'Perfectly true, perfectly true,' said Wallace. 'Well, would you have me +tell her so?' + +'You must get out of it somehow. Tell her that the part is one you feel +won't suit her--won't do her justice.' + +'Much good that would do! She thinks the part just made for her--costumes +and all.' + +'Well, then, say you haven't finished your revision, and you must have +time for more work at it; that will postpone the thing, and she will hear +of something else which will put it out of her head.' + +'There are all sorts of reasons against that,' said Wallace; 'it's hardly +worth while going through them. In the first place, she wouldn't believe +me; in the second, she won't forget it, whatever happens, and it would +only put the difficulty off a few weeks at most. I feel so stupid about +the whole thing. I like her too much. I'm so afraid of saying anything to +hurt 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 winning +expression. + +'Do you think _you_ could earn my eternal gratitude and manage the thing +for me? You know we're going to Oxford next Sunday, and I suppose we +shall go to Nuneham, and there will be opportunities for walks, and so +on. Could you possibly take it in hand? She has an immense respect for +you intellectually. If you tell her that you're sure the part won't suit +her, that she won't do herself justice in it; if you could lead the +conversation on to it and try to put her out of love for the scheme +without seeming to have a commission from me in any way, I should be +indeed everlastingly obliged! You wouldn't make a mess of it, as I should +be sure to do. You'd keep your head cool.' + +'Well!' said Kendal, laughing, balancing himself on the table facing +Wallace. 'That's a tempting prospect! But if I don't help you out you'll +give in, I know; you're the softest of men, and I don't want you to give +in.' + +'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 known +you do difficult things before; you manage somehow to get your own way +without offending people.' + +'H'm,' said Kendal; 'I don't know whether that's flattering or not.' He +began to walk up and down the room again cogitating. 'I don't mind +trying,' 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 over +the 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 she +really took it to heart. She attaches one to her. I feel towards her as +though she were a sister--only more interesting, because there's the +charm 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 and +looking for his overcoat, while his face darkened; 'it's an experience I +don'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 own +about her and his friend--her departure from London and Wallace's long +absence in the country. But he said nothing, unless there was sympathy in +the cordial grip of his hand as he accompanied the other to the door. + +On the threshold Wallace turned irresolutely. 'It will be a risk next +Sunday,' he said; 'I'm determined it shan't be anything more. She is not +the 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 you +can, and I'll bless you for ever. What a brute I am never to have asked +after your work! Does it get on?' + +'As much as any work can in London just now. I must take it away with me +somewhere 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 into +his room and stood meditating. It seemed to him that Wallace did not +quite realise the magnificence of his self-devotion. 'For, after all, +it's an awkward business,' he said to himself, shaking his head over his +own temerity. 'How I am to come round a girl as frank, as direct, as +unconventional as that, I don't quite know! But she ought not to have +that play; it's one of the few good things that have been done for the +English stage for a long time past. It's well put together, the plot +good, three or four strongly marked characters, and some fine Victor +Hugoish dialogue, especially in the last act. But there is extravagance +in it, as there is in all the work of that time, and in Isabel +Bretherton's hands a great deal of it would be grotesque: nothing would +save it but her reputation and the get-up, and that would be too great +a shame. No, no; it will not do to have the real thing swamped by all +sorts of irrelevant considerations in this way. I like Miss Bretherton +heartily, but I like good work, and if I can save the play from her, I +shall save her too from what everybody with eyes in his head would see to +be a failure!' + +It was a rash determination. Most men would have prudently left the +matter to those whom it immediately concerned, but Kendal had a Quixotic +side to him, and at this time in his life a whole-hearted devotion to +certain intellectual interests, which decided his action on a point like +this. In spite of his life in society, books and ideas were at this +moment much more real to him than men and women. He judged life from the +standpoint of the student and the man of letters, in whose eyes +considerations, which would have seemed abstract and unreal to other +people, had become magnified and all-important. In this matter of Wallace +and Miss Bretherton he saw the struggle between an ideal interest, so to +speak, and a personal interest, and he was heart and soul for the ideal. +Face to face with the living human creature concerned, his principles, as +we have seen, were apt to give way a little, for the self underneath was +warm-hearted and impressionable, but in his own room and by himself they +were strong and vigorous, and would allow of no compromise. + +He ruminated over the matter during his solitary meal, planning his line +of action. 'It all depends,' he said to himself, 'on that,--if what +Wallace says about her is true, if my opinion has really any weight with +her, I shall be able to manage it without offending her. It's good of her +to speak of me as kindly as she seems to do; I was anything but amiable +on that Surrey Sunday. However, I felt then that she liked me all the +better for plain-speaking; one may be tolerably safe with her that she +won't take offence unreasonably. What a picture she made as she pulled +the primroses to pieces--it seemed all up with one! And then her smile +flashing out--her eagerness to make amends--to sweep away a harsh +impression--her pretty gratefulness--enchanting!' + +On Saturday, at lunch-time, Wallace rushed in for a few minutes to say +that he himself had avoided Miss Bretherton all the week, but that things +were coming to a crisis. 'I've just got this note from her,' he said +despairingly, spreading it out before Kendal, who was making a scrappy +bachelor meal, with a book on each side of him, at a table littered with +papers. + +'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 for +an appointment with her and her business manager, and spoke with +enthusiasm of the play. 'It cannot help being a great success,' she +wrote; '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 for +me. You have never, indeed, I remember, consented in so many words to let +me 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 will +see 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 the +pecuniary advantages of her offer, though she must know that almost any +author would give his eyes just now for such a proposal. Well, we shall +see. If I can't make the thing look less attractive to her without +rousing her suspicions, and if you can't screw up your courage to +refuse--why, you must sign the agreement, my dear fellow, and make the +best of it; you will find something else to inspire you before long.' + +'It's most awkward,' sighed Wallace, as though making up his perplexed +mind with difficulty. 'The great chance is that by Agnes's account she is +very much inclined to regard your opinion as a sort of intellectual +standard; she has two or three times talked of remarks of yours as if +they had struck her. Don't quote me at all, of course. Do it as +impersonally as you can--' + +'If you give me too many instructions,' said Kendal, returning the letter +with a smile, 'I shall bungle it. Don't make me nervous. I can't promise +you 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 Agnes +about the trains to-morrow?' + +'Yes, Paddington, 10 o'clock, and there is an 8.15 train back from +Culham. Mrs. Stuart says we're to lunch in Balliol, run down to Nuneham +afterwards, and leave the boats there, to be brought back.' + +'Yes, we lunch with that friend of ours--I think you know him--Herbert +Sartoris. He has been a Balliol don for about a year. I only trust the +weather will be what it is to-day.' + +The weather was all that the heart of man could desire, and the party met +on the Paddington platform with every prospect of another successful day. +Forbes turned up punctual to the moment, and radiant under the combined +influence of the sunshine and of Miss Bretherton's presence; Wallace had +made all the arrangements perfectly, and the six friends found themselves +presently journeying along to Oxford, at that moderated speed which is +all that a Sunday express can reach. The talk flowed with zest and +gaiety; the Surrey Sunday was a pleasant memory in the background, and +all were glad to find themselves in the same company again. It seemed to +Kendal that Miss Bretherton was looking rather thin and pale, but she +would not admit it, and chattered from her corner to Forbes and himself +with 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 them +alighting at the gate of the new Balliol, where stood Herbert Sartoris +looking out for them. He was a young don with a classical edition on hand +which kept him up working after term, within reach of the libraries, and +he led the way to some pleasant rooms overlooking the inner quadrangle of +Balliol, showing in his well-bred look and manner an abundant +consciousness of the enormous good fortune which had sent him Isabel +Bretherton for a guest. For at that time it was almost as difficult to +obtain the presence of Miss Bretherton at any social festivity as it was +to obtain that of royalty. Her Sundays were the objects of conspiracies +for weeks beforehand on the part of those persons in London society who +were least accustomed to have their invitations refused, and to have and +to hold the famous beauty for more than an hour in his own rooms, and +then to enjoy the privilege of spending five or six long hours on the +river with her, were delights which, as the happy young man felt, would +render him the object of envy to all at least of his fellow-dons below +forty. + +In streamed the party, filling up the book-lined rooms and startling the +two old scouts in attendance into an unwonted rapidity of action. Miss +Bretherton 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 of +green, and threw herself down at last on to the low window-seat with a +sigh 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 that +building is over there; it's too new, it ought to be old and gray like +the 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 for +once.' + +'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 admiration +of that marvellous changing face. 'The vacation is the time they show +themselves; 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 in +vacation they have the colleges and the parks and the Bodleian to +themselves, and you may study their ways, and their spectacles, and their +umbrellas, under the most favourable conditions.' + +'Oh yes,' said Miss Bretherton, with a little scorn, 'people always make +fun 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 Oxford +is 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 declares +already; 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 at +him. 'Do you generally find my enthusiasms cool down?' + +'You are as constant as you are kind,' said Forbes, bowing to her; 'I am +only 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 drive +through the streets. Mr. Wallace, are you and Mrs. Stuart really going to +forbid me sight-seeing?' + +'Of course!' said Wallace emphatically. 'That's one of the fundamental +rules of the society. Our charter would be a dead letter if we let you +enter a single college on your way to the river to-day.' + +'The only art, my dear Isabel,' said Mrs. Stuart, 'that you will be +allowed to study to-day, will be the art of conversation.' + +'And a most fatiguing one, too!' exclaimed Forbes; 'it beats sight-seeing +hollow. But, my dear Miss Bretherton, Kendal and I will make it up to +you. We'll give you an illustrated history of Oxford on the way to +Nuneham. I'll do the pictures, and he shall do the letterpress. Oh! the +good times I've had up here--much better than he ever had'--nodding +across at Kendal, who was listening. 'He was too proper behaved to enjoy +himself; he got all the right things, all the proper first-classes and +prizes, poor fellow! But, as for me, I used to scribble over my +note-books all lecture-time, and amuse myself the rest of the day. And +then, you see, I was up twenty years earlier than he was, and the world +was not as virtuous then as it is now, by a long way.' + +Kendal was interrupting, when Forbes, who was in one of his maddest +moods, turned round upon his chair to watch a figure passing along the +quadrangle in front of the bay-window. + +'I say, Sartoris, isn't that Camden, the tutor who was turned out of +Magdalen a year or two ago for that atheistical book of his, and whom you +took in, as you do all the disreputables? Ah, I knew it! + +"By the pricking of my thumbs +Something 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 the +persecutors who are the curiosity.' + +'I don't know that,' said young Sartoris. 'We liberals are by no means +the cocks of the walk that we were a few years ago. You see, now we have +got nothing to pull against, as it were. So long as we had two or three +good grievances, we could keep the party together and attract all the +young men. We were Israel going up against the Philistines, who had us in +their 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 we +who 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 that +prevents Oxford becoming as dull as the rest of the world. All your +picturesqueness, so to speak, has been struck out of the struggle between +the two forces. The Church force is the one that has given you all your +buildings and your beauty, while, as for you liberals, who will know such +a lot of things that you're none the happier for knowing--well, I suppose +you keep the place habitable for the plain man who doesn't want to be +bullied. But it's a very good thing the other side are strong enough to +keep you in order.' + +The conversation flowed on vigorously--Forbes guiding it, now here, now +there, 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 Miss +Bretherton. + +'Edward has told you of my escapade,' said Mrs. Stuart. 'Yes, I have put +my 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 came +to tell her. You see, I've seen so much of her lately, it slipped out +when we were talking.' + +'It was very natural,' said Kendal, glad to notice from Mrs. Stuart's way +of attacking the subject that she knew nothing of his own share in the +matter. It would have embarrassed him to be conscious of another +observer. 'Oh, a hundred things may turn up; there are ways out of these +things if one is determined to find them.' + +Mrs. Stuart shook her head. 'She is so curiously bent upon it. She is +possessed with the idea that the play will suit her better than any she +has had yet. Don't you think her looking very tired? I have come to know +her much better these last few weeks, and it seems absurd; but I get +anxious about her. Of course, she is an enormous success, but I fancy the +theatrical 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 the +temper of the audience a good deal flatter.' + +'Yes,' said Mrs. Stuart; 'and then there is that curious little sister of +hers, whom you haven't seen, and who counts for a good deal. I believe +that in reality she is very fond of Isabel, and very proud of her, but +she's very jealous of her too, and she takes her revenge upon her sister +for her beauty and her celebrity by collecting the hostile things people +say about her acting, and pricking them into her every now and then, like +so many pins. At first Isabel was so sure of herself and the public that +she 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 came +over, nor so happy, I think, and the criticisms tell more. She is +heartily sick of the _White Lady_, and is bent upon a change, and I +believe she thinks this play of Edward's is just what she wants to enable +her to strengthen her hold upon the public.' + +'There never was a greater delusion,' said Kendal; 'it's the last part in +the 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 so +well. It's a long tragic part--a tremendous strain, and would take all +the 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 she +did. The paleness of the beautiful face opposite indeed had touched his +sympathies very keenly, and he was beginning to think the safety of +Wallace'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 be +hanged,' he said to himself, 'if I come within a thousand miles of +hurting 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 the +schools'-quadrangle, and a drive down High Street. Mr. Sartoris, who had +been an examiner during the summer term, and had so crept into the good +graces of the Clerk of the Schools, was sent off to suborn that +functionary for the keys of the iron gates which on Sunday shut out the +Oxford world from the sleepy precincts of the Bodleian. The old clerk was +in a lax vacation mood, and the envoy returned key in hand. Mrs. Stuart +and Forbes undertook the guidance of Miss Bretherton, while the others +started to prepare the boats. It was a hot June day, and the gray +buildings, with their cool shadows, stood out delicately against a pale +blue sky dappled with white cloud. Her two guides led Miss Bretherton +through the quadrangle of the schools, which, fresh as it was from the +hands of the restorer, rose into the air like some dainty white piece of +old-world confectionery. For the windows are set so lightly in the +stone-work, and are so nearly level with the wall, that the whole great +building has an unsubstantial card-board air, as if a touch might dint +it. + +'The doctrinaires call it a fault,' said Forbes indignantly, pointing out +the feature to his companions. 'I'd like to see them build anything +nowadays with half so much imagination and charm.' + +They looked enviously at the closed door of the Bodleian, they read the +Latin names of the schools just freshly painted at intervals round the +quadrangle, and then Forbes led them out upon the steps in front of the +Radcliffe and S. Mary's, and let them take their time a little. + +'How strange that there should be anything in the world,' cried Miss +Bretherton, 'so beautiful all through, so all of a piece as this! I had +no idea it would be half so good. Don't, don't laugh at me, Mr. Forbes. I +have not seen all the beautiful things you other people have seen. Just +let me rave.' + +'_I_ laugh at you!' said Forbes, standing back in the shadow of the +archway, his fine lined face, aglow with pleasure, turned towards her. +'_I_, who have got Oxford in my bones and marrow, so to speak! Why, every +stone in the place is sacred to me! Poetry lives here, if she has fled +from all the world besides. No, no; say what you like, it cannot be too +strong for me.' + +Mrs. Stuart, meanwhile, kept her head cool, admired all that she was +expected to admire, and did it well, and never forgot that the carriage +was waiting for them, and that Miss Bretherton was not to be tired. It +was she who took charge of the other two, piloted them safely into the +fly, carried them down the High Street, sternly refused to make a stop at +Magdalen, and finally landed them in triumph to the minute at the great +gate of Christchurch. Then they strolled into the quiet cathedral, +delighted themselves with its irregular bizarre beauty, its unexpected +turns and corners, which gave it a capricious fanciful air for all the +solidity and business-like strength of its Norman framework, and as they +rambled out again, Forbes made them pause over a window in the northern +aisle--a window by some Flemish artist of the fifteenth century, who +seems to have embodied in it at once all his knowledge and all his +dreams. In front sat Jonah under his golden-tinted gourd--an ill-tempered +Flemish peasant--while behind him the indented roofs of the Flemish town +climbed the whole height of the background. It was probably the artist's +native town; some roof among those carefully-outlined gables sheltered +his own household Lares. But the hill on which the town stood, and the +mountainous background and the purple sea, were the hills and the sea not +of Belgium, but of a dream country--of Italy, perhaps, the medieval +artist's paradise. + +'Happy man!' said Forbes, turning to Miss Bretherton; 'look, he put it +together four centuries ago, all he knew and all he dreamt of. And there +it is to this day, and beyond the spirit of that window there is no +getting. For all our work, if we do it honestly, is a compound of what we +know and what we dream.' + +Miss Bretherton looked at him curiously. It was as though for the first +time 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 to +him sympathetically, and looked at the window closely, as though trying +to follow all he had been saying. But it struck Mrs. Stuart that there +was often a bewilderment in her manner which had been strange to it on +her first entrance into London. Those strong emphatic ways Kendal had +first noticed in her were less frequent. Sometimes she struck Mrs. Stuart +as having the air of a half-blindfold person trying to find her way along +strange roads. + +They passed out into the cool and darkness of the cloisters, and through +the new buildings, and soon they were in the Broad Walk, trees as old as +the Commonwealth bending overhead, and in front the dazzling green of the +June meadows, the shining river in the distance, and the sweep of +cloud-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 the +embarkation, for on Sunday the river is forsaken, and they were the only +adventurers on its blue expanse. Off they pushed, Miss Bretherton, +Kendal, Mr. Stuart, and Forbes in one boat, the remaining members of the +party in the other. Isabel Bretherton had thrown off the wrap which she +always carried with her, and which she had gathered round her in the +cathedral, and it lay about her in green fur-edged folds, bringing her +white dress into relief, the shapely fall of the shoulders and all the +round slimness of her form. As Kendal took the stroke oar, after he had +arranged everything for her comfort, he asked her if Oxford was what she +had expected. + +'A thousand times better!' she said eagerly. + +'You have a wonderful power of enjoyment. One would think your London +life would have spoilt it a little.' + +'I don't think anything ever could. I was always laughed at for it as a +child, I enjoy everything.' + +'Including such a day as you had yesterday? How _can_ you play the _White +Lady_ twice in one day? It's enough to wear you out.' + +'Oh, everybody does it. I was bound to give a _matinée_ to the profession +some time, and yesterday had been fixed for it for ages. But I have only +given three _matinées_ altogether, and I shan't give another before my +time is up.' + +'That's a good hearing,' said Kendal. 'Do you get tired of the _White +Lady_?' + +'Yes,' she said emphatically; 'I am sick of her. But,' she added, bending +forward with her hands clasped on her knee, so that what she said could +be heard by Kendal only; 'have you heard, I wonder, what I have in my +head for the autumn? Oh well, we must not talk of it now; I have no right +to make it public yet. But I should like to tell you when we get to +Nuneham, if there's an opportunity.' + +'We will make one,' said Kendal, with an inward qualm. And she fell back +again with a nod and a smile. + +On they passed, in the blazing sunshine, through Iffley lock and under +the green hill crowned with Iffley village and its Norman church. The hay +was out in the fields, and the air was full of it. Children, in tidy +Sunday frocks, ran along the towing-path to look at them; a reflected +heaven smiled upon them from the river depths; wild rose-bushes overhung +the water, and here and there stray poplars rose like land-marks into +the sky. The heat, after a time, deadened conversation. Forbes every now +and then would break out with some comment on the moving landscape, which +showed the delicacy and truth of his painter's sense, or set the boat +alive with laughter by some story of the unregenerate Oxford of his own +undergraduate days; but there were long stretches of silence when, except +to the rowers, the world seemed asleep, and the regular fall of the oars +like 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 shade +lay deep and green on the still water, spanned by a rustic bridge, and +broken every now and then by the stately whiteness of the swans. Rich +steeply-rising woods shut in the left-hand bank, and foliage, grass, and +wild flowers seemed suddenly to have sprung into a fuller luxuriance than +elsewhere. + +'It's too early for tea,' said Mrs. Stuart's clear little voice on the +bank; 'at least, if we have it directly it will leave such a long time +before the train starts. Wouldn't a stroll be pleasant first?' + +Isabel Bretherton and Kendal only waited for the general assent before +they wandered off ahead of the others. 'I should like very much to have a +word with you,' she had said to him as he handed her out of the boat. And +now, 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 the +wood, a little out of breath after a bit of steep ascent, 'that I have +got hold of a play for next October that I think you are rather specially +interested in--at least, Mr. Wallace told me you had heard it all, and +given him advice about it while he was writing it. I want so much to hear +your ideas about it. It always seems to me that you have thought more +about the stage and seen more acting than any one else I know, and I care +for your opinion very much indeed--do tell me, if you will, what you +thought of _Elvira!_' + +'Well,' said Kendal quietly, as he made her give up her wrap to him to +carry, 'there is a great deal that's fine in it. The original sketch, as +the Italian author left it, was good, and Wallace has enormously improved +upon it. Only--' + +'Isn't it most dramatic?' she exclaimed, interrupting him; 'there are so +many strong situations in it, and though one might think the subject a +little unpleasant if one only heard it described, yet there is nothing in +the treatment but what is noble and tragic. I have very seldom felt so +stirred by anything. I find myself planning the scenes, thinking over +them this way and that incessantly.' + +'It is very good and friendly of you,' said Kendal warmly, 'to wish me to +give 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 are +one or two points in it that might be changed. I shall press Mr. Wallace +to make a few alterations. I wonder what were the changes that occurred +to you?' + +'I wasn't thinking of changes,' said Kendal, not venturing to look at her +as she walked beside him, her white dress trailing over the moss-grown +path, and her large hat falling back from the brilliant flushed cheeks +and queenly throat. 'I was thinking of the play itself, of how the part +would really suit you.' + +'Oh, I have no doubts at all about that,' she said, but with a quick look +at him; 'I always feel at once when a part will suit me, and I have +fallen 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 of +scolding and declaiming. _Elvira_ will give me an opportunity of showing +what I can do with something soft and pathetic. I have had such +difficulties 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 in +something poetical and romantic, and this is new, and the mounting of it +might be quite original.' + +'And yet I doubt,' said Kendal; 'I think the part of Elvira wants +variety, 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 lighter +vein, 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 can +play a comedy part, of course--every actor ought to be able to--but I +don'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 which +would be less of a continuous tragic strain than this. Why, almost all +the modern tragic plays have their passages of relief, but the texture +of _Elvira_ is so much the same throughout,--I cannot conceive a greater +demand on any one. And then you must consider your company. Frankly, I +cannot imagine a part less suited to Mr. Hawes than Macias; and his +difficulties 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 should +have said--only, of course, you must know much better--that it is a +little risky to give the British public such very serious fare as this, +and immediately after the _White Lady_. The English theatre-goer never +seems to me to take kindly to medievalism--kings and knights and nobles +and the fifteenth century are very likely to bore him. Not that I mean to +imply for a moment that the play would be a failure in point of +popularity. You have got such a hold that you could carry anything +through; but I am inclined to think that in _Elvira_ you would be rather +fighting against wind and tide, and that, as I said before, it would be a +great strain upon you.' + +'The public makes no objection to Madame Desforêts in Victor Hugo,' she +answered quickly, even sharply. 'Her parts, so far as I know anything +about them, are just these romantic parts, and she has made her enormous +reputation 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 voice +which startled him; 'it is not that. It is that I am I, and Madame +Desforêts is Madame Desforêts. Oh, I see! I see very well that your mind +is against it. And Mr. Wallace--there were two or three things in his +manner which have puzzled me. He has never said yes to my proposal +formally. I understand perfectly what it means; you think that I shall do +the 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 her +manner 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 does +suit me? Of course, that is what you mean. If I cannot act Elvira, I am +good for nothing--I am worse than good for nothing--I am an impostor, a +sham!' + +She sat down on the raised edge of the bank, for she was trembling, and +clasped her quivering hands on her knees. Kendal was beside himself with +distress. How had he blundered so, and what had brought this about? It +was so unexpected, it was incredible. + +'Do--do believe me!' he exclaimed, bending over her. 'I never meant +anything the least disrespectful to you; I never dreamt of it. You asked +me to give you my true opinion, and my criticism applied much more to the +play than to yourself. Think nothing of it, if you yourself are +persuaded. You must know much better than I can what will suit you. And +as for Wallace--Wallace will be proud to let you do what you will with +his play.' + +It seemed to him that he would have said anything in the world to soothe +her. It was so piteous, so intolerable to him to watch that quivering +lip. + +'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; I +saw 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 is +worth having is beginning to say. My acting has been a nightmare to me +lately. I believe it has all been a great, great mistake.' + +Kendal never felt a keener hatred of the conventions which rule the +relations between men and women. Could he only simply have expressed his +own feeling, he would have knelt beside her on the path, have taken the +trembling 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 yet +it seemed to him as if the whole world had resolved itself into his own +individuality and hers, and as if the gay river party and the bright +friendly relations of an hour before were separated from the present by +an impassable gulf. And, worst of all, there seemed to be a strange +perversity in his speech--a fate which drove him into betraying every +here 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 have +charmed the English public as no one else has ever charmed it. Is not +that a great thing to have done? And if I, who am very fastidious and +very captious, and over-critical in a hundred ways--if I am inclined to +think that a part is rather more than you, with your short dramatic +experience, can compass quite successfully, why, what does it matter? I +may be quite wrong. Don't take any notice of my opinion: forget it, and +let me help you, if I can, by talking over the play.' + +She shook her head with a bitter little smile. 'No, no; I shall never +forget it. Your attitude only brought home to me, almost more strongly +than 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 the +criticisms he had allowed himself to make of her were recoiling in one +avenging mass upon his head. 'I never felt anything but the warmest +admiration for your courage, your work, your womanly goodness and +sweetness.' + +'Yes,' she said, rising and holding out her hand half-unconsciously for +her cloak, which she put round her as though the wood had suddenly grown +cold; '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? Is +there nothing in me but this beauty that people talk of, and which I +sometimes _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 itself +against the judgment which had been passed upon it, as if some hidden +force hardly suspected even by herself were beating against its bars. +Kendal watched her in helpless silence. 'Tell me,' she said, fixing her +deep 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 of +your heart--that is, if you are interested enough in me--what is it I +want? What is it that seems to be threatening me with failure as an +artist? I work all day long, my work is never out of my head; it seems to +pursue me all night. But the more I struggle with it the less successful +I seem even to myself.' + +Her look was haunting: there was despair and there was hope in it. It +implied that she had set him up in her impulsive way as a sort of oracle +who alone could help her out of her difficulty. In presence of that look +his 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 are +dissatisfied with your work--it is the beginning of all real success. But +you want positive knowledge--the knowledge you could get from books, and +the knowledge other people could teach you. You want a true sense of what +has been done and what can be done with your art, and you want an insight +into 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 so +complicated that none of us can get on without using the great stores of +experience others have laid up for us.' + +It was all out now. He had spoken his inmost mind. They had stopped +again, and she was looking at him intently; it struck him that he could +not possibly have said what he had been saying unless he had been led on +by an instinctive dependence upon a great magnanimity of nature in her. +And then the next moment the strange opposites the matter held in it +flashed across him. He saw the crowded theatre, the white figure on the +stage, his ear seemed to be full of the clamour of praise with which +London had been overwhelming its favourite. It was to this spoilt child +of fortune that he had been playing the schoolmaster--he, one captious +man of letters, against the world. + +But she had not a thought of the kind, or rather, the situation presented +itself to her in exactly the contrary light. To her Kendal's words, +instead of being those of a single critic, were the voice and the +embodiment of a hundred converging impressions and sensations, and she +felt a relief in having analysed to the full the vague trouble which had +been 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, but +almost when I first saw you I felt that there was something ominous in +you to me. My dream, in which I have been living, has never been so +perfect since, and now I think it has gone. Don't look so grieved,' she +cried, inexpressibly touched by his face, 'I am glad you told me all you +thought. 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 give +her up. I am not vexed, I am not angry. Don't you think now we had better +go back to Mrs. Stuart? I should like a rest with her before we all meet +again.' + +She moved forward as she spoke, and it seemed to Kendal that her step was +unsteady and that she was deadly white. He planted himself before her in +the descending path, and held out a hand to her to help her. She gave him +her own, and he carried it impetuously to his lips. + +'You are nobleness itself!' he cried, from the depths of his heart. 'I +feel as if I had been the merest pedant and blunderer--the most +incapable, clumsy idiot.' + +She smiled, but she could not answer. And in a few more moments voices +and steps could be heard approaching, and the scene was over. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +The Sunday party separated at Paddington on the night of the Nuneham +expedition, and Wallace and Eustace Kendal walked eastward together. The +journey home had been very quiet. Miss Bretherton had been forced to +declare herself 'extremely tired,' and Mrs. Stuart's anxiety and sense of +responsibility about her had communicated themselves to the rest of the +party. + +'It is the effect of my long day yesterday,' she said apologetically to +Forbes, who hovered about her with those affectionate attentions which a +man on the verge of old age pays with freedom to a young girl. 'It won't +do to let the public see so much of me in future. But I don't want to +spoil our Sunday. Talk to me, and I shall forget it.' + +Wallace, who had had his eyes about him when she and Eustace Kendal +emerged from the wood in view of the rest of the party, was restless and +ill at ease, but there was no getting any information, even by a gesture, +from Kendal, who sat in his corner diligently watching the moonlight on +the flying fields, or making every now and then some disjointed attempts +at conversation with Mrs. Stuart. + +At the station Miss Bretherton's carriage was waiting; the party of +gentlemen saw her and Mrs. Stuart, who insisted on taking her home, into +it; the pale, smiling face bent forward; she waved her hand in response +to the lifted hats, and she was gone. + +'Well?' said Wallace, with a world of inquiry in his voice, as he and +Kendal turned eastward. + +'It has been an unfortunate business,' said Kendal abruptly. 'I never did +a thing worse, I think, or spent a more painful half-hour.' + +Wallace's face fell. 'I wish I hadn't bored you with my confounded +affairs,' he exclaimed. 'It was too bad!' + +Kendal was inclined to agree inwardly, for he was in a state of irritable +reaction; but he had the justice to add aloud, 'It was I who was the fool +to undertake it. And I think, indeed, it could have been done, but that +circumstances, which neither you nor I had weighed sufficiently, were +against 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 it +on 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 she +talked of the "contempt" that you and I feel for her!' + +'Good heavens!' cried Wallace, feeling most unjustly persuaded that his +friend had bungled the matter horribly. + +'Yes,' said Kendal deliberately; '"contempt," that was it. I don't know +how it came about. All I know is, that what I said, which seemed to me +very harmless, was like a match to a mine. But she told me to tell you +that she made no further claim on _Elvira_. So the play is safe.' + +'D---- the play!' cried Wallace vigorously, a sentiment to which perhaps +Kendal's silence gave consent. 'But I cannot let it rest there. I must +write to her.' + +'I don't think I would, if I were you,' said Kendal. 'I should let it +alone. She looks upon the matter as finished. She told me particularly to +tell you that she was _not_ vexed, and you may be quite sure that she +isn'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 I +remember.' + +He gave an abridged account of the conversation, which made matters a +little clearer, though by no means less uncomfortable, to Wallace. When +it was over, they were nearing Vigo Street, the point at which their +routes diverged, Wallace having rooms in the Albany, and Kendal hailed a +hansom. + +'If I were you,' he said, as it came up, 'I should, as I said before, let +the thing alone as much as possible. She will probably speak to you about +it, and you will, of course, say what you like, but I'm pretty sure she +won't take up the play again, and if she feels a coolness towards +anybody, 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 though +determined to strike a lighter key. 'Don't be so dismal, things will look +differently to-morrow morning--they generally do--there's no tremendous +harm done. I'm sorry I didn't do your bidding better. Honestly, when I +come to think over it, I don't see how I could have done otherwise. But +I 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 were +burning, and threw himself into his reading-chair, beside which his books +and papers stood ready to his hand. Generally, nothing gave him a greater +sense of _bien-être_ than this nightly return, after a day spent in +society, to these silent and faithful companions of his life. He was +accustomed to feel the atmosphere of his room when he came back to it +charged with welcome. It was as though the thoughts and schemes he had +left warm and safe in shelter there started to life again after a day's +torpor, and thronged to meet him. His books smiled at him with friendly +faces, the open page called to him to resume the work of the morning--he +was, in every sense, at home. Tonight, however, the familiar spell seemed +to have lost its force. After a hasty supper he took up some proofs, pen +in hand. But the first page was hardly turned before they had dropped on +to his knee. It seemed to him as if he still felt on his arm the folds of +a green, fur-edged cloak, as if the touch of a soft cold hand were still +lingering in his. Presently he fell to recalling every detail of the +afternoon scene,--the arching beech trees, the rich red and brown of the +earth beneath, tinged with the winter sheddings of the trees, the little +raised bank, her eyes as she looked up at him, the soft wisps of her +golden brown hair under her hat. What superb, unapproachable beauty it +was! how living, how rich in content and expression! + +'Am I in love with Isabel Bretherton?' he asked himself at last, lying +back on his chair with his eyes on the portrait of his sister. 'Perhaps +Marie could tell me--I don't understand myself. I don't think so. And if +I were, I am not a youngster, and my life is a tolerably full one. I +could hold myself in and trample it down if it were best to do so. I can +hardly imagine myself absorbed in a great passion. My bachelor life is a +good many years old--my habits won't break up easily. And, supposing I +felt 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. 'And +there is absolutely no sort of reason in my letting myself fall in love +with Isabel Bretherton! She has never given me the smallest right to +think that she takes any more interest in me than she does in hundreds of +people whom she meets on friendly terms, unless it may be an intellectual +interest, as Wallace imagines, and that's a poor sort of stepping-stone +to love! And if it were ever possible that she should, this afternoon has +taken away the possibility. For, however magnanimous a woman may be, a +thing like that rankles: it can't help it. She will feel the sting of it +worse to-morrow than to-day, and, though she will tell herself that she +bears no grudge, it will leave a gulf between us. For, of course, she +must go on acting, and, whatever depressions she may have, she must +believe in herself; no one can go on working without it, and I shall +always recall to her something harsh and humiliating!' + +'Supposing, by any chance, it were not so--supposing I were able to +gather up my relation with her again and make it a really friendly one--I +should take, I think, a very definite line; I should make up my mind +to be of use to her. After all, it is true what she says: there are many +things in me that might be helpful to her, and everything there was she +should have the benefit of. I would make a serious purpose of it. She +should find me a friend worth having.' + +His thoughts wandered on a while in this direction. It was pleasant to +see 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 a +fool!' he said to himself resolutely at last, 'and I may as well go to +bed and put her out of my mind. The chance is over--gone--done with, if +it ever existed.' + +The next morning, on coming down to breakfast, he saw among his letters a +handwriting which startled him. Where had he seen it before? In Wallace's +hand 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--on +Monday, if all goes well. We go to Switzerland for a while, and then to +Venice, which people tell me is often very pleasant in August. We shall +be there by the first week in August, and Mr. Wallace tells me he hears +from you that your sister, Madame de Châteauvieux, will be there about +the same time. I forgot to ask you yesterday, but, if you think she would +not 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 she +would not find me a troublesome person! We shall hardly, I suppose, meet +again before I start. If not, please remember that my friends can always +find me on Sunday afternoon.--Yours very truly, ISABEL BRETHERTON.' + +Kendal's hand closed tightly over the note. Then he put it carefully back +into its envelope, and walked away with his hands behind him and the note +in them, to stare out of window at the red roofs opposite. + +'That is like her,' he murmured to himself; 'I wound and hurt her: she +guesses I shall suffer for it, and, by way of setting up the friendly +bond 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 work +than that morning, and at last, in despair, he pushed his book aside, and +wrote an answer to Miss Bretherton, and, when that was accomplished, a +long letter to his sister. The first took him longer than its brevity +seemed to justify. It contained no reference to anything but her request. +He felt a compulsion upon him to treat the situation exactly as she had +done, but, given this limitation, how much cordiality and respect could +two sides of letterpaper be made to carry with due regard to decorum and +grammar? + +When he next met Wallace, that hopeful, bright-tempered person had +entirely recovered his cheerfulness. Miss Bretherton, he reported, had +attacked the subject of _Elvira_ with him, but so lightly that he had no +opportunity for saying any of the skilful things he had prepared. + +'She evidently did not want the question seriously opened,' he said, 'so +I followed your advice and let it alone, and since then she has been +charming 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.' To +which Kendal heartily agreed. + +A few days afterwards the newspapers gave a prominent place to reports of +Miss 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, and +compliments, flowers, and farewells showered upon her. Kendal, who had +not meant to go at the time when tickets were to be had, tried about the +middle of the week after the Oxford Sunday to get a seat, but found it +utterly impossible. He might have managed it by applying to her through +Edward 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 and +his answer close his relations with her for the present. Everywhere else +but in the theatre she might still regard him as her friend; but there +they could not but be antagonistic in some degree one to another, and not +even intellectually did Kendal wish just now to meet her on a footing of +antagonism. + +So, when Saturday night came, he passed the hours of Miss Bretherton's +triumph at a ministerial evening party, where it seemed to him that the +air 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 he +thought he noticed in the common talk about her that criticism of her as +an actress was a good deal more general than it had been at the beginning +of the season. The little knot of persons with an opinion and reasons for +it had gradually influenced the larger public. Nevertheless, there was no +abatement whatever of the popular desire to see her, whether on the stage +or in society. The _engouement_ for her personally, for her beauty, and +her fresh pure womanliness, showed no signs of yielding, and would hold +out, Kendal thought, for some time, against a much stronger current of +depreciation on the intellectual side than had as yet set in. + +He laid down the Monday paper with a smile of self-scorn and muttered: 'I +should like to know how much she remembers by this time of the prig who +lectured to her in Nuneham woods a week ago!' In the evening his _Pall +Mall Gazette_ told him that Miss Bretherton had crossed the channel that +morning, _en route_ for Paris and Venice. He fell to calculating the +weeks which must elapse before his sister would be in Venice, and before +he could hear of any meeting between her and the Bretherton party, and +wound up his calculations by deciding that London was already hot and +would soon be empty, and that, as soon as he could gather together +certain books he was in want of, he would carry them and his proofs down +into Surrey, refuse all invitations to country houses, and devote himself +to his work. + +Before he left he paid a farewell call to Mrs. Stuart, who gave him full +and enthusiastic accounts of Isabel Bretherton's last night, and informed +him that her brother talked of following the Brethertons to Venice some +time in August. + +'Albert,' she said, speaking of her husband, 'declares that he cannot get +away for more than three weeks, and that he must have some walking; so +that, what we propose at present is to pick up Edward at Venice at the +end of August, and move up all together into the mountains afterwards. +Oh, Mr. Kendal,' she went on a little nervously, as if not quite knowing +whether to attack the subject or not, 'it _was_ devoted of you to throw +yourself into the breach for Edward as you did at Oxford. I am afraid it +must have been very disagreeable, both to you and to her. When Edward +told me of it next morning it made me cold to think of it. I made up my +mind that our friendship--yours and ours--with her was over. But do you +know she came to call on me that very afternoon--how she made time I +don't know--but she did. Naturally, I was very uncomfortable, but she +began to talk of it in the calmest way while we were having tea. "Mr. +Kendal was probably quite right," she said, "in thinking the part +unsuited to me; anyhow, I asked him for his opinion, and I should be a +poor creature to mind his giving it." And then she laughed and said that +I must ask Edward to keep his eyes open for anything that would do better +for her in the autumn. And since then she has behaved as if she had +forgotten all about it. I never knew any one with less smallness about +her.' + +'No; she is a fine creature,' said Kendal, almost mechanically. How +little Mrs. Stuart knew--or rather, how entirely remote she was from +_feeling_--what had happened! It seemed to him that the emotion of that +scene was still thrilling through all his pulses, yet to what ordinary +little proportions had it been reduced in Mrs. Stuart's mind! He alone +had seen the veil lifted, had come close to the energetic reality of the +girl's nature. That Isabel Bretherton could feel so, could look so, was +known only to him--the thought had pain in it, but the keenest pleasure +also. + +'Do you know,' said Mrs. Stuart presently, with a touch of reproach in +her 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 had +fallen. It was such a pretty sight, you ought not to have missed it. The +Prince had come to say good-bye to her, and, as we came in, she was just +turning away in her long phantom dress with the white hood falling round +her head, like that Romney picture--don't you remember?--of Lady +Hamilton,--Mr. Forbes has drawn her in it two or three times. The stage +was full of people. Mr. Forbes was there, of course, and Edward, and +ourselves, 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 not +having been able to get a seat, which I thought clumsy of him, for, of +course, 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 if +you had been there.' + +'It seems to me,' said Kendal, with vexation in his voice, 'that there is +a fate against my doing anything as I ought to do it. I thought, on the +whole, it would be better not to make a fuss about it when it came to +the last. You see she must look upon me to some extent as a critical, if +not a hostile, influence, and I did not wish to remind her of my +existence.' + +'Oh well,' said Mrs. Stuart in her cheery commonsense way, 'that evening +was such an overwhelming experience that I don't suppose she could have +felt 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 long +scenes she does more intelligently, and even the death-scene is +better,--less monotonous. I sometimes think she will surprise us all +yet.' + +'Very likely,' said Kendal absently, not in reality believing a word of +it, but it was impossible to dissent. + +'I hope so,' exclaimed Mrs. Stuart, 'with all my heart. She has been very +depressed often these last weeks, and certainly, on the whole, people +have been harder upon her than they were at first. I am so glad that she +and your sister will meet in Venice. Madame de Châteauvieux is just the +friend she wants.' + +Kendal walked home feeling the rankling of a fresh pin-point. She had +asked for him, and he had not been there! What must she think, +apparently, but that, from a sour, morose consistency, he had refused to +be a witness of her triumph! + +Oh, hostile fates! + + * * * * * + +A week later Eustace was settled in the Surrey farmhouse which had +sheltered the Sunday League on its first expedition. The Surrey country +was in its full glory: the first purple heather was fully out, and the +distant hills rose blue and vaporous across stretches of vivid crimson, +broken here and there by the dim gray greens of the furze or the sharper +colour of the bracken. The chorus of birds had died away, but the nests +were not yet tenantless. The great sand-pit near the farmhouse was still +vocal with innumerable broods of sand-martins, still enlivened by the +constant skimming to and fro of the parent birds. And under Kendal's +sitting-room window a pair of tomtits, which the party had watched that +May Sunday, were just launching their young family on the world. One of +his first walks was to that spot beyond the pond where they had made +their afternoon camping-ground. The nut-hatches had fled--fled, Kendal +hoped, some time before, for the hand of the spoiler had been near their +dwelling, and its fragments lay scattered on the ground. He presently +learnt to notice that he never heard the sharp sound of the bird's +tapping beak among the woods without a little start of recollection. + +Outside his walks, his days were spent in continuous literary effort. His +book was in a condition which called for all his energies, and he threw +himself vigorously into it. The first weeks were taken up with a long +review of Victor Hugo's prose and poetry, with a view to a final critical +result. It seemed to him that there was stuff in the great Frenchman to +suit all weathers and all skies. There were sombre, wind-swept days, when +the stretches of brown ling not yet in flower, the hurrying clouds, and +the bending trees, were in harmony with all the fierce tempestuous side +of the great Romantic. There were others when the homely, tender, +domestic aspect of the country formed a sort of framework and +accompaniment to the simpler patriarchal elements in the books which +Kendal had about him. Then, when the pages on Victor Hugo were +written, those already printed on Chateaubriand began to dissatisfy him, +and he steeped himself once more in the rolling artificial harmonies, the +mingled beauty and falsity of one of the most wonderful of styles, that +he 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 first +month 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 with +amusing sketches of the political or artistic celebrities with whom the +little Norman town swarms in the season. + +After the third or fourth letter, however, Kendal began to look +restlessly at the Etretât postmark, to reflect that Marie had been there +a long time, and to wonder she was not already tired of such a public +sort of existence as the Etretât life. The bathing scenes, and the +fire-eating deputy, and the literary woman with a mission for the spread +of naturalism, became very flat to him. He was astonished that his sister +was not as anxious to start for Italy as he was to hear that she had done +so. + +This temper of his was connected with the fact that after the first of +August he began to develop a curious impatience on the subject of the +daily post. At Old House Farm the post was taken as leisurely as +everything else; there was no regular delivery, and Kendal generally was +content to trust to the casual mercies of the butcher or baker for his +letters. But, after the date mentioned, it occurred to him that his +letters reached him with an abominable irregularity, and that it would do +his work no harm, but, on the contrary, much good, if he took a daily +constitutional in the direction of the post-office, which gave a touch of +official dignity to the wasp-filled precincts of a grocer's shop in the +village, some two miles off. + +For some considerable number of days, however, his walks only furnished +him with food for reflection on the common disproportion of means to ends +in this life. His sister's persistence in sticking to the soil of France +began to seem to him extraordinary! However, at last, the monotony of the +Etretât postmarks was broken by a postcard from Lyons. 'We are here for +the 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 the +Brethertons be? I must trust to my native wits, I suppose, when I get +there. She is not the sort of light to be hidden under a bushel.' + +This postcard disturbed Kendal not a little, and he felt irritably that +somebody had mismanaged matters. He had supposed, and indeed suggested, +that Miss Bretherton should enclose his note in one of her own to his +sister's Paris address, giving, at the same time, some indication of a +place of meeting in Venice. But if she had not done this, it was very +possible that the two women might miss each other after all. Sometimes, +when he had been contemplating this possibility with disgust, he would +with a great effort make himself reflect why it was that he cared about +the matter so disproportionately. Why was he so deeply interested in +Isabel Bretherton's movements abroad, and in the meeting which would +bring her, so to speak, once more into his own world? Why! because it was +impossible, he would answer himself indignantly, not to feel a profound +interest in any woman who had ever shared as much emotion with you as she +had with him in those moments at Nuneham, who had received a wound at +your hands, had winced under it, and still had remained gracious, and +kind, and womanly! 'I should be a hard-hearted brute,' he said to +himself, 'if I did not feel a very deep and peculiar interest in her--if +I did not desire that Marie's friendship should abundantly make up to her +for my blundering!' + +Did he ever really deceive himself into imagining that this was all? It +is difficult to say. The mind of a man no longer young, and trained in +all the subtleties of thought, does not deal with an invading sentiment +exactly as a youth would do with all his experience to come. It steals +upon him more slowly, he is capable of disguising it to himself longer, +of escaping from it into other interests. Passion is in its ultimate +essence the same, wherever it appears and under whatever conditions, but +it possesses itself of human life in different ways. Slowly, and +certainly, the old primeval fire, the commonest, fatalest, divinest force +of life, was making its way into Kendal's nature. But it was making its +way against antagonistic forces of habit, tradition, self-restraint,--it +found a hundred other interests in possession;--it had a strange +impersonality and timidity of nature to fight with. Kendal had been +accustomed to live in other men's lives. Was he only just beginning to +live his own? + +But, however it was, he was at least conscious during this waiting time +that life was full of some hidden savour; that his thoughts were never +idle, never vacant; that, as he lay flat among the fern in his moments of +rest, following the march of the clouds as they sailed divinely over the +rich breadth and colour of the commons, a whole brood of images nestled +at his heart, or seemed to hover in the sunny air before him,--visions +of a slender form fashioned with Greek suppleness and majesty, of a soft +and 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 impulsive +gait! He followed that figure through scene after scene; he saw primroses +in its hand, and the pale spring blue above it; he recalled it standing +tense and still with blanched cheek and fixed appealing eye, while all +round the June woods murmured in the breeze; he surrounded it in +imagination with the pomp and circumstance of the stage, and realised it +as a centre of emotion to thousands. And then from memories he would pass +on to speculations, from the scenes he knew to those he could only guess +at, from the life of which he had seen a little to the larger and +unexplored life beyond. + +And so the days went on, and though he was impatient and restless, yet +indoors his work was congenial to him, and out of doors the sun was +bright, and all the while a certain little god lay hidden, speaking no +articulate word, but waiting with a mischievous patience for the final +overthrow of one more poor mortal. + +At last the old postmistress, whom he had almost come to regard as +cherishing a personal grudge against him, ceased to repulse him, and, +after his seven years of famine, the years of abundance set in. For the +space of three weeks letters from Venice lay waiting for him almost every +alternate morning, and the heathery slopes between the farm and the +village grew familiar with the spectacle of a tall thin man in a rough +tweed suit struggling, as he walked, with sheets of foreign paper which +the wind was doing its best to filch away from him. + +The following extracts from these letters contain such portions of them +as 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, for +we are just settling into our apartment, and the rooms are strewn in the +most distracting way with boxes, books, and garments; while my maid, +Félicie, and the old Italian woman, Caterina, who is to cook and manage +for 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 he +has really gone as much on my business as on his own. I sent him--feeling +his look of misery, as he sat on a packing-case in the middle of this +chaos, 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 your +friends are. It is strange, as you say, that Miss Bretherton should not +have written to me; but I incline to put it down to our old Jacques at +home, who is getting more and more imbecile with the weight of years and +infirmities, and is quite capable of forwarding to us all the letters +which are not worth posting, and leaving all the important ones piled up +in the hall to await our return. It is provoking, for, if the Bretherton +party are not going to stay long in Venice, we may easily spend all our +time in looking for each other; which will, indeed, be a lame and +impotent conclusion. However, I have hopes of Paul's cleverness. + +'And now, four o'clock! There is no help for it, my dear Eustace. I must +go and instruct Caterina how not to poison us in our dinner to-night. She +looks a dear old soul, but totally innocent of anything but Italian +barbarities in the way of cooking. And Félicie also is well-meaning but +ignorant, so, unless I wish to have Paul on my hands for a week, I must +be off. This rough picnicking life, in Venice of all places, is a curious +little experience; but I made up my mind last time we were here that we +would venture our precious selves in no more hotels. The heat, the +mosquitoes, the horrors of the food, were too much. Here we have a +garden, 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 English +consul 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 apparently +all the English people who have as yet ventured to Venice; and these, or +most of them, seemed to be following in the wake of a little party of +four persons--two ladies, a gentleman, and a lame girl walking with a +crutch. An excited English tourist condescended to inform Paul that it +was "the great English actress, Miss Bretherton," who was creating all +the commotion. Then, of course, he went up to her--he was provoked that +he could hardly see her in the dim light of St. Mark's--introduced +himself, and described our perplexities. Of course, she had written. I +expected as much. Jacques must certainly be pensioned off! Paul thought +the other three very inferior to her, though the uncle was civil, and +talked condescendingly of Venice as though it were even good enough to be +admired by a Worrall. It is arranged that the beauty is to come and see +me to-morrow if, after Caterina has operated upon us during two meals, we +are 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 the +little garden which separates one half of our rooms from the other, while +Caterina was arranging the _déjeûner_ under the little acacia arbour in +the centre of it. Suddenly Félicie came out from the house, and behind +her a tall figure in a large hat and a white dress. The figure held out +both hands to me in a cordial, un-English way, and said a number of +pleasant things, rapidly, in a delicious voice; while I, with the dazzle +of the sun in my eyes so that I could hardly make out the features, stood +feeling a little thrilled by the advent of so famous a person. In a few +moments, 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 had +known one another for months, and I was experiencing one of those sudden +rushes of liking which, as you know, are a weakness of mine. She stayed +and took her meal with its. Paul, of course, was fascinated, and for once +has not set her down as a _réputation surfaite_. + +'Her beauty has a curious air of the place; and now I remember that her +mother was Italian--Venetian actually, was it not? That accounts for it; +she is the Venetian type spiritualised. At the foundation of her face, as +it were, lies the face of the Burano lace-maker; only the original type +has been so refined, so chiselled and smoothed away, that, to speak +fancifully, only a beautiful ghost of it remains. That large stateliness +of 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 Edward +Wallace? I knew, of course, from you that he might be here about this +time, but in the hurry of our settling in I had quite forgotten his +existence, so that the sight of his trim person bearing down upon us was +a surprise. He and the Bretherton party, however, had been going about +together for several days, so that he and she had plenty of gossip in +common. Miss Bretherton's enthusiasm about Venice is of a very naive, +hot, outspoken kind. It seems to me that she is a very susceptible +creature. She lives her life fast, and crowds into it a greater number of +sensations than most people. All this zest and pleasure must consume a +vast amount of nervous force, but it makes her very refreshing to people +as _blasés_ as Paul and I are. My first feeling about her is very much +what yours was. Personally, there seems to be all the stuff in her of +which an actress is made; will she some day stumble upon the discovery of +how to bring her own individual flame and force to bear upon her art? I +should think it not unlikely, and, altogether, I feel as though I should +take a more hopeful view of her intellectually than you do. You see, my +dear Eustace, you men never realise how clever we women are, how fast we +learn, and how quickly we catch up hints from all quarters under heaven +and improve upon them. An actress so young and so sympathetic as Isabel +Bretherton must still be very much of an unknown quantity dramatically. I +know you think that the want of training is fatal, and that popularity +will 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 from +life rather what stimulates it than what dulls and vulgarises it. +Altogether, when I compare my first impressions of her with the image of +her left by your letters, I feel that I have been pleasantly surprised. +Only in the matter of intelligence. Otherwise it has, of course, been +your descriptions of her that have planted and nurtured in me that strong +sense of attraction which blossomed into liking at the moment of personal +contact.' + + * * * * * + +'_August_ 10. + +'This afternoon we have been out in the gondola belonging to this +modest establishment, with our magnificent gondolier, Piero, and his +boy to convey us to the Lido. I got Miss Bretherton to talk to me about +her Jamaica career. She made us all laugh with her accounts of the +blood-and-thunder pieces in which the audiences at the Kingston theatre +revelled. She seems generally to have played the Bandit's Daughter, the +Smuggler's Wife, or the European damsel carried off by Indians, or some +other 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 positive +dramatic knowledge she must have! She knows some Shakespeare, I think--at +least, she mentions two or three plays--and I gather from something she. +said that she is now making the inevitable study of Juliet that every +actress makes sooner or later; but Sheridan, Goldsmith, and, of course, +all the French people, are mere names to her. When I think of the minute +exhaustive training our Paris actors go through, and compare it with such +a state of nature as hers, I am amazed at what she has done! For, after +all, you know, she must be able to act to some extent; she must know a +great deal more of her business than you and I suspect, or she could not +get on at all.' + + * * * * * + +'_August_ 16. + +'It is almost a week, I see, since I wrote to you last. During that time +we have seen a great deal more of Miss Bretherton, sometimes in company +with her belongings, sometimes without them, and my impressions of her +have ripened very fast. Oh, my dear Eustace, you have been hasty,--all +the world has been hasty! Isabel Bretherton's _real_ self is only now +coming to the front, and it is a self which, as I say to myself with +astonishment, not even your keen eyes have ever seen--hardly suspected +even. Should I, myself a woman, have been as blind to a woman's +capabilities, I wonder? Very likely! These sudden rich developments of +youth are often beyond all calculation. + +'Mr. Wallace's attitude makes me realise more than I otherwise could the +past and present condition of things. He comes and talks to me with +amazement of the changes in her tone and outlook, of the girl's +sharpening intellect and growing sensitiveness, and as he recalls +incidents and traits of the London season--confessions or judgments or +blunders of hers, and puts them beside the impression which he sees her +to be making on Paul and myself--I begin to understand from his talk and +his bewilderment something of the real nature of the case. +Intellectually, it has been "the ugly duckling" over again. Under all the +crude, unfledged imperfection of her young performance, you people who +have watched her with your trained critical eyes seem to me never to have +suspected the coming wings, the strange nascent power, which is only now +asserting itself in the light of day. + +'"What has Eustace been about?" said Paul to me last night, after we had +all returned from rambling round and round the moonlit Piazza, and he had +been describing to me his talk with her. "He ought to have seen farther +ahead. That creature is only just beginning to live--and it will be a +life worth having! He has kindled it, too, as much as anybody. Of course +we have not seen her act yet, and ignorant--yes, she is certainly +ignorant,--though not so much as I imagined. But as for natural power and +delicacy of mind, there can be no question at all about them!" + +'"I don't know that Eustace did question them," I said; "he thought +simply 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 thought +more meanly of her popularity than she did, and he has been talking a +great deal to her about her season. + +'"I never saw a woman at a more critical or interesting point of +development," he exclaimed at last, striding up and down, and so absorbed +in the subject that I could have almost laughed at his eagerness. +"Something or other, luckily for her, set her on the right track three +months ago, and it is apparently a nature on which nothing is lost. One +can see it in the way in which she takes Venice: there isn't a scrap of +her--little as she knows about it--that isn't keen and interested and +wide-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 too +before long."' + + * * * * * + +'_August_ 17-19. + +'And so he has! + +'Paul has been devoting himself more and more to the beauty, Mr. Wallace +and I looking on with considerable amusement and interest; and this +afternoon, finding it intolerable that Miss Bretherton has not even a +bowing acquaintance with any of his favourite plays, Augier, Dumas, +Victor Hugo, or anything else, he has been reading aloud to us in the +garden, running on from scene to scene and speech to speech, translating +as he went--she in rapt attention, and he gesticulating and spouting, +and, except for an occasional queer rendering that made us laugh, getting +on capitally with his English. She was enchanted; the novelty and the +excitement of it absorbed her; and every now and then she would stop Paul +with a little imperious wave of her hand, and repeat the substance of a +speech after him with an impetuous _élan_, an energy, a comprehension, +which drew little nods of satisfaction out of him, and sometimes produced +a strong and startling effect upon myself and Mr. Wallace. However, Mr. +Wallace might stare as he liked; the two people concerned were totally +unconscious of the rest of us, until at last, after the great death-scene +in the _Nuit Blanche_, Paul threw down the book almost with a sob, and +she, rising in a burst of feeling, held out her white arms towards an +imaginary lover, and with extraordinary skill and memory repeated the +substance of the heroine's last speeches:-- + +'"_Achille, beloved! my eyes are dim--the mists of death are gathering. O +Achille! the white cottage by the river--the nest in the reeds--your face +and 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 wind +rising, rising: it chills me to the bone, it chokes, it stifles me! I +cannot see the river, and the cottage is gone, and the sun. O Achille, it +is dark, so dark! Gather me close, beloved!--closer, closer! O death is +kind--tender, like your touch! I have no fears--none!"_ + +'She sank back into her chair. Anything more pathetic, more noble than +her intonation of those words, could not have been imagined. Desforêts +herself could not have spoken them with a more simple, a more piercing +tenderness. I was so confused by a multitude of conflicting feelings--my +own impressions and yours, the realities of the present position and the +possibilities of her future--that I forgot to applaud her. It was the +first time I had had any glimpse at all of her dramatic power, and, rough +and imperfect as the test was, it seemed to me enough. I have not been so +devoted to the _Français_, and to some of the people connected with +it, for ten years, for nothing! One gets a kind of insight from long +habit which, I think, one may trust. Oh, you blind Eustace, how could you +forget 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 of +every friend, out of every sensation. Incident and feeling, praise and +dispraise, will all alike tend to mould the sensitive plastic material +into shape. So far she may have remained outside her art; the art, no +doubt, has been a conventional appendage, and little more. Training would +have given her good conventions, whereas she has only picked up bad and +imperfect ones. But no training could have given her what she will +evidently soon develop for herself, that force and flame of imagination +which fuses together instrument and idea in one great artistic whole. She +has that imagination. You can see it in her responsive ways, her quick +sensitive emotion. Only let it be roused and guided to a certain height, +and it will overleap the barriers which have hemmed it in, and pour +itself into the channels made ready for it by her art. + +'There, at least, you have my strong impression. It is, in many ways, at +variance with some of my most cherished principles; for both you and I +are perhaps inclined to overrate the value of education, whether +technical or general, in its effect on the individuality. And, of course, +a better technical preparation would have saved Isabel Bretherton an +immense amount of time; would have prevented her from contracting a host +of bad habits--all of which she will have to unlearn. But the root of the +matter is in her; of that I am sure; and whatever weight of hostile +circumstance may be against her, she will, if she keeps her health--as to +which I am sometimes, like you, a little anxious--break through it all +and 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 yesterday +abruptly--we were alone in our gondola, far out on the lagoon--"Did your +brother ever tell you of a conversation he and I had in the woods at +Nuneham about Mr. Wallace's play?" + +'"Yes," I answered with outward boldness, but a little inward +trepidation; "I have not known anything distress him so much for a long +time. He thought you had misunderstood him." + +'"No," she said quietly, but as it seemed to me with an undercurrent of +emotion in her voice; "I did not misunderstand him. He meant what he +said, and I would have forced the truth from him, whatever happened. I +was determined to make him show me what he felt. That London season was +sometimes terrible to me. I seemed to myself to be living in two +worlds--one a world in which there was always a sea of faces opposite to +me, or crowds about me, and a praise ringing in my ears which was enough +to turn anybody's head, but which after a while repelled me as if there +was something humiliating in it; and then, on the other side, a little +inner 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 at +all! It was your brother who first roused that sense in me; it was so +strange and painful, for how could I help at first believing in all the +hubbub and the applause?" + +'"Poor child!" I said, reaching out my hand for one of hers. "Did Eustace +make himself disagreeable to you?" + +'"It was more, I think," she answered, as if reflecting, "the standard he +always seemed to carry about with him than anything connected with my own +work. At least, of course, I mean before that Nuneham day. Ah, that +Nuneham day! It cut deep." + +'She turned away from me, and leant over the side of the boat, so that I +could not see her face. + +'"You forced it out of Eustace, you know," I said, trying to laugh at +her, "you uncompromising young person! Of course, he flattered himself +that you forgot all about his preaching the moment you got home. Men +always make themselves believe what they want to believe." + +'"Why should he want to believe so?" she replied quickly. "I had half +foreseen it, I had forced it from him, and yet I felt it like a blow! It +cost me a sleepless night, and some--well, some very bitter tears. Not +that the tears were a new experience. How often, after all that noise at +the theatre, have I gone home and cried myself to sleep over the +impossibility of doing what I wanted to do, of moving those hundreds of +people, 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--it +seemed to me quite in the near future--grown old and ugly, a forgotten +failure, without any of those memories which console people who have been +great when they must give up. I felt myself struggling against such a +weight of ignorance, of bad habits, of unfavourable surroundings. How was +I ever to get free and to reverse that judgment of Mr. Kendal's? My very +success stood in my way, How was 'Miss Bretherton' to put herself to +school?" + +'"But now," I said to her warmly, "you have got free; or, rather, you are +on 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 the +Armenian convent. She seemed to be drinking in the dazzling harmonies of +blue and warm brown and pearly light. When she did speak again it was +very slowly, as though she were trying to give words to a number of +complex impressions. + +'"Yes," she said; "it seems to me that I am different; but I can't tell +exactly how or why. I see all sorts of new possibilities, new meanings +everywhere: 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 which +may come to me tell on my art." And then she changed altogether with one +of those delightful swift transformations of hers, and her face rippled +over with laughter. "At present the chief result of the difference, +whatever it may be, seems to be to make me most unmanageable at home. I +am for ever disagreeing with my people, saying I can't do this and I +won't do that. I am getting to enjoy having my own way in the most +abominable 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 my +own--not even French? That I can't read any French book or any French +play?" + +'"Well," I said, half laughing too, "it is very astonishing. And you know +it can't go on if you are to do what I think you will do. French you +positively must learn, and learn quickly. I don't mean to say that we +haven't good plays and a tradition of our own; but for the moment France +is 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 who +come. Ours is still floating and amateurish--" + +'And so on. You may imagine it, my dear Eustace; I spare you any more of +it verbatim. After I had talked away for a long time and brought it all +back to the absolute necessity that she should know French and become +acquainted with French acting and French dramatic ideals, she pulled me +up in the full career of eloquence, by demanding with a little practical +air, 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 neglected +education; "get a French maid, a French master, and a novel: I will +provide you with _Consuelo_ and a translation to-morrow." + +'"As for the French maid," she answered dubiously, shaking her head, "I +don't know. I expect my old black woman that I brought with me from +Jamaica would ill-treat her--perhaps murder her. But the master can be +managed and the novel. Will none of you laugh at me if you see me +trailing a French grammar about?" + +'And so she has actually begun to-day. She makes a pretence of keeping +her novel and a little dictionary and grammar in a bag, and hides them +when any one appears. But Paul has already begun to tease her about her +new and mysterious occupation, and I foresee that he will presently spend +the greater part of his mornings in teaching her. I never saw anybody +attract him so much; she is absolutely different from anything he has +seen before; and, as he says, the mixture of ignorance and genius in +her--yes, genius; don't be startled!--is most stimulating to the +imagination.' + + * * * * * + +'_August_ 22. + +'During the last few days I have not been seeing so much of Miss +Bretherton as before. She has been devoting herself to her family, and +Paul and I have been doing our pictures. We cannot persuade her to take +any very large dose of galleries; it seems to me that her thoughts are +set on one subject--and one subject only--and while she is in this first +stage of intensity, it is not likely that anything else will have a +chance. + +'It is amusing to study the dissatisfaction of the uncle and aunt with +the turn things have taken since they left London. Mr. Worrall has been +evidently accustomed to direct his niece's life from top to bottom--to +choose her plays for her, helped by Mr. Robinson; to advise her as to her +fellow-actors, and her behaviour in society; and all, of course, with a +shrewd eye to the family profit, and as little regard as need be to any +fantastical 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 which +had been nearly decided on before they left London--a flimsy spectacular +performance quite unworthy of her. As soon as possible she will make +important changes in the troupe who are to be with her, and at the +beginning of September she is coming to stay three weeks with us in +Paris, and, in all probability (though the world is to know nothing of +it), Perrault of the Conservatoire, who is a great friend of ours, will +give her a good deal of positive teaching. This last arrangement is +particularly exasperating to Mr. Worrall. He regards it as sure to be +known, a ridiculous confession of weakness on Isabel's part, and so on. +However, in spite of his wrath and the aunt's sullen or tearful +disapproval, 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 experiences +which remain with one as a sort of perpetual witness to the poetry which +life holds in it, and may yield up to one at any moment. It was in our +little garden; the moon was high above the houses opposite, and the +narrow canal running past our side railing into the Grand Canal was a +shining streak of silver. The air was balmy and absolutely still; no more +perfect 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 read +Romeo and the Nurse in the scenes she had chosen, while in the background +were the Worralls and Lucy Bretherton (the little crippled sister), Mr. +Wallace, and myself. She did the balcony scene, the morning scene with +Romeo, the scene with the nurse after Tybalt's death, and the scene of +the philtre. There is an old sundial in the garden, which caught the +moonbeams. She leaned her arms upon it, her eyes fixed upon the throbbing +moonlit sky, her white brocaded dress glistening here and there in the +pale light--a vision of perfect beauty. And when she began her sighing +appeal-- + +"O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" + +--it seemed to me as if the night--the passionate Italian night--had +found its voice--the only voice which fitted it. + +'Afterwards I tried as much as possible to shake off the impressions +peculiar to the scene itself to think of her under the ordinary +conditions of the stage, to judge her purely as an actress. In the love +scenes there seemed hardly anything to find fault with. I thought I could +trace in many places the influence of her constant dramatic talks and +exercises with Paul. The flow of passion was continuous and electric, but +marked by all the simpleness, all the sweetness, all the young winsome +extravagance which belong to Juliet. The great scene with the Nurse had +many fine things in it; she has evidently worked hard at it line by line, +and that speech of Juliet's, with its extraordinary dramatic +capabilities-- + +"Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?"-- + +was given with admirable variety and suppleness of intonation. The dreary +sweetness of her + +"_Banished!_ that one word _banished!_" + +still lives with me, and her gestures as she paced restlessly along the +little strip of moonlit path. The speech before she takes the potion was +the least satisfactory of all; the ghastliness and horror of it are +beyond her resources as yet; she could not infuse them with that terrible +beauty which Desforêts would have given to every line. But where is the +English 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 came +forward listlessly, her beautiful head drooping, and approached Paul like +a 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 was +admirable. You must have worked very hard!" + +'"So I have," she said, brightening at the warmth of his praise. "But +Diderot is wrong, wrong, wrong! When I could once reach the feeling of +the Tybalt speech, when I could once _hate_ him for killing Tybalt in the +same breath in which I _loved_ him for being Romeo, all was easy; gesture +and movement came to me; I learnt them, and the thing was done." + +'The reference, of course, meant that Paul had been reading to her his +favourite _Paradoxe sur le Comédien_, and that she had been stimulated, +but not converted, by the famous contention that the actor should be the +mere "cold and tranquil spectator," the imitator of other men's feelings, +while possessing none of his own. He naturally would have argued, but I +would not have it, and made her rest. She was quite worn out with the +effort, and I do not like this excessive fatigue of hers. I often wonder +whether the life she is leading is not too exciting for her. This is +supposed to be her holiday, and she is really going through more +brain-waste than she has ever done in her life before! Paul is throwing +his 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 a +girl of twenty-one, with everything to learn, and as easily excited as he +is capable of exciting her. I really must keep him in check. + +'Mr. Wallace, when we had sent her home across the canal--their apartment +is on the other side, farther up towards the railway station--could not +say enough to me of his amazement at the change in her. + +'"What have you done to her?" he asked. "I can hardly recognise the old +Miss Bretherton at all. Is it really not yet four months since your +brother and I went to see her in the _White Lady_? Why, you have +bewitched her!" + +'"We have done something, I admit," I said; "but the power you see +developed in her now was roused in her when months ago she first came in +contact with the new world and the new ideal which you and Eustace +represented to her." + +'There, my dear Eustace, have I given you your due? Oh, Miss Bretherton +says so many kind things about you! I'll take especial pains to tell you +some 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, will +interest you as much as they did me. I told Madame de Châteauvieux that I +should write to you to-night, and my letter, she says, must do in place +of one from her for a day or two. We have been to Torcello to-day--your +sister, M. de Châteauvieux, Miss Bretherton, and I. The expedition itself +was delightful, but that I have no time to describe. I only want to tell +you what happened when we got to Torcello. + +'But first, you will, of course, know from your sister's letters--she +tells me she writes to you twice a week--how absorbed we have all been in +the artistic progress of Miss Bretherton. I myself never saw such a +change, such an extraordinary development in any one. How was it that you +and I did not see farther into her? I see now, as I look back upon her +old self, that the new self was there in germ. But I think perhaps it may +have been the vast disproportion of her celebrity to her performance that +blinded us to the promise in her; it was irritation with the public that +made us deliver an over-hasty verdict on her. + +'However that may be, I have been making up my mind for some days past +that the embassy on behalf of _Elvira_, which I thrust upon you, and +which you so generously undertook, was a blunder on my part which it +would be delightful to repair, and which no artistic considerations +whatever need prevent me from repairing. You cannot think how divine she +was in Juliet the other night. Imperfect and harsh, of course, here +and there, but still a creature to build many and great hopes upon, if +ever there was one. She is shaking off trick after trick; your +brother-in-law is merciless to them whenever they appear, and she is for +ever working with a view to his approval, and also, I think, from two +or three things she has said, with a memory of that distant standard of +criticism which she believes to be embodied in you! + +'M. de Châteauvieux has devoted himself to her; it is a pretty sight to +see them together. Your sister and she, too, are inseparable, and Madame +de Châteauvieux's quiet, equable refinement makes a good contrast to +Miss Bretherton's mobility. She will never lose the imprint of her +friendship with these two people; it was a happy thought which led you to +bring them together. + +'Well, we went to Torcello, and I watched for an opportunity of getting +her alone. At last Madame de Châteauvieux gave me one; she carried off +her husband, Ruskin in hand, to study the mosaics, and Miss Bretherton +and I were left sitting under the outer wall of San Fosca till they +should come back. We had been talking of a hundred things--not of acting +at 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 who +pestered us for coppers--and then suddenly, I asked her whether she would +answer me a personal question: Was there any grudge in her mind towards +me for anything I had said and done in London, or caused others to say +and do for me? + +'She was much startled, and coloured a good deal, but she said very +steadily: "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 I +might really see her expression, "if you bear me no grudge, if you feel +kindly 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 to +find 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 on +the point of tears, but suddenly the nervousness of each of us seemed to +strike the other, and we both laughed--she long and helplessly, as if she +could not help herself. + +'Presently she looked up, with her great eyes swimming in tears, and +tried to impress on me that I was speaking hastily, that I had an ideal +for that play she could never promise to reach, that it was my friendship +for her that made me change my mind, that there might be practical +difficulties now that so many arrangements had been made, and so on. But +I would not listen to her. I had it all ready; I had an actor to propose +to her for Macias, and even the costumes in my mind, ready to sketch for +her, if need were. Forbes, I suggested, might and would direct the +setting of the piece; no one could do it with more perfect knowledge +or a more exquisite taste; and for her, as we both knew, he would turn +scene-painter, if necessary. And so I rambled on, soothing her shaken +feeling and my own until she had let me beguile her out of her attitude +of 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 out +of her, and all the way home she was very silent. I, of course, got +anxious, and began to think that my blunder had been irreparable; but, at +any rate, I was determined not to let the thing linger on. So that, when +the 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, and +appealed to your sister for help. I knew that both she and her husband +were acquainted with what had happened at Oxford, and I supposed that +Miss Bretherton would know that they were, so that it was awkward enough. +Only that women, when they please, have such tact, such an art of +smoothing over and ignoring the rough places of life, that one often with +them gets through a difficult thing without realising how difficult it +is. M. de Châteauvieux smoked a long time and said nothing, then he asked +me a great many questions about the play, and finally gave no opinion. I +was almost in despair--she said so little--until, just as I was going +away with _Elvira's_ fate still quite unsettled, she said to me with a +smile and a warm pressure of the hand, "To-morrow come and see me, and I +will 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 20th +November, in this year of grace, and Isabel Bretherton will play the +heroine, and your friend is already plunged in business, and aglow with +hope and expectation. How I wish--how we all wish--that you were here! I +feel more and more penitent towards you. It was you who gave the impulse +of 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 readily +in spirit. "Tell Mr. Kendal," were almost her last words to me, "that I +cannot say how much I owe to his influence and his friendship. He first +opened my eyes to so many things. He was so kind to me, even when he +thought 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. She +meant 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 off +homewards, look up Forbes and begin operations. She will be in town in +about three weeks from now--as you know she is going to stay first with +your sister in Paris--and then we shall have hard work till about the +middle of November, when I suppose the play will be produced. This will +be more than a fortnight later than she intended to open, and Mr. Worrall +will probably be furious over the delay, but she has developed a will of +her own lately. + +'_Au revoir_ then. You must have had a peaceful summer with your books +and your heather. I wish I had anything like the same digestion for work +that you have; I never saw a man get as much pleasure out of his books as +you 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 she +will be in that last act!--Where were my eyes last spring?--I wish there +were 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 right +people. Perrault, I hear, is to give her lessons--under the rose. Happy +man!' + + * * * * * + +Kendal read this letter on a glowing August morning as he walked homeward +along the side of the pond, where the shade of the fir-trees was a +welcome protection against the rising heat, and the air was fragrant with +the scent of the ling, which was just out in all its first faint flush of +beauty. He threw himself down among it after he had finished the sheets, +and stared for long at the sunlit motionless water, his hat drawn forward +over his brows. So this was the outcome of it all. Isabel Bretherton was +about to become a great actress,--Undine had found her soul! + +It seemed to him, as he lay there buried in the ling, that during the +past three weeks he had lived through a whole drama of feeling--a drama +which had its beginning, its complications, its climax. While it had been +going on he had been only half-conscious of its bearings, half-conscious +of himself. Wallace's letter had made him sensible of the situation, as +it concerned himself, with a decisive sharpness and completeness. There +was no possibility of any further self-delusion: the last defences were +overcome, the last veil between himself and the pursuing force which had +overtaken him had fallen, and Kendal, with a shiver of pain, found +himself looking straight into the wide, hungry eyes of Love! Oh, was this +love,--this sore desire, this dumb craving, this restlessness of the +whole being? + +The bees hummed among the heather, every now and then a little +brown-streaked lizard rustled faintly beside him, a pair of kingfishers +flashed across the pond. But he saw and heard nothing, responsive as +every sense in him commonly was to the details of the wild life about +him. His own miserable reverie absorbed him. What was it that had made +the charm of those early weeks in July immediately after his parting with +her? What was it which had added zest to his work, and enchantment to the +summer beauty of the country, and, like a hidden harmony dimly resonant +within him, had kept life tuneful and delightful? He could put words to +it now. It had been nothing less than a settled foresight, a deep +conviction, of _Isabel Bretherton's failure_! What a treachery! But +yes,--the vision perpetually before his eyes had been the vision of a +dying fame, a waning celebrity, a forsaken and discrowned beauty! And +from that abandonment and that failure he had dimly foreseen the rise +and upspringing of new and indescribable joy. He had seen her, conscious +of defeat and of the inexorable limits of her own personality, turning +to the man who had read her truly and yet had loved her, surely, from +the very beginning, and finding in his love a fresh glory and an +all-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 sharp +distinctness,--now that every perception was intensified by pain and +longing. + +Then, as he went over the past, he saw how this consciousness had been +gradually invaded and broken up by his sister's letters. He remembered +the incredulous impatience with which he had read the earlier ones. So, +Marie thought him mistaken! 'Isabel Bretherton would be an actress +yet'--'she had genius, after all'--'she was learning, growing, developing +every day.' Absurd! _He_, had been able to keep his critical estimate of +the actress and his personal admiration of the woman separate from one +another. But evidently Marie's head had been confused, misled, by her +heart. And then, little by little, his incredulity had yielded, and his +point of view had changed. Instead of impatience of Marie's laxity of +judgment, what he had been fiercely conscious of for days was jealousy of +Paul de Châteauvieux--jealousy of his opportunities, his influence, his +relation towards that keen sweet nature. That, too, had been one of his +dreams of the future,--the dream of tutoring and training her young +unformed intelligence. He had done something towards it; he had, as it +were, touched the spring which had set free all this new and unexpected +store of power. But, if he had planted, others had watered, and others +would reap. In this great crisis of her fortunes he had been nothing to +her. Other voices and other hands had guided and directed her. Her +kindly, grateful messages only stung and tortured him. They seemed to him +the merest friendly commonplace. In reality her life had passed out of +his ken; her nature had flowered into a new perfection, and he had not +been there to see or to help. She would never connect him with the +incidents or the influences which had transformed existence to her, and +would probably irrevocably change the whole outline of her future. Once +he had wounded and startled her, and had despaired for awhile of undoing +the impression made upon her. But now he felt no quick anxiety, no fear +how things might turn, only a settled flat consciousness of division, of +a life that had once been near to his swept away from him for ever, of +diverging roads which no kindly fate would ever join again. + +For, by the end of this time of solitary waiting, his change of attitude +was 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 so +vivid, as this new and strange foreboding of her true success. Marie must +be right. He had been a mere blind hair-splitting pedant, judging Isabel +Bretherton by principles and standards which left out of count the inborn +energy, the natural power of growth, of such a personality as hers. And +the more he had once doubted the more he now believed. Yes, she would be +great--she would make her way into that city of the mind, in which he +himself had made his dwelling-place; she, too, would enter upon the +world's vast inheritance of knowledge. She would become, if only her +physical frame proved equal to the demands upon it, one of that little +band of interpreters, of ministers of the idea, by whom the intellectual +life of a society is fed and quickened. Was he so lost in his own selfish +covetous need as not to rejoice? + +Oh, but she was a woman, she was beautiful, and he loved her! Do what he +would, all ideal and impersonal considerations fell utterly away from +him. Day by day he knew more of his own heart; day by day the philosopher +grew weaker in him, and the man's claim fiercer. Before him perpetually +were two figures of a most human and practical reality. He saw a great +actress, absorbed in the excitement of the most stimulating of lives, her +power ripening from year to year, her fame growing and widening with +time; and beside this brilliant vision he saw himself, the quiet man of +letters, with the enthusiasms of youth behind him, the calm of middle-age +before him. What possible link could there be between them? + +At last Wallace's letter cleared still further the issues of the +conflict; or rather, it led to Kendal's making a fatalist compact with +himself. He was weary of the struggle, and it seemed to him that he must +somehow or other escape from the grip in which his life was held. He must +somehow deaden this sense, this bitter sense of loss, if it were only by +postponing the last renunciation. He would go back to his work and force +himself not to hate it. It was his only refuge, and he must cling to it +for dear life. And he would not see her again till the night of the first +performance of _Elvira_. She would be in London in a month's time, but he +would take care to be out of reach. He would not meet those glorious eyes +or 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 of +peace, and he went back to his papers and his books like a man who has +escaped from the grasp of some deadly physical ill into a period of +comparative ease and relief. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +It was a rainy November night. A soft continuous downpour was soaking the +London streets, without, however, affecting their animation or the +nocturnal brightness of the capital, for the brilliance of the gas-lamps +was flashed back from innumerable patches of water, and every ray of +light seemed to be broken by the rain into a hundred shimmering +reflections. It was the hour when all the society of which an autumnal +London can boast is in the streets, hurrying to its dinner or its +amusements, and when the stream of diners-out, flowing through the +different channels of the west, is met in all the great thoroughfares by +the stream of theatre-goers setting eastward. + +The western end of D---- Street was especially crowded, and so was the +entrance to a certain narrow street leading northwards from it, in which +stood the new bare buildings of the _Calliope_. Outside the theatre +itself there was a dense mass of carriages and human beings, only kept in +order by the active vigilance of the police, and wavering to and fro with +kaleidoscopic 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 sterner +ordeal of the struggling well-dressed crowd within, surging up the double +staircase of the newly-decorated theatre. The air inside was full of the +hum 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 into +the theatre. Everybody seemed to know everybody else; there were +politicians, and artists, and writers of books, known and unknown; there +were fair women and wise women and great ladies; and there was that large +substratum of faithful, but comparatively nameless, persons on whom a +successful manager learns to depend with some confidence on any first +night of importance. + +And this was a first night of exceptional interest. So keen, indeed, had +been the competition for tickets that many of those present had as vague +and confused an idea of how they came to be among the favoured multitude +pouring into the _Calliope_ as a man in a street panic has of the devices +by which he has struggled past the barrier which has overthrown his +neighbour. Miss Bretherton's first appearance in _Elvira_ had been the +subject of conversation for weeks past among a far larger number of +London circles than generally concern themselves with theatrical affairs. +Among those which might be said to be within a certain literary and +artistic circumference, people were able to give definite grounds for the +public interest. The play, it was said, was an unusually good one, and +the progress of the rehearsals had let loose a flood of rumours to the +effect that Miss Bretherton's acting in it would be a great surprise to +the public. Further, from the intellectual centre of things, it was only +known 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 social +decalogue laid it down as necessary that you should, first of all, see +her 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 sat +three people who had arrived early, and had for some time employed +themselves in making a study of the incoming stream through their +opera-glasses. They were Eustace Kendal, his sister, Madame de +Châteauvieux, and her husband. The Châteauvieux had travelled over +from Paris expressly for the occasion, and Madame de Châteauvieux, her +gray-blue eyes sparkling with expectation and all her small delicate +features alive with interest and animation, was watching for the rising +of the heavy velvet curtain with an eagerness which brought down upon her +the occasional mockery of her husband, who was in reality, however, +little less excited than herself. It was but three weeks since they had +parted with Isabel Bretherton in Paris, and they were feeling on this +first night something of the anxiety and responsibility which parents +feel when they launch a child upon whom they have expended their best +efforts into a critical world. + +As for Eustace, he also had but that afternoon arrived in London. He had +been paying a long duty-visit to some aged relatives in the North, and +had so lengthened it out, in accordance with the whim which had taken +possession of him in Surrey, that he had missed all the preparations for +_Elvira_, and had arrived upon the scene only at the moment when the +final _coup_ was to be delivered. Miss Bretherton had herself sent him a +warm note of invitation, containing an order for the first night and an +appeal to him to come and 'judge me as kindly as truth will let you.' And +he had answered her that, whatever happened, he would be in his place in +the _Calliope_ on the night of the 20th of November. + +And now here he was, wearing outwardly precisely the same aspect of +interested expectation as those around him, and all the time conscious +inwardly that to him alone, of all the human beings in that vast theatre, +the experience of the evening would be so vitally and desperately +important, that life on the other side of it would bear the mark of it +for ever. It was a burden to him that his sister suspected nothing of his +state of feeling; it would have consoled him that she should know it, but +it seemed to him impossible to tell her. + +'There are the Stuarts,' he said, bending down to her as the orchestra +struck up, 'in the box to the left. Forbes, I suppose, will join them +when 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 she +refuse 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 could +not be got over. I believe her associations with the play were so painful +that it would have seemed an evil omen to her to begin a new season with +it.' + +'Was she wise, I wonder?' + +'I think she did well to follow her fancy in the matter, and she herself +has had plenty of time. She was working at it all the weeks she was with +us, and young Harting, too, I think had notice enough. Some of the +smaller parts may go roughly to-night, but they will soon fall into +shape.' + +'Poor Wallace!' said Kendal; 'he must be wishing it well over. I never +saw a house better stocked with critics.' + +'Here he is,' cried Madame de Châteauvieux, betraying her suppressed +excitement 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 misery +so far as his face, which Nature had moulded in one of her cheerfullest +moods, was capable of it. + +'My dear Madame de Châteauvieux, I have no more notion than the man in +the moon. Miss Bretherton is an angel, and without Forbes we should have +collapsed a hundred times already, and that's about all I know. As for +the 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 goes +the hell; now for it.' + +The sketch for the play of _Elvira_ had been found among the papers of a +young penniless Italian who had died, almost of starvation, in his Roman +garret, during those teeming years after 1830, when poets grew on every +hedge and the romantic passion was abroad. The sketch had appeared in a +little privately-printed volume which Edward Wallace had picked up by +chance 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 the +sketch into a play. But, in developing it, he had carefully preserved the +character of the original conception. It was a conception strictly of the +Romantic time, and the execution of it presented very little of that +variety of tone which modern audiences have learnt to expect. The play +told one rapid breathless story of love, jealousy, despair, and death, +and it told it directly and uninterruptedly, without any lighter +interludes. Author and adapter alike had trusted entirely to the tragic +force 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 the +school of Victor Hugo. It was, indeed, rather a dramatic love-poem than a +play, in the modern sense, and it depended altogether for its success +upon the two characters of Macias and Elvira. + +In devising the character of Macias the Italian author had made use of a +traditional Spanish type, which has its historical sources, and has +inspired many a Spanish poet from the fifteenth century downwards. Macias +is knight, poet, and lover; his love is a kind of southern madness which +withers every other feeling in its neighbourhood, and his tragic death is +the only natural ending to a career so fierce and uncontrolled. Elvira, +with whom Macias is in love, the daughter of Nuno Fernandez, is embodied +gentleness and virtue, until the fierce progress of her fate has taught +her that men are treacherous and the world cruel. For her love had been +prosperous and smooth until, by a series of events, it had been brought +into antagonism with two opposing interests--those of her father and of a +certain Fernan Perez, the tool and favourite of the powerful Duke of +Villena. The ambition and selfish passion of these two men are enlisted +against her. Perez is determined to marry her; her father is determined +to sweep Macias out of the path of his own political advancement. The +intrigue devised between the two is perfectly successful. Macias is +enticed away; Elvira, forced to believe that she is deserted and +betrayed, is half driven, half entrapped, into a marriage with Perez; and +Macias, returning to claim her against a hundred obstacles, meets the +wedding party on their way back to the palace of the Duke. The rest of +the play represented, of course, the struggle between the contending +forces thus developed. In plan and mechanism the story was one of a +common romantic type, neither better nor worse than hundreds of others of +which the literary archives of the first half of the present century are +full. It required all the aid that fine literary treatment could give it +to 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 in +the Italian sketch with delicacy and a true tragic insight, and Edward +Wallace had brought all the resources of a very evenly-trained and +critical mind to bear upon his task. It could hardly have been foreseen +that he would be attracted by the subject, but once at work upon it he +had worked with enthusiasm. + +The curtain drew up on the great hall of the Villena Palace. Everything +that antiquarian knowledge could do had been brought to bear upon the +surroundings of the scene; the delicate tilework of the walls and floor, +the leather hangings, the tapestries, the carved wood and brass work of a +Spanish palace of the fifteenth century, had been copied with lavish +magnificence; and the crowded expectant house divided its attention and +applause during the first scene between the beauty and elaboration of its +setting and the play of the two tolerable actors who represented Elvira's +father and the rival of Macias, Fernan Perez. + +Fernan Perez, having set the intrigue on foot which is to wreck the love +of Macias and Elvira, had just risen from his seat, when Wallace, who was +watching 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 de +Châteauvieux and bent forward. The great door at the end of the palace +had slowly opened, and gliding through it with drooping head and hands +clasped before her came Elvira, followed by her little maid Beatriz. The +storm which greeted her appearance was such as thrilled the pulses of the +oldest _habitué_ in the theatre. Tears came to Madame de Châteauvieux's +eyes, and she looked up at her brother. + +'What a scene! It is overpowering--it is too much for her! I wish they +would let her go on!' + +Kendal made no answer, his soul was in his eyes; he had no senses for any +but one person. _She_ was there, within a few yards of him, in all the +sovereignty of her beauty and her fame, invested with the utmost romance +that circumstances could bestow, and about, if half he heard were true, +to reap a great artistic, no less than a great personal triumph. Had he +felt towards her only as the public felt it would have been an experience +beyond the common run, and as it was--oh, this aching, intolerable sense +of desire, of separation, of irremediable need! Was that her voice? He +had heard that tone of despair in it before--under over-arching woods, +when the June warmth was in the air! That white outstretched hand had +once lain close clasped in his own; those eyes had once looked with a +passionate trouble into his. Ah, it was gone for ever, nothing would ever +recall it--that one quick moment of living contact! In a deeper sense +than met the ear, she was on the stage and he among the audience. To the +end his gray life would play the part of spectator to hers, or else she +would soon have passed beyond his grasp and touch, just as Elvira would +have vanished in a little while from the sight of the great audience +which 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 was +stirring the multitude of human beings around him, and he found himself +gradually mastered by considerations of a different order altogether. Was +this the actress he had watched with such incessant critical revolt six +months before? Was this the half-educated girl, grasping at results +utterly beyond her realisation, whom he remembered? + +It seemed to him impossible that this quick artistic intelligence, this +nervous understanding of the demands made upon her, this faculty in +meeting them, could have been developed by the same Isabel Bretherton +whose earlier image was so distinctly graven on his memory. And yet his +trained eye learned after a while to decipher in a hundred indications +the past history of the change. He saw how she had worked, and where; the +influences which had been brought to bear upon her were all familiar to +him; they had been part of his own training, and they belonged, as he +knew, to the first school of dramatic art in Europe--to the school which +keeps alive from generation to generation the excellence and fame of the +best 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 an +actress without a future, condemned by the inexorable logic of things to +see her fame desert her with the first withering of her beauty. Now she +had, as it were, but started towards her rightful goal, but her feet were +in the great high-road, and Kendal saw before her, if she had but +strength to reach it, the very highest summit of artistic success. + +The end of the first act was reached; Elvira, returning from the +performance of the marriage ceremony in the chapel of the palace, had +emerged hand-in-hand with her husband, and, followed by her wedding +train, upon the great hall. She had caught sight of Macias standing +blanched and tottering under the weight of the incredible news which had +just been given to him by the Duke. She had flung away the hateful hand +which held her, and, with a cry, instinct with the sharp and terrible +despair of youth, she had thrown herself at the feet of her lover. + +When the curtain fell, Edward Wallace could have had few doubts--if he +had ever cherished any--of the success of his play. He himself escaped +behind 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 a +constant murmur of congratulation, which was music in the ears of Madame +de Châteauvieux, and, for the moment, silenced in Kendal his own +throbbing and desolate consciousness. + +'There never was a holiday turned to such good account before,' a +gray-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 spring +we all felt as though one fairy godmother at least had been left out at +the christening. And now it would seem as though even she had repented of +it, and brought her gift with the rest. Well, well, I always felt there +was something at the bottom in that nature that might blossom yet. Most +people who are younger at the trade than I would not hear of it. It was +commonly agreed that her success would last just as long as the first +freshness of her beauty, and no more. And _now_--the English stage has +laid its hold at last upon a great actress.' + +Madame de Châteauvieux's smiling reply was broken by the reappearance of +Wallace, 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. Forbes +in the wings, looking on, is a play in himself!' + +In another minute the hubbub had swept out again, and the house had +settled into silence. + +Macias was the central figure of the second act. In the great scene of +explanation between himself and Elvira, after he had forced his way into +her apartment, his fury of jealous sarcasm, broken by flashes of the old +absolute trust, of the old tender worship, had been finely conceived, and +was well rendered by the promising young actor, whom Wallace had himself +chosen for the part, Elvira, overwhelmed by the scorn and despair of her +lover, and, conscious of the treachery which has separated them, is yet +full of a blind resolve to play the part she has assumed to the bitter +end, to save her own name and her father's from dishonour, and to +interpose the irrevocable barrier of her marriage vow between herself and +Macias. Suddenly they are interrupted by the approach of the Duke and of +Fernan Perez. Elvira throws herself between her husband and her lover, +and, having captured the sword of Macias, hands it to the Duke. Macias is +arrested after a tumultuous scene, and is led away, shaking off Elvira's +efforts to save him with bitter contempt, and breaking loose from her +with the prophecy that in every joy of the future and every incident of +her 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 a +kind of incredulous admiration that Isabel Bretherton never once lost +herself, that every gesture was true, every word struck home. Her +extraordinary 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 his +death an unarmed and defenceless man. Then, when he becomes conscious of +the approach of his rival, the soldier's instinct revives in him; he +calls for his sword; she refuses it, and he makes a threatening step +towards 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 it +in this breast.' + +All the desperate energy of a loving woman driven to bay was in her +attitude as she repelled Macias, whereas in the agony of her last +clinging appeal to him, as his guards lead him off, every trace of her +momentary heroism had died away. Faint and trembling, recoiling from +every harsh word of his as from a blow, she had followed him towards the +door, and in her straining eyes and seeking, outstretched hands as she +watched him disappear, there was a pathos so true, so poignant, that it +laid a spell upon the audience, and the curtain fell amid a breathless +silence, which made the roar that almost instantly followed doubly +noticeable. + +But it was in the third act that she won her highest triumph. The act +opened with a scene between Elvira and her husband, in which she implored +him, with the humility and hopelessness of grief, to allow her to retire +from the world and to hide the beauty which had wrought such ruin from +the light of day. He, in whom jealousy has taken fierce root, refuses +with reproach and insult, and in the full tide of her passionate reaction +against his tyranny, the news is brought her by Beatriz that Fernan, in +his determination to avoid the duel with Macias on the morrow, which the +Duke, in accordance with knightly usage, has been forced to grant, has +devised means for assassinating his rival in prison. Naturally, her whole +soul 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 him +of the fate that threatens him and to persuade him to fly. + +It was, indeed, a dramatic moment when the gloom of Macias's cell was +first broken by the glimmer of the hand-lamp, which revealed to the vast +expectant audience the form of Elvira standing on the threshold, +searching the darkness with her shaded eyes; and in the great love scene +which followed the first sharp impression was steadily deepened word by +word and gesture after gesture by the genius of the actress. Elvira finds +Macias in a mood of calm and even joyful waiting for the morrow. His +honour is satisfied; death and battle are before him, and the proud +Castilian is almost at peace. The vision of Elvira's pale beauty and his +quick intuition of the dangers she has run in forcing her way to him +produce a sudden revulsion of feeling towards her, a flood of passionate +reconciliation; 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 her +efforts in dimming his ecstasy of joy or in awakening him to the +necessity of flight, and at last he even resents her terror for him, her +entreaties 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 awful +pressure of the situation, her love resists his no longer, but rather she +sees in the full expression of her own heart the only chance of +reconciling him to life, and of persuading him to take thought for his +own 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 needs +open all her weak heart to you, if she must needs tell you that she lives +only in your life and dies in your death, her lip will brace itself even +to that pitiful confession! Ah me! these poor cheeks have been so +blanched with weeping, they have no blushes left.' + +To her this supreme avowal is the only means of making him believe her +report of his danger, and turn towards flight; but in him it produces a +joy which banishes all thought of personal risk, and makes separation +from 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 and +to 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 his +prison, it is too late. Fernan and his assassins are at hand, the stairs +are surrounded, and escape is cut off. Again, in these last moments, when +the locked door still holds between them and the death awaiting them, her +mood 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 it +nothing--nothing! Come, the bonds which linked us to it are for ever +broken! Death is at the door; _we are already dead_! Come, and make death +beautiful: tell me you love, love, love me to the end!' + +Then, putting her from him, he goes out to meet his enemies. There is a +clamour outside, and he returns wounded to death, pursued by Fernan and +his men. He falls, and Elvira defends him from her husband with a look +and gesture so terrible that he and the murderers fall back before her as +though she were some ghastly avenging spirit. Then, bending over him, she +snatches the dagger from the grasp of the dying man, saying to him, with +a voice into which Isabel Bretherton threw a wealth of pitiful +tenderness, 'There is but one way left, beloved. Your wife that should +have been, that is, saves herself and you--_so_!' + +And in the dead silence that followed, her last murmur rose upon the air +as the armed men, carrying torches, crowded round her. 'See, Macias, the +torches--how they shine! _Bring more--bring more--and light--our +marriage festival_!' + + * * * * * + +'Eustace! Eustace! there, now they have let her go! Poor child, poor +child! 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't +want to stay, but I must just see her, and so must Paul. Ah, Mr. Wallace +is gone already, but he described to me how to find her. This way!' + +And Madame de Châteauvieux, brushing the tears from her eyes with one +hand, took Kendal's arm with the other, and hurried him along the narrow +passages leading to the door on to the stage, M. de Châteauvieux +following them, his keen French face glistening with a quiet but intense +satisfaction. + +As for Kendal, every sense in him was covetously striving to hold and fix +the experiences of the last half-hour. The white muffled figure standing +in the turret door, the faint lamp light streaming on the bent head and +upraised arm--those tones of self-forgetful passion, drawn straight, as +it were, from the pure heart of love--the splendid energy of that last +defiance of fate and circumstance--the low vibrations of her dying +words--the power of the actress and the personality of the woman,--all +these different impressions were holding wild war within him as he +hastened on, with Marie clinging to his arm. And beyond the little +stage-door the air seemed to be even more heavily charged with +excitement than that of the theatre. For, as Kendal emerged with his +sister, his attention was perforce attracted by the little crowd of +persons already assembled round the figure of Isabel Bretherton, and, as +his eye travelled over them, he realised with a fresh start the full +compass of the change which had taken place. To all the more eminent +persons in that group Miss Bretherton had been six months before an +ignorant and provincial beauty, good enough to create a social craze, and +nothing more. Their presence round her at this moment, their homage, the +emotion visible everywhere, proved that all was different, that she had +passed the barrier which once existed between her and the world which +knows and thinks, and had been drawn within that circle of +individualities which, however undefined, is still the vital circle of +any time or society, for it is the circle which represents, more or less +brilliantly and efficiently, the intellectual life of a generation. + +Only one thing was unchanged--the sweetness and spontaneity of that +rich womanly nature. She gave a little cry as she saw Madame de +Châteauvieux enter. She came running forward, and threw her arms round +the elder woman and kissed her; it was almost the greeting of a daughter +to a mother. And then, still holding Madame de Châteauvieux with one +hand, she held out the other to Paul, asking him how much fault he had to +find, and when she was to take her scolding; and every gesture had a glow +of youth and joy in it, of which the contagion was irresistible. She had +thrown off the white head-dress she had worn during the last act, and her +delicately-tinted head and neck rose from the splendid wedding-gown of +gold-embroidered satin--vision of flowerlike and aerial beauty. + +Fast as the talk flowed about her, Kendal noticed that every one seemed +to be, first of all, conscious of her neighbourhood, of her dress +rustling past, of her voice in all its different shades of gaiety or +quick emotion. + +'Oh, Mr. Kendal,' she said, turning to him again after their first +greeting--was it the magnetism of his gaze which had recalled hers?--'if +you only knew what your sister has been to me! How much I owe to her and +to you! It was kind of you to come to-night. I should have been so +disappointed 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 rash +and 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, were +so hard to meet! + +'You have played Elvira,' he said, 'as I never thought it would be played +by anybody; and I was blind from first to last. I hoped you had forgotten +that piece of pedantry on my part.' + +'One does not forget the turning-points of one's life,' she answered with +a 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 him +impossible that his self-restraint should hold much longer. Those +wonderful eyes of hers were full upon him; there was emotion in +them,--evidently the Nuneham scene was in her mind, as it was in +his,--and a great friendliness, even gratitude, seemed to look out +through them. But it was as though his doom were written in the very +candour and openness of her gaze, and he rushed desperately into speech +again, hardly knowing what he was saying. + +'It gives me half pain, half pleasure, that you should speak of it so. I +have never ceased to hate myself for that day. But you have travelled far +indeed since the _White Lady_--I never knew any one do so much in so +short a time!' + +She smiled--did her lip quiver? Evidently his praise was very pleasant to +her, and there must have been something strange and stirring to her +feeling in the intensity and intimacy of his tone. Her bright look caught +his again, and he believed for one wild moment that the eyelids sank and +fluttered. He lost all consciousness of the crowd; his whole soul seemed +concentrated on that one instant. Surely she must feel it, or love is +indeed impotent! + +But no,--it was all a delusion! she moved away from him, and the +estranging present rushed in again between them. + +'It has been M. de Châteauvieux's doing, almost all of it,' she said +eagerly, with a change of voice, 'and your sister's. Will you come and +see me some time and talk about some of the Paris people? Oh, I am +wanted! But first you must be introduced to Macias. Wasn't he good? It +was such an excellent choice of Mr. Wallace's. There he is,-and there is +his wife, that pretty little dark woman.' + +Kendal followed her mechanically, and presently found himself talking +nothings to Mr. Harting, who, gorgeous in his Spanish dress, was +receiving the congratulations which poured in upon him with a pleasant +mixture of good manners and natural elation. A little farther on he +stumbled upon Forbes and the Stuarts, Mrs. Stuart as sparkling and fresh +as ever, a suggestive contrast in her American crispness and prettiness +to the high-bred distinction of Madame de Châteauvieux, who was standing +near her. + +'Well, my dear fellow,' said Forbes, catching hold of him, 'how is that +critical demon of yours? Is he scotched yet?' + +'He is almost at his last gasp,' said Kendal, with a ghostly smile, and a +reckless impulse to talk which seemed to him his salvation. 'He was never +as vicious a creature as you thought him, and Miss Bretherton has had no +difficulty in slaying him. But that hall was a masterpiece, Forbes! How +have your pictures got on with all this?' + +'I haven't touched a brush since I came back from Switzerland, except to +make 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 and +I would have our way, and it's all right--the play will run for twelve +months, if she chooses, easily.' + +Near by were the Worralls, looking a little sulky, as Kendal fancied, in +the midst of this great inrush of the London world, which was sweeping +their niece from them into a position of superiority and independence +they were not at all prepared to see her take up; Nothing, indeed, could +be prettier than her manner to them whenever she came across them, but it +was evident that she was no longer an automaton to be moved at their will +and pleasure, but a woman and an artist, mistress of herself and of her +fate. Kendal fell into conversation on the subject with Mrs. Stuart, who +was as communicative and amusing as usual, and who chattered away to him +till he suddenly saw Miss Bretherton signalling to him with her arm in +that of his sister. + +'Do you know, Mr. Kendal,' she said as he went up to her, 'you must +really take Madame de Châteauvieux away out of this noise and crowd? It +is all very well for her to preach to me. Take her to your rooms and +get her some food. How I wish I could entertain you here; but with this +crowd 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? There +will be nothing left of you to-morrow.' + +'Yes, directly, directly! only I feel as if sleep were a thing that did +not 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 send +him 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 and +kindest of friends!' and the brother and sister hurried away, Kendal +dropping the hand which had been cordially stretched out to himself. + +'Do you mind, Eustace?' said Madame de Châteauvieux, as they walked +across the stage. 'I ought to go, and the party ought to break up. But it +is a shame to carry you off from so many friends.' + +'Mind? Why, I have ordered supper for you in my rooms, and it is just +midnight. 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 the +quadrangle under a sky still heavy with storm-clouds, Madame de +Châteauvieux said to her brother with a sigh: 'Well, it has been a great +event. I never remember anything more exciting, or more successful. But +there is one thing, I think, that would make me happier than a hundred +Elviras, and that is to see Isabel Bretherton the wife of a man she +loved!' Then a smile broke over her face as she looked at her +brother. + +'Do you know, Eustace, I quite made up my mind from those first letters +of yours in May, in spite of your denials, that you were very deeply +taken with her? I remember quite seriously discussing the pros and cons +of it with myself.' + +The words were said so lightly, they betrayed so clearly the speaker's +conviction that she had made a foolish mistake, that they stung Kendal to +the quick. How could Marie have known? Had not his letters for the last +three months been misleading enough to deceive the sharpest eyes? And yet +he felt unreasonably that she ought to have known--there was a blind +clamour in him against the bluntness of her sisterly perception. + +His silence was so prolonged that Madame de Châteauvieux was startled by +it. She slipped her hand into his arm. 'Eustace!' Still no answer. 'Have +I said anything to annoy you--Eustace? Won't you let your old sister have +her dreams?' + +But still it seemed impossible for him to speak. He could only lay his +hand over hers with a brotherly clasp. By this time they were at the foot +of the stairs, and he led the way up, Madame de Châteauvieux following in +a tumult of anxious conjecture. When they reached his rooms he put her +carefully into a chair by the fire, made her take some sandwiches, and +set the kettle to boil in his handy bachelor way, that he might make her +some tea, and all the time he talked about various nothings, till at last +Marie, unable to put up with it any longer, caught his hand as he was +bending over the fire. + +'Eustace,' she exclaimed, 'be kind to me, and don't perplex me like +this.--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 into +the fire, the lines of his mobile face settling into repose. + +'Yes,' he said, as though to himself; 'I love her. I believe I have loved +her from the first moment.' + +Madame de Châteauvieux was tremblingly silent, her thoughts travelling +back over the past with lightning rapidity. Could she remember one word, +one look of Isabel Bretherton's, of which her memory might serve to throw +the smallest ray of light on this darkness in which Eustace seemed to be +standing? No, not one. Gratitude, friendship, esteem--all these had been +there abundantly, but nothing else, not one of those many signs by which +one woman betrays her love to another! She rose and put her arm round her +brother's neck. They had been so much to one another for nearly forty +years; he had never wanted anything as a child or youth that she had not +tried to get for him. How strange, how intolerable, that this toy, this +boon, was beyond her getting! + +Her mute sympathy and her deep distress touched him, while, at the same +time, they seemed to quench the last spark of hope in him. Had he counted +upon hearing something from her whenever he should break silence which +would lighten the veil over the future? It must have been so, otherwise +why 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 deal +out of London for the present, and my books are a wonderful help. After +all, life is not all summed up in one desire, however strong. Other +things are real to me--I am thankful to say. I shall live it down.' + +'But why despair so soon?' she cried, rebelling against this heavy +acquiescence of his and her own sense of hopelessness. 'You are a man any +woman might love. Why should she not pass from the mere friendly +intellectual relation to another? Don't go away from London. Stay and see +as much of her as you can.' + +Kendal shook his head. 'I used to dream,' he said huskily, 'of a time +when failure should have come, when she would want some one to step in +and shield her. Sometimes I thought of her protected in my arms against +the world. But now!' + +She felt the truth of his unspoken argument--of all that his tone +implied. In the minds of both the same image gathered shape and +distinctness. Isabel Bretherton in the halo of her great success, in all +the intensity of her new life, seemed to her and to him to stand afar +off, divided by an impassable gulf from this simple, human craving, which +was crying to her, unheard and hopeless, across the darkness. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +A month after the first performance of _Elvira_ Kendal returned to town +on a frosty December afternoon from the Surrey lodgings on which he had +now established a permanent hold. He mounted to his room, found his +letters lying ready for him, and on the top of them a telegram, which, as +his man-servant informed him, had arrived about an hour before. He took +it 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 much +alarmed. Can you come to-night_?' He put it down in stupefaction. Marie +ill! the doctors alarmed! Good heavens! could he catch that evening +train? He looked at his watch, decided that there was time, and plunged, +with his servant's help, into all the necessary preparations. An hour and +a half later he was speeding along through the clear cold moonlight to +Dover, realising for the first time, as he leant back alone in his +compartment, the full meaning of the news which had hurried him off. All +his tender affection for his sister, and all his stifling sense of +something unlucky and untoward in his own life, which had been so strong +in him during the past two months, combined to rouse in him the blackest +fears, the most hopeless despondency. Marie dead,--what would the world +hold for him! Books, thought, ideas--were they enough? Could a man live +by them if all else were gone? For the first time Kendal felt a doubt +which seemed to shake his nature to its depths. + +During the journey his thoughts dwelt in a dull sore way upon the +past. He saw Marie in her childhood, in her youth, in her rich +maturity. He remembered her in the schoolroom spending all her spare +time over contrivances of one kind or another for his amusement. He +had a vision of her going out with their mother on the night of her +first ball, and pitying him for being left behind. He saw her tender +face bending over the death-bed of their father, and through a hundred +incidents and memories--all beautiful, all intertwined with that lovely +self-forgetfulness which was characteristic of her, his mind travelled +down to an evening scarcely a month before, when her affection had once +more stood, a frail warm barrier, between him and the full bitterness of +a great renunciation. Oh Marie, Marie! + +It was still dark when he reached Paris, and the gray winter light was +only just dawning when he stopped at the door of his brother-in-law's +house in one of the new streets near the Champs Elysées. M. de +Châteauvieux was standing on the stairs, his smoothly-shaven, clear-cut +face drawn and haggard, and a stoop in his broad shoulders which Kendal +had 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 the +brother's inquiry of eye and lip, and led the way upstairs into the +forsaken _salon_, which looked as empty and comfortless as though its +mistress had been gone from it years instead of days. Arrived there, the +two men standing opposite to each other in the streak of dull light made +by 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 now +till--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 long +preparation for the worst. 'What is it--how did it happen?' he asked. + +'Internal chill. She was only taken ill the day before yesterday, and the +pain was frightful till yesterday afternoon; then it subsided, and I +thought she was better--she herself was so cheerful and so thankful for +the relief--but when the two doctors came in again, it was to tell me +that the disappearance of the pain meant only the worst--meant that +nothing more can be done--she may go at any moment.' + +There was a silence. M. de Châteauvieux walked up and down with the +noiseless 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 same +painful whisper, 'You must have some food, then I will tell her you are +here.' + +'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 little +anteroom, lifted a curtain, and knocked. The nurse came, there was a +little parley, and Paul went in, while Eustace waited outside, conscious +of the most strangely trivial things, of the passers-by in the street, of +a wrangle between two _gamins_ on the pavement opposite, of the +misplacement of certain volumes in the bookcase beside him, till the +door opened again, and M. de Châteauvieux drew him in. + +He stepped over the threshold, his whole being wrought up to he knew not +what solemn pageant of death and parting, and the reality within startled +him. The room was flooded with morning light, a frosty December sun was +struggling through the fog, the curtains had just been drawn back, and +the wintry radiance rested on the polished brass of the bed, on the +bright surfaces of wood and glass with which the room was full, on the +little tray of tea-things which the nurse held, and on his sister's face +of greeting as she lay back smiling among her pillows. There was such a +cheerful home peace and brightness in the whole scene--in the crackling +wood 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 him +incredible that under all this familiar household detail there should be +lying in wait that last awful experience of death. + +Marie kissed him with grateful affectionate words spoken almost in her +usual voice, and then, as he sat beside her holding her hands, she +noticed that he looked pale and haggard. + +'Has he had some breakfast, Paul? Oh, poor Eustace, after that long +journey! Nurse, let him have my cup, there is some tea left; let me see +you 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, while +she took one hand from him and slipped it into that of her husband as he +sat beside her on the bed. Her touch seemed to have meaning in it, for +Paul rose presently and went to the far end of the large room; the nurse +carried away the tea-things, and the brother and sister were practically +alone. + +'Dear Eustace,' she began, after a few pathetic moments of silence, in +which look and gesture took the place of speech, 'I have so longed to see +you. It seemed to me in that awful pain that I must die before I could +gather my thoughts together once more, before I could get free enough +from 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 always +promised one another that there should never be any concealment between +us when either of us came to die, and I think I shall have a few hours +more with you.' + +She was silent a little; the voice had all its usual intonations, but it +was low and weak, and it was necessary for her from time to time to +gather such strength as might enable her to maintain the calm of her +manner. Eustace, in bewildered misery, had hidden his face upon her +hands, which were clasped in his, and every now and then she felt the +pressure of his lips upon her fingers. + +'There are many things I want to say to you,' she went on. 'I will try to +remember them in order. Will you stay with Paul a few days--after--? will +you always remember to be good to him? I know you will. My poor Paul, oh +if I had but given you a child!' + +The passion of her low cry thrilled Eustace's heart. He looked up and saw +on her face the expression of the hidden yearning of a lifetime. It +struck him as something awful and sacred; he could not answer it except +by look and touch, and presently she went on after another pause: + +'His sister will come to him very likely--his widowed sister. She has a +girl he is fond of. After a while he will take pleasure in her.--Then I +have thought so much of you and of the future. So often last night I +thought I saw you and _her_, and what you ought to do seemed to grow +plain to me. Dear Eustace, don't let anything I say now ever be a burden +to you--don't let it fetter you ever--but it is so strong in me you must +let me say it all. She is not in love with you, Eustace--at least, I +think not. She has never thought of you in that way; but there is +everything 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. She +knows that you are good and true. I want you to try and carry it farther +for her sake and yours.' He looked up and would have spoken, but she put +her soft hand over his mouth. 'Wait one moment. Those about her are not +people to make her happy--at any time if things went wrong--if she broke +down--she would be at their mercy. Then her position--you know what +difficulties it has--it makes my heart ache sometimes to think of it. She +won 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 with +you--in those true hands of yours. Oh, you will try, darling?' He +answered 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 beauty +and her fame? Anybody would be proud to marry her, and she has such a +quick eager nature. + +'There is no one!' said Marie, with deep conviction in the whispered +words. 'Her life has been too exciting--too full of one interest. She +stayed with me; I got to know her to the bottom. She would not have +hidden it. Only say you will make one trial and I should be content.' + +And then her innate respect for another's individuality, her shrinking +from what might prove to be the tyranny of a dying wish interposed, and +she checked herself. 'No, don't promise; I have no right--no one has any +right. I can only tell you my feeling--my deep sense that there is +hope--that there is nothing against you. Men--good men--are so often +over-timid when courage would be best. Be bold, Eustace; respect your +own love; do not be too proud to show it--to offer it!' Her voice died +away into silence, only Eustace still felt the caressing touch of the +thin fingers clasped round his. It seemed to him as if the life still +left in her were one pure flame of love, undimmed by any thought of +self, undisturbed by any breath of pain. Oh, this victory of the spirit +over the flesh, of soul over body, which humanity achieves and renews +from day to day and from age to age, in all those nobler and finer +personalities upon whom the moral life of the world depends! How it burns +its testimony into the heart of the spectator! How it makes him thrill +with the apprehension which lies at the root of all religion--the +apprehension 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 our +leaning upon, and stand the strain of human questioning! It was borne in +upon Eustace, as he sat bowed beside his dying sister, that through this +fragile body and this failing breath the Eternal Mind was speaking, and +that in Marie's love the Eternal Love was taking voice. He said so to her +brokenly, and her sweet eyes smiled back upon him a divine answer of +peace and faith. + +Then she called faintly, 'Paul!' The distant figure came back; and she +laid her head upon her husband's breast, while Eustace was gently drawn +away by the nurse. Presently, he found himself mechanically taking food +and mechanically listening to the low-voiced talk of the kindly +white-capped woman who was attending to him. Every fact, every +impression, was misery,--these details so unexpected, so irrevocable, so +charged with terrible meaning, which the nurse was pouring out upon +him,--that presence in the neighbouring room of which his every nerve was +conscious,--and in front of him, like a frowning barrier shutting off the +view of the future, the advancing horror of death! Yesterday, at the same +time, he had been walking along the sandy Surrey roads, delighting in the +last autumn harmonies of colour, and conscious of the dawn of a period of +rest after a period of conflict, of the growth within him of a temper of +quiet and rational resignation to the conditions of life and of his own +individual lot, over the development of which the mere fact of his +sister's existence had exercised a strong and steadying influence. Life, +he had persuaded himself, was for him more than tolerable, even without +love 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 of +personal relations, one heart was safely his, the sympathy and trust and +tenderness of one human soul would never fail him at his need. And now +this last tender bond was to be broken with a rough, incredible +suddenness. The woman he loved with passion would never be his; for not +even now, fresh from contact with his sister's dying hope, could he raise +himself 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 a +consciousness fell upon him which made him ashamed. In the neighbouring +room his ear was caught now and then by an almost imperceptible, murmur +of voices. What was his loss, his agony, compared to theirs? + +When he softly returned into the room he found Marie lying as though +asleep upon, her husband's arm. It seemed to him that since he had left +her there had been a change. The face was more drawn, the look of +exhaustion more defined. Paul sat beside her, his eyes riveted upon her. +He scarcely seemed to notice his brother-in-law's entrance; it was as +though he were rapidly losing consciousness of every fact but one; and +never had Kendal seen any countenance so grief-stricken, so pinched with +longing. But Marie heard the familiar step. She made a faint movement +with her hand towards him, and he resumed his old place, his head bowed +upon the bed. And so they sat through the morning, hardly moving, +interchanging at long intervals a few words--those sad sacred words which +well from the heart in the supreme moments of existence--words which, in +the case of such natures as Marie de Châteauvieux, represent the intimate +truths and fundamental ideas of the life that has gone before. There was +nothing to hide, nothing to regret. A few kindly messages, a few womanly +commissions, and every now and then a few words to her husband, as simple +as the rest, but pregnant with the deepest thoughts and touching the +vastest problems of humanity,--this was all. Marie was dying as she had +lived--bravely, tenderly, simply. + +Presently they roused her to take some nourishment, which she swallowed +with difficulty. It gave her a momentary strength. Kendal heard himself +called, and looked up. She had opened the hand lying on the bed, and he +saw 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 I +can think of. She has been ill, Eustace: did I tell you? I forget. I +should have gone--but for this. It is too much for her,--that life. It +will break her down. You can save her and cherish her--you will. It seems +as if I saw you--together!' + +Then her eyes fell and she seemed to sleep--gently wandering now and +then, and mentioning in her dying dream names and places which made the +reality before them more and more terrible to the two hushed listeners, +so different were the associations they called up. Was this white +nerveless form, from which mind and breath were gently ebbing away, all +that fate had grudgingly left to them, for a few more agonised moments, +of the brilliant, high-bred woman who had been but yesterday the centre +of an almost European network of friendships and interests! Love, loss, +death,--oh, how unalterable is this essential content of life, embroider +it and adorn it as we may! + +Kendal had been startled by her words about Isabel Bretherton. He had not +heard of any illness; it could hardly be serious, for he vaguely +remembered that in the newspapers he had tried to read on the journey his +eye had caught the familiar advertisement of the _Calliope_. It must have +happened while he was in Surrey. He vaguely speculated about it now and +then as he sat watching through the afternoon. But nothing seemed to +matter very much to him--nothing but Marie and the slow on-coming of +death. + +At last when the wintry light was fading, when the lamps were being lit +outside, and the bustle of the street seemed to penetrate in little +intermittent waves of sound into the deep quiet of the room, Marie +Raised herself and, with a fluttering sigh, withdrew her hand softly from +her brother, and laid her arm round her husband's neck. He stooped to +her--kissed the sweet lips and the face on which the lines of middle age +had hardly settled--caught a wild alarm from her utter silence, called +the nurse and Kendal, and all was over. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +The morning of Marie's funeral was sunny but bitterly cold; it was one of +those days when autumn finally passes into winter, and the last memory of +the summer warmth vanishes from the air. It had been the saddest, +dreariest laying to rest. The widowed sister, of whom Marie had spoken in +her last hours, had been unable to come, and the two men had gone through +it all alone, helped only by the tearful, impulsive sympathy and the +practical energy of the maid who had been with Marie ever since her +marriage, and was as yet hardly capable of realising her mistress's +death. + +It was she who, while they were away, had done her best to throw a little +air of comfort over the forsaken _salon_. She had kindled the fire, +watered the plants, and thrown open the windows to the sunshine, finding +in her toil and movement some little relief from her own heart-ache and +oppression. When Paul came back, and with numb, trembling fingers had +stripped himself of his scarf and his great-coat, he stepped over the +threshold into the _salon_, and it seemed to him as though the sunlight +and the open windows and the crackling blaze of the fire dealt him a +sudden blow. He walked up to the windows, and, shuddering, drew them down +and closed the blinds, Félicie watching him anxiously from the landing +through the half-open door. Then he had thrown himself into a chair; and +Kendal, coming softly upstairs after him, had gently closed the door from +the outside, said a kind word to Félicie, and himself slipped noiselessly +down again and out into the Champs Elysées. There he had paced up and +down for an hour or more under the trees, from which a few frosty leaves +were still hanging in the December air. + +He himself had been so stunned and bewildered by the loss which had +fallen upon him, that, when he found himself alone and out of doors +again, 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 dumb +physical congeniality in the sunshine, in the clear blue and white of the +sky, in the cheerful distinctness and sharpness of every outline. And +then, little by little, the cheated grief reasserted itself, the numbed +senses woke into painful life, and he fell into broken musings on the +past, or into a bitter wonder over the precarious tenure by which men +hold those good things whereon, so long as they are still their own, they +are so quick to rear an edifice of optimist philosophy. A week before, +his sister's affection had been to him the one sufficient screen between +his own consciousness and the desolate threatening immensities of thought +and of existence. The screen had fallen, and the darkness seemed to be +rushing in upon him. And still, life had to be lived, work to be got +through, 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, and +possession after possession swept away, and still find the years +tolerable and the sun pleasant, still cherish in themselves that +inexhaustible faith in an ideal something which supplies from century to +century the invincible motive power of the race? + +Presently--by virtue of long critical and philosophical habit--his mind +brought itself to bear more and more steadily upon his own position; he +stepped back, as it were, from himself and became his own spectator. The +introspective temper was not common with him; his mind was naturally +turned outward--towards other people, towards books, towards intellectual +interests. But self-study had had its charm for him of late, and, amongst +other things, it was now plain to him that up to the moment of his first +meeting with Isabel Bretherton his life had been mostly that of an +onlooker--a bystander. Society, old and new, men and women of the past +and of the present, the speculative achievements of other times and of +his own,--these had constituted a sort of vast drama before his eyes, +which he had watched and studied with an ever-living curiosity. But his +interest in his particular _rôle_ had been comparatively weak, and in +analysing other individualities he had run some risk of losing his own. + +Then love came by, and the half-dormant personality within him had been +seized upon and roused, little by little, into a glowing, although a +repressed and hidden energy. He had learnt in his own person what it +means to crave, to thirst, to want. And now, grief had followed and had +pinned him more closely than ever to his special little part in the human +spectacle. The old loftiness, the old placidity of mood, were gone. He +had loved, and lost, and despaired. Beside those great experiences how +trivial and evanescent seemed all the interests of the life that went +before them! He looked back over his intercourse with Isabel Bretherton, +and the points upon which it had turned seemed so remote from him, so +insignificant, that for the moment he could hardly realise them. The +artistic and aesthetic questions which had seemed to him so vital six +months before had faded almost out of view in the fierce neighbourhood of +sorrow and passion. His first relation to her had been that of one who +knows to one who is ignorant; but that puny link had dropped, and he was +going to meet her now, fresh from the presence of death, loving her as a +man 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 and +hers! In the early morning after Marie's death, when he woke up from a +few heavy hours of sleep, his mind had been full of her. How was the news +to be broken to her? He himself did not feel that he could leave his +brother-in-law. There was a strong regard and sympathy between them; and +his presence in the house of mourning would undoubtedly be useful to Paul +for a while; besides, there were Marie's words--'Will you stay with him a +few days--after--?'--which were binding on him. He must write, then; but +it was only to be hoped that no newspaper would bring her the news before +his letter could reach. + +However, as the day wore on, Paul came noiselessly out of the quiet room +where the white shrouded form seemed still to spread a tender presence +round 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 a +brotherly 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 motherly +carefulness over the bright creature who had charmed her had passed into +Paul. He was saying what Marie would have said, taking thought as she +would 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 to +find Paul busy with his wife's letters and trinkets, turning them over +With a look of shivering forlornness, as though the thought of the +uncompanioned lifetime to come were already closing upon him like some +deadly chill in the air. Beside him lay two miniature cases open; one of +them was the case which Eustace had received from his sister's hand on +the afternoon before her death, and both of them contained identical +portraits of Marie in her first brilliant womanhood. + +'Do you remember them?' Paul said in his husky Voice, pointing them +out to him. 'They were done when you were at college and she was +twenty-three. Your mother had two taken--one for herself and one for your +old aunt Marion. Your mother left me hers when she died, and your aunt's +copy 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 stood +beside him, mechanically spreading out his hands to the fire. + +'To-morrow, as soon as you are gone, I shall go off to Italy. There are +some little places in the south near Naples that she was very fond of. I +shall stay about there for a while. As soon as I feel I can, I shall come +back to the Senate and my work. It is the only thing left me,--she was so +keen about it.' His voice sank into a whisper, and a long silence fell +upon them. Women in moments of sorrow have the outlet of tears and +caresses; men's great refuge is silence; but the silence may be charged +with 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 make +some necessary preparations for his journey, when Paul detained him, +looking up at him with sunken eyes which seemed to carry in them all the +history of the two nights just past. 'Will you ever ask her what Marie +wished?' The tone was the even and passionless tone of one who for the +moment feels none of the ordinary embarrassments of intercourse; Kendal +met it with the same directness. + +'Some day I shall ask her, or at least I shall let her know; but it will +be no use.' + +Paul shook his head, but whether in protest or agreement Kendal could +hardly tell. Then he went back to his task of sorting the letters, and +let the matter drop. It seemed as if he were scarcely capable of taking +an interest in it for its own sake, but simply as a wish, a charge of +Marie's. + +Kendal parted from him in the evening with an aching heart, and was +haunted for hours by the memory of the desolate figure returning slowly +into the empty house, and by a sharp prevision of all the lonely nights +and the uncomforted morrows which lay before the stricken man. + +But, as Paris receded farther and farther behind him, and the sea drew +nearer, and the shores of the country which held Isabel Bretherton, it +was but natural that even the grip upon him of this terrible and +startling calamity should relax a little, and that he should realise +himself as a man seeking the adored woman, his veins still beating with +the 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 that +loss for ever. But Isabel Bretherton was still among the living, the +warm, the beautiful, and every mile brought him nearer to the electric +joy of her presence. He took a sad strange pleasure in making the +contrast between the one picture and the other as vivid as possible. +Death and silence on the one side--oh, how true and how irreparable! But +on the other, he forced on his imagination till it drew for him an +image of youth and beauty so glowing that it almost charmed the sting out +of his grief. The English paper which he succeeded in getting at Calais +contained the announcement: 'Miss Bretherton has, we are glad to say, +completely recovered from the effects of the fainting fit which so much +alarmed the audience at the _Calliope_ last week. She was able to play +_Elvira_ as usual last night, and was greeted by a large and sympathetic +house.' He read it, and turned the page hastily, as if what the paragraph +suggested was wholly distasteful to him. He refused altogether to think +of her as weak or suffering; he shrank from his own past misgivings, his +own prophecies about her. The world would be a mere dark prison-house if +her bright beauty were over-clouded! She was not made for death, and she +should stand to him as the image of all that escapes and resists and +defies that tyrant of our years, and pain, his instrument and herald. + +He reached London in the midst of a rainy fog. The endless black streets +stretched before him in the dreary December morning like so many roads +into the nether regions; the gas-lamps scattered an unseasonable light +through the rain and fog; it was the quintessence of murky, cheerless +winter. + +He reached his own rooms, and found his man up and waiting for him, and a +meal ready. It was but three days since he had been last there, the open +telegram was still lying on the table. One of his first acts was to put +it hastily out of sight. Over his breakfast he planned his embassy to +Miss Bretherton. The best time to find her alone, he imagined, would be +about mid-day, and in the interval he would put his books and papers to +rights. They lay scattered about--books, proofs, and manuscript. As his +orderly hands went to work upon them, he was conscious that he had never +been so remote from all that they represented. But his nature was +faithful and tenacious, and under the outward sense of detachment there +was an inward promise of return. 'I will come back to you,' seemed to be +the cry of his thought. 'You shall be my only friends. But first I must +see her, and all my heart is hers!' + +The morning dragged away, and at half-past eleven he went out, carrying +the little case with him. As he stood outside the Bayswater house, in +which she had settled for the winter, he realised that he had never yet +been 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_, to +come and see her. But, instead of doing so, he had buried himself in his +Surrey lodging, striving to bring the sober and austere influences of the +country to bear upon the feverish indecision of his mood. Perhaps his +disappearance and silence had wounded her; after all, he knew that he +had some place in her thoughts. + +The servant who opened the door demurred to his request to see Miss +Bretherton. 'The doctor says, sir, that at home she must keep quiet; she +has not seen any visitors just lately.' But Kendal persisted, and his +card was taken in, while he waited the result. The servant hurried along +the ground-floor passage, knocked at the door at the farther end, went in +for a moment, and came out beckoning to him. He obeyed with a beating +heart, and she threw open the door for him. + +Inside stood Isabel Bretherton, with eager surprise and pleasure in her +whole attitude. She had just risen from her chair, and was coming +forward; a soft white cashmere shawl hung around her; her dress, of some +dark rich stuff, fell with the flowing, stately lines peculiar to it; her +face was slightly flushed, and the brilliancy of her colour, of her hair, +of her white, outstretched hand, seemed to Kendal to take all the chill +and gloom out of the winter air. She held some proof sheets of a new play +in her hand, and the rest lay piled beside her on a little table. + +'How kind of you, Mr. Kendal,' she said, advancing with her quick +impulsive step towards him. 'I thought you had forgotten us, and I have +been wanting your advice so badly! I have just been complaining of you a +little in a letter to Madame de Châteauvieux! She--' + +Then she suddenly stopped, checked and startled by his face. He was +always colourless and thin, but the two nights he had just passed through +had given him an expression of haggard exhaustion. His black eyes seemed +to have lost the keenness which was so remarkable in them, and his +prematurely gray hair gave him almost a look of age in spite of the +lightness 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 seeking +anxiously word by word how he might soften what, after all, could not be +softened. 'M. de Châteauvieux sent me to you at once, that you should +not hear in any other way. But it must be a shock to you--for you loved +her!' + +'Oh!' she cried, interrupting him, speaking in short, gasping words, and +answering not so much his words as his look. 'She is ill--she is in +danger--something has happened?' + +'I was summoned on Wednesday,' said Kendal, helpless after all in the +grip of the truth which would not be managed or controlled. 'When I got +there she had been two days ill, and there was no hope.' + +He paused; her eyes of agonised questioning implored him to go on. 'I was +with 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 from +cheek and lip; when he stopped, she gave a little cry. He let go her +hand, and she sank into a chair near, so white and breathless that he was +alarmed. + +'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, waiting +anxiously. She struggled against the physical oppression which had seized +upon her, and fought it down bravely. But he noticed with a pang now that +the flush was gone, that she looked fragile and worn, and, as his thought +went back for a moment to the Surrey Sunday and her young rounded beauty +among the spring green, he could have cried out in useless rebellion +against the unyielding physical conditions which press upon and imprison +the flame of life. + +At last the faintness passed off, and she sat up, her hands clasped round +her knees, and the tears running fast over her cheeks. Her grief was like +herself--frank, simple, expressive. + +'Will you tell me more about it? Oh, I cannot believe it! Why, only last +week when I was ill she talked of coming to me! I have just been writing +to her--there is my letter. I feel as if I could not bear it; she was +like 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, much +moved. And he went on to tell her the story of Marie's dying hours, +describing that gentle withdrawal from life with a manly tenderness of +feeling and a quick memory for all that could soften the impression of it +to the listener. And then he brought out the miniature and gave it to +her, and she accepted it with a fresh burst of sorrow, putting it to her +lips, studying it and weeping over it, with an absolute spontaneity and +self-abandonment which was lovely because it was so true. + +'Oh, poor M. de Châteauvieux!' she cried after a long pause, looking up +to 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 learn +to bear it.' + +She gazed at him with quick startled sympathy, and all her womanly nature +seemed to rise into her upturned face and yearning eyes. It was as though +her attention had been specially recalled to him; as though his +particular loss and sorrow were brusquely brought home to her. And then +she was struck by the strangeness and unexpectedness of such a meeting +between them. He had been to her a judge, an authority, an embodied +standard. His high-mindedness had won her confidence; his affection for +his sister had touched and charmed her. But she had never been conscious +of any intimacy with him. Still less had she ever dreamt of sharing a +common grief with him, of weeping at his side. And the contrast between +her old relation with him and this new solemn experience, rushing in upon +her, filled her with emotion. The memory of the Nuneham day woke again in +her--of the shock between her nature and his, of her overwhelming sense +of the intellectual difference between them, and then of the thrill which +his verdict upon _Elvira_ had stirred in her. The relation which she had +regarded as a mere intellectual and friendly one, but which had been far +more real and important to her than even she herself had ever guessed, +seemed to have transformed itself since he had entered the room into +something close and personal. His last words had called up in her a sharp +impression of the man's inmost nature as it was, beneath the polished +scholarly surface. They had appealed to her on the simplest, commonest, +human ground; she felt them impulsively as a call from him to her, and +her own heart overflowed. + +She rose, and went near to him, bending towards him like a spirit of +healing, her whole soul in her eyes 'Oh, I am so sorry for you!' she +exclaimed, and again the quick tears dropped. 'I know it is no common +loss to you. You were so much more to each other than brother and sister +often are. It is terrible for you.' + +His whole man was stirred by her pity, by the eager expansiveness of her +sympathy. + +'Say it again!' he murmured, as their eyes met; 'say it again. It is so +sweet--from you!' + +There was a long pause; she stood as if fascinated, her hands falling +slowly beside her. Her gaze wavered till the eyelids fell, and she stood +absolutely motionless, the tears still on her cheek. The strange +intoxicating force of feeling, set in motion by sorrow and pity, and the +unsuspected influence of his love, was sweeping them out into deep +waters. She could hardly breathe, but as he watched her all the manhood +in him rose, and from the midst of grief put forward an imperious claim +to the beloved and beautiful woman before him. He came forward a step, +took the cold, unresisting hands, and, bending before her, pressed them +to his lips, while her bewildered eyes looked down upon him. + +'Your pity is heavenly,' he said brokenly; 'but give me more, give me +more! 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 the +stretches of Surrey common, to the Nuneham woods, and all she had ever +seen or imagined of his feelings towards her. She had never, never +suspected him of loving her. She had sent him her friendly messages from +Venice in the simplest good faith; she had joined in his sister's +praises of him without a moment's self-consciousness. His approval of her +play in _Elvira_ had given her the same frank pleasure that a master's +good 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 and +certainty began to assert itself against the overmastering impulse which +had led him on. + +'I have startled you--shocked you,' he cried. 'I ought not to have +spoken--and at such a time. It was your pity overcame me--your sweet +womanly kindness. I have loved you, I think, ever since that first +evening after the _White Lady_. At least, when I look back upon my +feeling, I see that it was love from the beginning. After that day at +Nuneham I knew that it was love; but I would not acknowledge it; I fought +against it. It seemed to me that you would never forget that I had been +harsh, that I had behaved rather like an enemy than a friend. But you did +forget--you showed me how noble a woman could be, and every day after we +parted in July I loved you more. I thought of you all the summer when I +was buried in the Country--my days and nights were full of you. Then when +your great success came--it was base of me--but all the time while I was +sending my congratulations to you through my sister at Venice, I was +really feeling that there was no more hope for me, and that some cruel +force was carrying you away from me. Then came _Elvira_--and I seemed to +give you up for ever.' + +Her hands dropped from her face, and her great hazel eyes were fixed upon +him with that intent look he remembered long ago when she had asked him +for the 'truth' about herself and her position. But there was no pain in +it 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 made +him eloquent. + +'Why? Because I thought you must inevitably be absorbed, swallowed up by +the great new future before you; because my own life looked so gray and +dull beside yours. I felt it impossible you should stoop from your height +to 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 sank +lower still--'came the summons to Paris, and Marie on her death-bed tried +to 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 of +the depth, the tenacity, the rich, illimitable promise of the passion +which she had roused. The tenderness of Marie seemed to encompass them, +and a sacred pathetic sense of death and loss drew them together. Her +respect, her reverence, her interest had been yielded long ago; did this +troubled yearning within mean something more, something infinitely +greater? + +She raised herself suddenly, and, as he knelt beside her, he felt her +warm breath on his cheek, and a tear dropped on his hands, which her own +were blindly and timidly seeking. + +'Oh!' she whispered, or rather sobbed, 'I never dreamt of it. I never +thought of anything like this. But--do not leave me again. I could not +bear it.' + +Kendal bowed his head upon the hands nestling in his, and it seemed to +him as if life and time were suspended, as if he and she were standing +within the 'wind-warm space' of love, while death and sorrow and +parting--three grave and tender angels of benediction--kept watch and +ward without. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Miss Bretherton, by Mrs. Humphry Ward + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISS BRETHERTON *** + +***** This file should be named 13432-8.txt or 13432-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/4/3/13432/ + +Produced by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/old/13432-8.zip b/old/13432-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..32c654b --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13432-8.zip diff --git a/old/13432.txt b/old/13432.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4589235 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13432.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5930 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Miss Bretherton, by Mrs. Humphry Ward + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Miss Bretherton + +Author: Mrs. Humphry Ward + +Release Date: September 11, 2004 [EBook #13432] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISS BRETHERTON *** + + + + +Produced by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + + MISS BRETHERTON + + BY MRS. HUMPHRY WARD + + 1888 + + + + +PREFATORY NOTE + +It ought to be stated that the account of the play _Elvira_, given in +Chapter VII. of the present story, is based upon an existing play, the +work 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 been +made on this little book since its appearance, that I may perhaps be +allowed a few words of answer to them in the shape of a short preface to +this new edition. It has been supposed that because the book describes a +London world, which is a central and conspicuous world with interests and +activities of a public and prominent kind, therefore all the characters +in it are drawn from real persons who may be identified if the seeker is +only clever enough. This charge of portraiture is constantly brought +against the novelist, and it is always a difficult one to meet; but one +may begin by pointing out that, in general, it implies a radical +misconception of the story-teller's methods of procedure. An idea, a +situation, is suggested to him by real life, he takes traits and +peculiarities from this or that person whom he has known or seen, but +this is all. When he comes to write--unless, of course, it is a case of +malice and bad faith--the mere necessities of an imaginative effort +oblige him to cut himself adrift from reality. His characters become to +him the creatures of a dream, as vivid often as his waking life, but +still a dream. And the only portraits he is drawing are portraits of +phantoms, of which the germs were present in reality, but to which he +himself has given voice, garb, and action. + +So the present little sketch was suggested by real life; the first hint +for it was taken from one of the lines of criticism--not that of the +author--adopted towards the earliest performances of an actress who, +coming among us as a stranger a year and a half ago, has won the respect +and admiration of us all. The share in dramatic success which, in this +country at any rate, belongs to physical gift and personal charm; the +effect of the public sensitiveness to both, upon the artist and upon art; +the difference between French and English dramatic ideals; these were the +various thoughts suggested by the dramatic interests of the time. They +were not new, they had been brought into prominence on more than one +occasion during the last few years, and, in a general sense, they are +common to the whole history of dramatic art. In dealing with them the +problem of the story-teller was twofold--on the one hand, to describe the +public in its two divisions of those who know or think they know, and +those whose only wish is to feel and to enjoy; and on the other hand, to +draw such an artist as should embody at once all the weakness and all the +strength involved in the general situation. To do this, it was necessary +to exaggerate and emphasise all the criticisms that had ever been brought +against beauty in high dramatic place, while, at the same time, charm and +loveliness were inseparable from the main conception. And further, it was +sought to show that, although the English susceptibility to physical +charm--susceptibility greater here, in matters of art, than it is in +France--may have, and often does have, a hindering effect upon the +artist, still, there are other influences in a great society which are +constantly tending to neutralise this effect; in other words, that even +in England an actress may win her way by youth and beauty, and still +achieve by labour and desert another and a greater fame. + +These were the ideas on which this little sketch was based, and in +working them out the writer has not been conscious of any portraiture of +individuals. Whatever attractiveness she may have succeeded in giving to +her heroine is no doubt the shadow, so to speak, of a real influence so +strong that no one writing of the English stage at the present moment can +easily escape it; but otherwise everything is fanciful, the outcome, and +indeed, too much the outcome, of certain critical ideas. And in the +details of the story there has been no chronicling of persons; all the +minor and subsidiary figures are imaginary, devised so as to illustrate +to the best of the writer's ability the various influences which are +continually brought to bear upon the artist in the London of to-day. +There are traits and reminiscences of actual experience in the +book,--what story was ever without them? But no living person has been +drawn, and no living person has any just reason to think himself or +herself aggrieved by any sentence which it contains. + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +It was the day of the private view at the Royal Academy. The great +courtyard of Burlington House was full of carriages, and a continuous +stream of guests was pressing up the red-carpeted stairs, over which +presided some of the most imposing individuals known to the eyes of +Londoners, second only to Her Majesty's beefeaters in glory of scarlet +apparel. Inside, however, as it was not yet luncheon-time, the rooms were +but moderately filled. It was possible to see the pictures, to appreciate +the spring dresses, and to single out a friend even across the Long +Gallery. The usual people were there: Academicians of the old school and +Academicians of the new; R.A.'s coming from Kensington and the 'regions +of culture,' and R.A.'s coming from more northerly and provincial +neighbourhoods where art lives a little desolately and barely, in want of +the graces and adornings with which 'culture' professes to provide her. +There were politicians still capable--as it was only the first week of +May--of throwing some zest into their amusements. There were art-critics +who, accustomed as they were by profession to take their art in large and +rapid draughts, had yet been unable to content themselves with the one +meagre 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 few +supplementary jottings taken in the intervals of conversation with their +lady friends. There were the great dealers betraying in look and gait +their profound, yet modest, consciousness that upon them rested the +foundations of the artistic order, and that if, in a superficial +conception of things, the star of an Academician differs from that of the +man who buys his pictures in glory, the truly philosophic mind assesses +matters differently. And, most important of all, there were the women, +old and young, some in the full freshness of spring cottons, as if the +east wind outside were not mocking the efforts of the May sun, and others +still wrapped in furs, which showed a juster sense of the caprices of the +English climate. Among them one might distinguish the usual shades and +species: the familiar country cousin, gathering material for the +over-awing of such of her neighbours as were unable to dip themselves +every year in the stream of London; the women folk of the artist world, +presenting greater varieties of type than the women of any other class +can boast; and lastly, a sprinkling of the women of what calls itself +'London Society,' as well dressed, as well mannered, and as well provided +with 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, making +every now and then hasty references to his catalogue, but in general +eyeing all he saw with the look of one in whom familiarity with the sight +before him had bred weariness, if not contempt. He was a handsome man, +with a broad brow and a pleasant gentleness of expression. The eyes were +fine and thoughtful, and there was a combination of intellectual force +with great delicacy of line in the contour of the head and face which was +particularly attractive, especially to women of the more cultivated and +impressionable sort. His thin grayish hair was rather long--not of that +pronounced length which inevitably challenges the decision of the +bystander as to whether the wearer be fool or poet, but still long enough +to fall a little carelessly round the head and so take off from the +spruce conventional effect of the owner's irreproachable dress and +general London air. + +Mr. Eustace Kendal--to give the person we have been describing his +name--was not apparently in a good temper with his surroundings. He was +standing with a dissatisfied expression before a Venetian scene drawn by +a brilliant member of a group of English artists settled on foreign soil +and 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 these +men--success and the amount of money there is going. The man who painted +this didn't get any pleasure out of it. But it's the same all round. It +is money and luxury and the struggle to live which are driving us all on +and killing the artist's natural joy in his work. And presently, as that +odd little Frenchman said to me last year, we shall have dropped +irretrievably into the "lowest depth of mediocrity."' + +'Kendal!' said an eager voice close to his ear, while a hand was laid on +his arm, 'do you know that girl?' + +Kendal turned in astonishment and saw a short oldish man, in whom he +recognised a famous artist, standing by, his keen mobile face wearing an +expression 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 know +her by sight! It's Miss Bretherton, the actress. Did you ever see such +beauty? I must get somebody to introduce me to her. There's nothing worth +looking at since she came in. But, by ill luck, nobody here seems to know +her.' + +Eustace Kendal, to whom the warm artist's temperament of his friend was +well known, turned with some amusement towards the picture named, and +noticed that flutter in the room which shows that something or some one +of interest is present. People trying to look unconcerned, and catalogue +in hand, were edging towards the spot where the lady in black stood, +glancing alternately at her and at the pictures, in the manner of those +equally determined to satisfy their curiosity and their sense of +politeness. The lady in question, meanwhile, conscious that she was being +looked at, but not apparently disturbed by it, was talking to another +lady, the only person with her, a tall, gaunt woman, also dressed in +black and gifted abundantly with the forbidding aspect which beauty +requires in its duenna. + +Kendal could see nothing more at first than a tall, slender figure, a +beautiful head, and a delicate white profile, in flashing contrast with +its black surroundings, and with lines of golden brown hair. But in +profile and figure there was an extraordinary distinction and grace which +reconciled him to his friend's eagerness and made him wish for the +beauty's next movement. Presently she turned and caught the gaze of the +two men full upon her. Her eyes dropped a little, but there was nothing +ill-bred or excessive in her self-consciousness. She took her companion's +arm with a quiet movement, and drew her towards one of the striking +pictures of the year, some little way off. The two men also turned and +walked 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 that +face light up, else I shall go home--one may as well. These daubs are not +worth the trouble of considering now!' + +'See what it is to be an "ideal painter,"' said Kendal, laughing. 'At +home one paints river goddesses, and tree-nymphs, and such like remote +creatures, 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're +not to be met with like that every day. _Je me connais en beaute_, my +dear fellow, and I never saw such perfection, both of line and colour, as +that. It is extraordinary; it excites one as an artist. Look, is that +Wallace 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 a +beaming smile and bright emphatic movements of the head, and the three +strolled on. + +'Yes, that is Edward Wallace,--very much in it, apparently. That is the +way Americans have. They always know everybody it's desirable to know. +But now's your chance, Forbes. Stroll carelessly past them, catch +Wallace's eye, and the thing is done.' + +Mr. Forbes had already dropped Kendal's arm, and was sauntering across +the room towards the chatting trio. Kendal watched the scene from a +distance with some amusement; saw his friend brush carelessly past the +American, look back, smile, stop, and hold out his hand; evidently a +whisper passed between them, for the next moment Mr. Forbes was making a +low bow to the beauty, and immediately afterwards Kendal saw his fine +gray head and stooping shoulders disappear into the next room, side by +side with Miss Bretherton's erect and graceful figure. + +Kendal betook himself once more to the pictures, and, presently finding +some acquaintances, made a rapid tour of the rooms with them, parting +with them at the entrance that he might himself go back and look at two +or three things in the sculpture room which he had been told were +important and promising. There he came across the American, Edward +Wallace, who at once took him by the arm with the manner of an old friend +and a little burst of laughter. + +'So you saw the introduction? What a man is Forbes! He is as young still +as 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 which +would have been awkward if it had been anybody else but such a +gentlemanly maniac as Forbes, and has almost made her promise to sit to +him. Miss Bretherton was a little bewildered, I think. She is so new to +London that she doesn't know who's who yet in the least. I had to take +her aside and explain to her Forbes's honours; then she fired up--there +is a naive hero-worship about her just now that she is fresh from a +colony--and made herself as pleasant to him as a girl could be. I +prophesy Forbes will think of nothing else for the season.' + +'Well, she's a brilliant creature,' said Kendal. 'It's extraordinary how +she shone out beside the pretty English girls about her. It is an +intoxicating possession for a woman, such beauty as that; it's like +royalty; it places the individual under conditions quite unlike those of +common mortals. I suppose it's that rather than any real ability as an +actress that has made her a success? I noticed the papers said as +much--some more politely than others.' + +'Oh, she's not much of an actress; she has no training, no _finesse_. But +you'll see, she'll be the great success of the season. She has wonderful +grace 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-hearted +creature. 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 worth +calling a training. Her manager, Robinson, talks of her attempting all +the great parts; but it's absurd. She talks very naively and prettily +about "her art"; but really she knows no more about it than a baby, and +it is perhaps part of her charm that she is so unconscious of her +ignorance.' + +'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 is +that our feelings should be touched a little, but whether by the art or +the artist doesn't matter. She has not been long playing in London, has +she?' + +'Only a few weeks. It's only about two months since she landed from +Jamaica. She has a curious history, if you care to hear it; I don't think +I've seen you at all since I made friends with her?' + +'No,' said Kendal; 'I was beginning to suspect that something absorbing +had 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 busy +that 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, the +National Gallery, and so forth. She is very keen about everything, and +the 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 far +from Kingston, and he married an Italian, one of your fair Venetian +type--a strange race-combination; I suppose it's the secret of the +brilliancy and out-of-the-wayness of the girl's beauty. Her mother died +when 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 to +be made out of her. She had already shown a turn for reciting, and had +performed at various places--in the schoolroom belonging to the estate, +and so on. The father didn't encourage her fancy for it, naturally, being +Scotch and Presbyterian. However, he died of fever, and then the child at +sixteen fell into her uncle's charge. He seems to have seen at once +exactly what line to take. To put it cynically, I imagine he argued +something like this: "Beauty extraordinary--character everything that +could be desired--talent not much. So that the things to stake on are the +beauty and the character, and let the talent take care of itself." +Anyhow, he got her on to the Kingston theatre--a poor little place +enough--and he and the aunt, that sour-looking creature you saw with her, +looked after her like dragons. Naturally, she was soon the talk of +Kingston: what with her looks and her grace and the difficulty of coming +near her, the whole European society, the garrison, Government House, and +all, were at her feet. Then the uncle played his cards for a European +engagement. You remember that Governor Rutherford they had a little time +ago? the writer of that little set of drawing-room plays--_Nineteenth +Century Interludes_, I think he called them? It was his last year, and he +started for home while Isabel Bretherton was acting at Kingston. He came +home full of her, and, knowing all the theatrical people here, he was +able to place her at once. Robinson decided to speculate in her, +telegraphed out for her, and here she is, uncle, aunt, and invalid sister +into the bargain.' + +'Oh, she has a sister?' + +'Yes; a little, white, crippled thing, peevish--cripples generally +are--but full of a curious force of some hidden kind. Isabel is very good +to her, and rather afraid of her. It seems to me that she is afraid of +all her belongings. I believe they put upon her, and she has as much +capacity as anybody I ever knew for letting herself be trampled upon.' + +'What, that splendid, vivacious creature!' said Kendal incredulously. 'I +think I'd back her for holding her own.' + +'Ah, well, you see,' said the American, with the quiet superiority of a +three weeks' acquaintance, 'I know something of her by now, and she's not +quite what you might think her at first sight. However, whether she is +afraid 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 London +tries her. The piece they have chosen for her is a heavy one, and then of +course 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 a +little bored with the subject of Miss Bretherton, and turning, eye-glass +in 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's +next Friday. She will be there at afternoon tea. I told Agnes I should +ask anybody I liked. I warned her--you know her little weaknesses!--that +she had better be first in the field: a month hence, it will be +impossible to get hold of Miss Bretherton at all.' + +'Then I'll certainly come, and do my worshipping before the crowd +collects,' said Kendal, adding, as he half-curiously shifted his +eye-glass so as to take in Wallace's bronzed, alert countenance, 'How did +you 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 to +see Mrs. Stuart; it's ages since I saw her last.' + +The American nodded cordially to him, and walked away. He was one of +those pleasant, ubiquitous people who know every one and find time for +everything--a well-known journalist, something of an artist, and still +more of a man of the world, who went through his London season with some +outward grumbling, but with a real inward zest such as few popular +diners-out are blessed with. That he should have attached himself to the +latest star was natural enough. He was the most discreet and profitable +of cicerones, with a real talent for making himself useful to nice +people. His friendship for Miss Bretherton gave her a certain stamp in +Kendal's eyes, for Wallace had a fastidious taste in personalities and +seldom made a mistake. + +Kendal himself walked home, busy with very different thoughts, and was +soon established at his writing-table in his high chambers overlooking an +inner court of the Temple. It was a bright afternoon; the spring sunshine +on 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 and +orange surface of the tiles. Below, the court was half in shadow, and +utterly quiet and deserted. To the left there was a gleam of green, +atoning for its spring thinness and scantiness by a vivid energy of +colour; while straight across the court, beyond the rich patchwork of the +roofs and the picturesque outlines of the chimneys, a delicate piece of +white stone-work rose into air--the spire of one of Wren's churches, as +dainty, as perfect, and as fastidiously balanced as the hand of man could +leave it. + +Inside, the room was such as fitted a studious bachelor of means. The +book-cases on the walls held old college classics and law-books +underneath, and above a miscellaneous literary library, of which the +main bulk was French, while the side-wings, so to speak, had that +tempting miscellaneous air--here a patch of German, there an island +of Italian; on this side rows of English poets, on the other an +abundance of novels of all languages--which delights the fond heart of +the book-lover. The pictures were mostly autotypes and photographs from +subjects of Italian art, except in one corner, where a fine little +collection of French historical engravings completely covered the wall, +and drew a visitor's attention by the brilliancy of their black and +white. On the writing-table were piles of paper-covered French books, +representing for the most part the palmy days of the Romantics, though +every here and there were intervening strata of naturalism, balanced in +their turn by recurrent volumes of Sainte-Beuve. The whole had a studious +air. The books were evidently collected with a purpose, and the piles of +orderly MSS. lying on the writing-table seemed to sum up and explain +their surroundings. + +The only personal ornament of the room was a group of photographs on the +mantelpiece. Two were faded and brown, and represented Kendal's parents, +both of whom had been dead some years. The other was a large cabinet +photograph 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 Eustace +Kendal, and she was indeed his elder and only sister, the wife of a +French senator, and her brother's chief friend and counsellor. Madame de +Chateauvieux was a very noticeable person, and her influence over Eustace +had been strong ever since their childish days. She was a woman who would +have justified a repetition in the present day of Sismondi's enthusiastic +estimate of the women of the First Empire. She had that _melange du +meilleur ton_, 'with the purest elegance of manner, and a store of varied +information, with vivacity of impression and delicacy of feeling, which,' +as he declared to Madame d'Albany, 'belongs only to your sex, and is +found in its perfection only in the best society of France.' + +In the days when she and Eustace had been the only children of a +distinguished and wealthy father, a politician of some fame, and +son-in-law to the Tory premier of his young days, she had always led and +influenced her brother. He followed her admiringly through her London +seasons, watching the impression she made, triumphing in her triumphs, +and at home discussing every new book with her and sharing, at least in +his college vacations, the secretary's work for their father, which she +did excellently, and with a quick, keen, political sense which Eustace +had never seen in any other woman. She was handsome in her own refined +and delicate way, especially at night, when the sparkle of her white neck +and arms and the added brightness of her dress gave her the accent and +colour she was somewhat lacking in at other times. Naturally, she was in +no want of suitors, for she was rich and her father was influential, but +she said 'No' many times, and was nearly thirty before M. de +Chateauvieux, the first secretary of the French Embassy, persuaded her to +marry him. Since then she had filled an effective place in Parisian +society. Her husband had abandoned diplomacy for politics, in which his +general tendencies were Orleanist, while in literature he was well known +as a constant contributor to the _Revue des Deux Mondes_. He and his wife +maintained an interesting, and in its way influential, _salon_, which +provided a meeting ground for the best English and French society, and +showed off at once the delicate quality of Madame de Chateauvieux's +intelligence and the force and kindliness of her womanly tact. + +Shortly after her marriage the father and mother died, within eighteen +months of each other, and Eustace found his lot in life radically +changed. He had been his father's secretary after leaving college, which +prevented his making any serious efforts to succeed at the bar, and in +consequence his interest, both of head and heart, had been more +concentrated than is often the case with a young man within the walls of +his home. He had admired his father sincerely, and the worth of his +mother's loquacious and sometimes meddlesome tenderness he never realised +fully till he had lost it. When he was finally alone, it became necessary +for him to choose a line in life. His sister and he divided his father's +money between them, and Eustace found himself with a fortune such as in +the eyes of most of his friends constituted a leading of Providence +towards 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 that +without the stimulus of the father's presence, Eustace's interest in +politics was less real than his interest in letters, nor did the times +seem to her propitious to that philosophic conservatism which might be +said to represent the family type of mind. So she stirred him up to +return to some of the projects of his college days when he and she were +first bitten with a passion for that great, that fascinating French +literature which absorbs, generation after generation, the interests of +two-thirds of those who are sensitive to the things of letters. She +suggested a book to him which took his fancy, and in planning it +something of the old zest of life returned to him. Moreover, it was a +book which required him to spend a part of every year in Paris, and the +neighbourhood of his sister was now more delightful to him than ever. + +So, after a time, he settled down contentedly in his London chambers with +his books about him, and presently found that glow of labour stealing +over him which is at once the stimulus and the reward of every true son +of knowledge. His book reconciled him to life again, and soon he was as +often seen in the common haunts of London society as before. He dined +out, he went to the theatre, he frequented his club like other men, and +every year he spent three of the winter months in Paris, living in the +best 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 in +the studios of some of the more eminent of French artists, a fastidious +critical temper, which was rapidly becoming more and more exacting, more +and more master of the man. + +Now, on this May afternoon, as he settled himself down to his work, it +would have given any of those who liked Eustace Kendal--and they were +many--pleasure to see how the look of fatigue with which he had returned +from his round of the Academy faded away, how he shook back the tumbling +gray locks from his eyes with the zest and the eagerness of one setting +forth to battle, and how, as time passed on and the shadows deepened on +the white spire opposite, the contentment of successful labour showed +itself in the slow unconscious caress which fell upon the back of the +sleeping cat curled up in the chair beside him, or in the absent but +still kindly smile with which he greeted the punctual entrance of the +servant, who at five o'clock came to put tea and the evening paper beside +him and to make up the fire, which crackled on with cheery companionable +sounds through the lamp-lit evening and far into the night. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +Two or three days afterwards, Kendal, in looking over his +engagement-book, in which the entries were methodically kept, noticed +'Afternoon tea, Mrs. Stuart's, Friday,' and at once sent off a note to +Edward Wallace, suggesting that they should go to the theatre together on +Thursday evening to see Miss Bretherton, 'for, as you will see,' he +wrote, 'it will be impossible for me to meet her with a good conscience +unless I have done my duty beforehand by going to see her perform.' To +this the American replied by a counter proposal. 'Miss Bretherton,' he +wrote, 'offers my sister and myself a box for Friday night; it will hold +four or five; you must certainly be of the party, and I shall ask +Forbes.' + +Kendal felt himself a little entrapped, and would have preferred to see +the 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 mind +as possible. + +On Friday afternoon, after a long and fruitful day's work, he found +himself driving westward towards the old-fashioned Kensington house of +which Mrs. Stuart, with her bright, bird-like, American ways, had +succeeded in making a considerable social centre. His mind was still full +of his work, phrases of Joubert or of Stendhal seemed to be still +floating about him, and certain subtleties of artistic and critical +speculation were still vaguely arguing themselves out within him as he +sped westward, drawing in the pleasant influences of the spring sunshine, +and delighting his eyes in the May green which was triumphing more and +more every day over the grayness of London, and would soon have reached +that lovely short-lived pause of victory which is all that summer can +hope to win amid the dust and crowd of a great city. + +Kendal was in that condition which is proper to men possessed of the true +literary temperament, when the first fervour of youth for mere living is +gone, when the first crude difficulties of accumulation are over, and +when the mind, admitted to regions of an ampler ether and diviner air +than any she has inhabited before, feels the full charm and spell of +man's vast birthright of knowledge, and is seized with subtler +curiosities and further-reaching desires than anything she has yet been +conscious of. The world of fact and of idea is open, and the explorer's +instruments are as perfect as they can be made. The intoxication of +entrance is full upon him, and the lassitude which is the inevitable +Nemesis of an unending task, and the chill which sooner or later descends +upon every human hope, are as yet mere names and shadows, counting for +nothing in the tranquil vista of his life, which seems to lie spread out +before him. It is a rare state, for not many men are capable of the +apprenticeship which leads to it, and a breath of hostile circumstance +may put an end to it; but in its own manner and degree, and while it +lasts, it is one of the golden states of consciousness, and a man +enjoying it feels this mysterious gift of existence to have been a kindly +boon from some beneficent power. + +Arrived at Mrs. Stuart's, Kendal found a large gathering already filling +the pleasant low rooms looking out upon trees at either end, upon which +Mrs. Stuart had impressed throughout the stamp of her own keen little +personality. She was competent in all things--competent in her criticism +of a book, and more than competent in all that pertained to the niceties +of house management. Her dinner-parties, of which each was built up from +foundation to climax with the most delicate skill and unity of plan; her +pretty dresses, in which she trailed about her soft-coloured rooms; her +energy, her kindliness, and even the evident but quite innocent pursuit +of social perfection in which she delighted--all made her popular; and it +was not difficult for her to gather together whom she would when she +wished to launch a social novelty. On the present occasion she was very +much in her element. All around her were people more or less +distinguished in the London world; here was an editor, there an artist; a +junior member of the Government chatted over his tea with a foreign +Minister, and a flow of the usual London chatter of a superior kind was +rippling through the room when Kendal entered. + +Mrs. Stuart put him in the way of a chair and of abundant chances of +conversation, and then left him with a shrug of her shoulders and a +whisper, 'The beauty is shockingly late! Tell me what I shall do if all +these people are disappointed.' In reality, Mrs. Stuart was beginning to +be restless. Kendal had himself arrived very late, and, as the talk +flowed faster, and the room filled fuller of guests eager for the new +sensation which had been promised them, the spirits of the little hostess +began to sink. The Minister had surreptitiously looked at his watch, and +a tiresome lady friend had said good-bye in a voice which might have been +lower, and with a lament which might have been spared. Mrs. Stuart set +great store upon the success of her social undertakings, and to gather a +crowd of people to meet the rising star of the season, and then to have +to send them home with only tea and talk to remember, was one of those +failures which no one with any self-respect should allow themselves to +risk. + +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, but +depressing condolences of the barrister standing by her, who was +describing to her the 'absurd failure' of a party to meet the leading +actress of the _Comedie Francaise_, to which he had been invited in the +previous season, when the sound of wheels was heard outside. Mrs. Stuart +made a quick step forward, leaving her Job's comforter planted in the +middle of his story; the hum of talk dropped in an instant, and the crowd +about the door fell hastily back as it was thrown open and Miss +Bretherton entered. + +What a glow and radiance of beauty entered the room with her! She came in +rapidly, her graceful head thrown eagerly back, her face kindling and her +hands outstretched as she caught sight of Mrs. Stuart. There was a vigour +and splendour of life about her that made all her movements large and +emphatic, and yet, at the same time, nothing could exceed the delicate +finish of the physical structure itself. What was indeed characteristic +in her was this combination of extraordinary perfectness of detail, with +a flash, a warmth, a force of impression, such as often raises the lower +kinds of beauty into excellence and picturesqueness, but is seldom found +in connection with those types where the beauty is, as it were, +sufficient in and by itself, and does not need anything but its own +inherent harmonies of line and hue to impress itself on the beholders. + +There were some, indeed, who maintained that the smallness and delicacy +of her features was out of keeping with her stature and her ample gliding +motions. But here, again, the impression of delicacy was transformed half +way into one of brilliancy by the large hazel eyes and the vivid +whiteness of the skin. Kendal watched her from his corner, where his +conversation with two musical young ladies had been suddenly suspended by +the arrival of the actress, and thought that his impression of the week +before had been, if anything, below the truth. + +'She comes into the room well, too,' he said to himself critically; 'she +is not a mere milkmaid; she has some manner, some individuality. Ah, now +Fernandez'--naming the Minister--'has got hold of her. Then, I suppose, +Rushbrook (the member of the Government) will come next, and we commoner +mortals in our turn. What absurdities these things are!' + +His reflections, however, were stopped by the exclamations of the girls +beside him, who were already warm admirers of Miss Bretherton, and wild +with enthusiasm at finding themselves in the same room with her. They +discovered 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 crowded +state of the theatre and on the plaudits which greeted Miss Bretherton's +first appearance in the ballroom scene in the first act, and they allowed +themselves--being aesthetic damsels robed in sober greenish-grays--a +gentle lament over the somewhat violent colouring of one of the actress's +costumes, while all the time keeping their eyes furtively fixed on the +gleaming animated profile and graceful shoulders over which, in the +entrance of the second drawing-room, the Minister's gray head was +bending. + +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 poor +professionals, you know, must dine at four. That made me late, and now I +find I am such a long way from home that six is the latest moment I can +stay.' So that Mrs. Stuart was put to it to get through all the +introductions she had promised. But she performed her task without +flinching, killing remorselessly each nascent conversation in the bud, +giving artist, author, or member of Parliament his proper little sentence +of introduction, and at last beckoning to Eustace Kendal, who left his +corner feeling society to be a foolish business, and wishing the ordeal +were over. + +Miss Bretherton smiled at him as she had smiled at all the others, and he +sat 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 have +the pleasure for the first time of making one of your admirers.' + +'I hope it will please you,' she said, with a shyness that was still +bright and friendly. 'You will be sure to come and see me afterwards? I +have been arranging it with Mrs. Stuart. I am never fit to talk to +afterwards, I get so tired. But it does one good to see one's friends; it +makes 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 all +such a new experience after that little place Kingston. I should have my +head turned, I think,' she added, with a happy little laugh, 'but that +when one cares about one's art one is not likely to think too much of +one's self. I am always despairing over what there is still to do, and +what one may have done seems to make no matter.' + +She spoke with a pretty humility, evidently meaning what she said, and +yet there was such a delightful young triumph in her manner, such an +invulnerable consciousness of artistic success, that Kendal felt a secret +stir of amusement as he recalled the criticisms which among his own set +he had most commonly heard applied to her. + +'Yes, indeed,' he answered pleasantly. 'I suppose every artist feels the +same. We all do if we are good for anything--we who scribble as well as +you who act.' + +'Oh yes,' she said, with kindly, questioning eyes, 'you write a great +deal? I know; Mr. Wallace told me. He says you are so learned, and that +your book will be splendid. It must be grand to write books. I should +like 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 in +such a rage when all your own grand ideas are spoilt because the leading +gentleman won't do anything different from what he has been used to, or +the next lady wants to show off, or the stage manager has a grudge +against you! Something always happens.' + +'Apparently the only thing that always happens to you is success,' said +Kendal, rather hating himself for the cheapness of the compliment. 'I +hear wonderful reports of the difficulty of getting a seat at the +_Calliope_; and his friends tell me that Mr. Robinson looks ten years +younger. Poor man! it is time that fortune smiled on him.' + +'Yes, indeed; he had a bad time last year. That Miss Harwood, the +American actress, that they thought would be such a success, didn't come +off at all. She didn't hit the public. It doesn't seem to me that the +English public is hard to please. At that wretched little theatre in +Kingston I wasn't nearly so much at my ease as I am here. Here one can +always do one's best and be sure that the audience will appreciate it. I +have all sorts of projects in my head. Next year I shall have a theatre +of 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, and +nothing 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 the +room. Miss Bretherton was going. She came forward in her long flowing +black garments, holding Mrs. Stuart by the hand, the crowd dividing as +she 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. The +actress suddenly stooped to her, lifted her up with the ease of physical +strength into the midst of her soft furs and velvets, and kissed her with +a gracious queenliness. The child threw its little white arms around her, +smiled upon her, and smoothed her hair, as though to assure itself that +the fairy princess was real. Then it struggled down, and in another +minute the bright vision was gone, and the crowded room seemed to have +grown suddenly dull and empty. + +'That was prettily done,' said Edward Wallace to Kendal as they stood +together looking on. 'In another woman those things would be done for +effect, but I don't think she does them for effect. It is as though she +felt herself in such a warm and congenial atmosphere, she is so sure of +herself 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 knows +of her own deficiencies, she is really modest--' + +'Very possibly,' said Kendal; 'it is a curious study, a character taken +so much _au naturel_, and suddenly transported into the midst of such a +London triumph as this. I have certainly been very much attracted, and +feel inclined to quarrel with you for having run her down. I believe I +shall 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 to +be said for her as an actress. But as a human being she is very nearly +perfection.' + +The afternoon guests departed, and just as the last had gone, Mr. Forbes +was announced. He came in in a bad temper, having been delayed by +business, and presently sat down to dinner with Mrs. Stuart and Wallace +and Kendal in a very grumbling frame of mind. Mr. Stuart, a young and +able lawyer, in the first agonies of real success at the bar, had sent +word 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 with +you two carping fellows,' he began, combatively, over his soup. 'She +won'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 will +see I shall behave like an angel. I shall allow myself no unpleasant +remarks, 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; and +I 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 a +judicial 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 our +mouths on the subject of Miss Bretherton.' + +'Hawes does his best,' said Forbes, with a touch of obstinacy. 'He looks +well, he strides well, he is a fine figure of a man with a big bullying +voice; I don't know what more you want in a German prince. It is this +everlasting hypercriticism which spoils all one's pleasure and frightens +all the character out of the artists!' + +At which Mrs. Stuart laughed, and, woman-like, observed that she supposed +it was only people who, like Forbes, had succeeded in disarming the +critics, who could afford to scoff at them,--a remark which drew a funny +little bow, half-petulant, half-pleased, out of the artist, in whom one +of the strongest notes of character was his susceptibility to the +attentions of women. + +'You've seen her already, I believe,' said Wallace to Forbes. 'I think +Miss 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't +want to whittle away the few pleasures that this dull life can provide me +with by this perpetual discontent with what's set before one. Why can't +you 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 of +life in her, give me every sort of artistic pleasure. What a curmudgeon I +should be--what a grudging, ungrateful fellow, if, after all she has done +to delight me, I should abuse her because she can't speak out her +tiresome speeches--which are of no account, and don't matter, to my +impression at all,--as well as one of your thin, French, snake-like +creatures who have nothing but their _art_, as you call it; nothing but +what they have been carefully taught, nothing but what they have +laboriously learnt with time and trouble, to depend upon!' + +Having delivered himself of this tirade, the artist threw himself back in +his chair, tossed back his gray hair from his glowing black eyes, and +looked defiance at Kendal, who was sitting opposite. + +'But, after all,' said Kendal, roused, 'these tiresome speeches are her +_metier_; it's her business to speak them, and to speak them well. You +are praising her for qualities which are not properly dramatic at all. In +your studio they would be the only thing that a man need consider; on the +stage they naturally come second.' + +'Ah, well,' said Forbes, falling to upon his dinner again at a gentle +signal from Mrs. Stuart that the carriage would soon be round, 'I knew +very well how you and Wallace would take her. You and I will have to +defend each other, Mrs. Stuart, against those two shower-baths, and when +we go to see her afterwards I shall be invaluable, for I shall be able to +save Kendal and Wallace the humbug of compliments.' + +Whereupon the others protested that they would on no account be deprived +of their share of the compliments, and Wallace especially laid it down +that a man would be a poor creature who could not find smooth things to +say upon any conceivable occasion to Isabel Bretherton. Besides, he saw +her every day, and was in excellent practice. Forbes looked a little +scornful, but at this point Mrs. Stuart succeeded in diverting his +attention to his latest picture, and the dinner flowed on pleasantly till +the 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 the +stage--too close, indeed, for purposes of seeing well. The house was +already crowded, and Kendal noticed, as he scanned the stalls and boxes +through his opera-glass, that it contained a considerable sprinkling of +notabilities of various kinds. It was a large new theatre, which hitherto +had enjoyed but a very moderate share of popular favour, so that the +brilliant and eager crowd with which it was now filled was in itself a +sufficient testimony to the success of the actress who had wrought so +great a transformation. + +'What an experience this is for a girl of twenty-one,' whispered Kendal +to Mrs. Stuart, who was comfortably settled in the farther corner of the +box, 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 man +or woman's individuality, that it must call every power into action, and +strike sparks out of the dullest.' + +'Yes; but how seldom it is so!' + +'Well, in England, at any rate, the fact is, their training is so +imperfect they daren't let themselves go. It's only when a man possesses +the lower secrets of his art perfectly that he can aim at the higher. But +the band is nearly through the overture. Just tell me before the curtain +goes 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 legend +of the White Lady.' + +'What? the warning phantom of the Hohenzollerns?' + +Mrs. Stuart nodded. 'A Crown-Prince of Prussia is in love with the +beautiful Countess Hilda von Weissenstein. Reasons of State, however, +oblige him to throw her over and to take steps towards marriage with a +Princess of Wuertemberg. They have just been betrothed when the Countess, +mad with jealousy, plays the part of the White Lady and appears to the +Princess, 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 White +Lady is really the _raison d'etre_ of the piece. But hush! there is the +signal. Make up your mind to be bored by the Princess; she is one of the +worst sticks I ever saw!' + +The first scene represented the ballroom at the Schloss, or rather the +royal anteroom, beyond which the vista of the ballroom opened. The +Prussian and Wuertemberg royalties had not yet arrived, with the exception +of the Prince Wilhelm, on whose matrimonial prospects the play was to +turn. He was engaged in explaining the situation to his friend, Waldemar +von Rothenfels, the difficulties in which he was placed, his passion for +the Countess Hilda, the political necessities which forced him to marry a +daughter of the House of Wuertemberg, the pressure brought to bear upon +him by his parents, and his own despair at having to break the news to +the Countess. + +The story is broken off by the arrival of the royalties, including the +pink-and-white maiden who is to be Prince Wilhelm's fate, and the royal +quadrille begins. The Prince leads his Princess to her place, when it is +discovered 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 the +dazzling figure in its trailing, pearl-embroidered robes appeared in the +doorway 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 to +display the peculiar gifts of the actress. The quadrille was a stately +spectacular display, in which splendid dress and stirring music and the +effects of rhythmic motion had been brought freely into play for the +delight of the beholders. Between the figures there was a little +skilfully-managed action, mostly in dumb show. The movements of the +jealous beauty and of her faithless lover were invested throughout with +sufficient dramatic meaning to keep up the thread of the play. But it was +not the dramatic aspect of the scene for which the audience cared, it was +simply for the display which it made possible of Isabel Bretherton's +youth and grace and loveliness. They hung upon her every movement, and +Kendal found himself following her with the same eagerness of eye as +those about him, lest any phase of that embodied poetry should escape +him. + +In this introductory scene, the elements which went to make up the spell +she exercised over her audience were perfectly distinguishable. Kendal's +explanation of it to himself was that it was based upon an exceptional +natural endowment of physical perfection, informed and spiritualised by +certain moral qualities, by simplicity, frankness, truth of nature. There +was a kind of effluence of youth, of purity, of strength, about her which +it was impossible not to feel, and which evidently roused the +enthusiastic sympathy of the great majority of those who saw her. + +Forbes was sitting in the front of the box with Mrs. Stuart, his shaggy +gray head and keen lined face attracting considerable attention in their +neighbourhood. He was in his most expansive mood; the combativeness of an +hour before had disappeared, and the ardent susceptible temperament of +the man was absorbed in admiration, in the mere sensuous artist's delight +in a stirring and beautiful series of impressions. When the white dress +disappeared through the doorway of the ballroom, he followed it with a +sigh of regret, and during the scene which followed between the Prince +and his intended bride, he hardly looked at the stage. The Princess, +indeed, was all that Mrs. Stuart had pronounced her to be; she was +stiffer and clumsier than even her Teutonic _role_ could justify, and she +marched laboriously through her very proper and virtuous speeches, +evidently driven on by an uneasy consciousness that the audience was only +eager to come to the end of them and of her. + +In the little pause which followed the disappearance of the +newly-betrothed pair into the distant ballroom, Mrs. Stuart leant +backward over her chair and said to Kendal: + +'Now then, Mr. Kendal, prepare your criticisms! In the scene which is +just coming Miss Bretherton has a good deal more to do than to look +pretty!' + +'Oh, but you forget our compact!' said Kendal. 'Remember you are to be +the judge of our behaviour at the end. It is not the part of a judge to +tempt 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 like +in, so long as you let Mr. Forbes perform his devotions undisturbed.' + +At this Forbes half turned round, and shook his great mane, under which +gleamed a countenance of comedy menace, at the two men behind him. But in +another instant the tones of Isabel Bretherton's voice riveted his +attention, and the eyes of all those in the box were once more turned +towards the stage. + +The scene which followed was one of the most meritorious passages in the +rather heavy German play from which the _White Lady_ had been adapted. It +was intended to show the romantic and passionate character of the +Countess, and to suggest that vein of extravagance and daring in her +which was the explanation of the subsequent acts. In the original the +dialogue had a certain German force and intensity, which lost nothing of +its occasional heaviness in the mouth of Hawes, the large-boned +swaggering personage who played the Prince. An actress with sufficient +force of feeling, and an artistic sense subtle enough to suggest to her +the necessary modulations, could have made a great mark in it. But the +first words, almost, revealed Isabel Bretherton's limitations, and before +two minutes were over Kendal was conscious of a complete collapse of that +sympathetic relation between him and the actress which the first scene +had produced. In another sentence or two the spell had been irrevocably +broken, and he seemed to himself to have passed from a state of +sensitiveness to all that was exquisite and rare in her to a state of +mere irritable consciousness of her defects. It was evident to him that +in a scene of great capabilities she never once rose beyond the tricks of +an elementary elocution, that her violence had a touch of commonness in +it which was almost vulgarity, and that even her attitudes had lost half +their charm. For, in the effort--the conscious and laboured effort of +acting--her movements, which had exercised such an enchantment over him +in the first scene, had become mere strides and rushes, never indeed +without grace, but often without dignity, and at all times lacking in +that 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 to +watch her. Edward Wallace, who had seen her some two or three times in +the part, was perfectly conscious of the change, and had been looking out +for 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 the +box. 'Where did she get those tiresome tricks she has, that see-saw +intonation she puts on when she wants to be pathetic, and that absurd +restlessness which spoils everything? It's a terrible pity. Sometimes I +think I catch a gleam of some original power at the bottom, but there is +such a lack of intelligence--in the artist's sense. It is a striking +instance of how much and how little can be done without education.' + +'It is curiously bad, certainly,' said Kendal, while the actress's +denunciations of her lover were still ringing through the theatre. 'But +look at the house! What folly it is ever to expect a great dramatic art +in England. We have no sense for the rudiments of the thing. The French +would no more tolerate such acting as this because of the beauty of the +actress than they would judge a picture by its frame. However, if men +like Forbes leave their judgment behind them, it's no wonder if commoner +mortals follow suit.' + +'There!' said Wallace, with a sigh of relief as the curtain fell on the +first act, 'that's done with. There are two or three things in the second +act that are beautiful. In her first appearance as the White Lady she is +as wonderful as ever, but the third act is a nuisance--' + +'No whispering there,' said Forbes, looking round upon them. 'Oh, I know +what you're after, Edward, perfectly. I hear it all with one ear.' + +'That,' said Wallace, moving up to him, 'is physically impossible. Don't +be so pugnacious. We leave you the front of the box, and when we appear +in your territory our mouths are closed. But in our own domain we claim +the rights of free men.' + +'Poor girl!' said Forbes, with a sigh. 'How she manages to tame London as +she does is a marvel to me! If she were a shade less perfect and +wonderful than she is, she would have been torn to pieces by you critics +long ago. You have done your best as it is, only the public won't listen +to you. Oh, don't suppose I don't see all that you see. The critical +poison's in my veins just as it is in yours, but I hold it in check--it +shan't master me. I will have my pleasure in spite of it, and when I come +across anything in life that makes me _feel_, I will protect my feeling +from it with all my might.' + +'We are dumb,' said Kendal, with a smile; 'otherwise I would pedantically +ask you to consider what are the feelings to which the dramatic art +properly and legitimately appeals.' + +'Oh, hang your dramatic art,' said Forbes, firing up; 'can't you take +things simply and straightforwardly? She is there--she is doing her best +for you--there isn't a movement or a look which isn't as glorious as that +of 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 are +yourselves! Well, it's your loss, not hers.' + +'My dear Mr. Forbes,' said Mrs. Stuart, with her little judicial +peace-making air, 'we shall all go away contented. You will have had your +sensation, 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 Miss +Bretherton with your eyes, and yet, as Edward will get hold of me on the +way home, I shan't go to bed without having experienced all the joys of +criticism! Oh! but now hush, and listen to this music. It is one of the +best 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 most +satisfactory feature in the performance, broke into some weird +Mendelssohnian music, and when the note of plaintiveness and mystery had +been well established, the curtain rose upon the great armoury of the +castle, a dim indistinguishable light shining upon its fretted roof and +masses of faintly gleaming steel. The scene which followed, in which the +Countess Hilda, disguised as the traditional phantom of the +Hohenzollerns, whose appearance bodes misfortune and death to those who +behold it, throws herself across the path of her rival in the hope of +driving her and those interested in her by sheer force of terror from the +castle and from Berlin, had been poetically conceived, and it furnished +Miss Bretherton with an admirable opportunity. As the White Lady, gliding +between rows of armed and spectral figures on either hand, and startling +the Princess and her companion by her sudden apparition in a gleam of +moonlight across the floor, she was once more the representative of all +that is most poetical and romantic in physical beauty. Nay, more than +this; as she flung her white arms above her head, or pointed to the +shrinking and fainting figure of her rival while she uttered her wailing +traditional prophecy of woe, her whole personality seemed to be invested +with a dramatic force of which there had been no trace in the long and +violent scene with the Prince. It was as though she was in some sort +capable of expressing herself in action and movement, while in all the +arts of speech she was a mere crude novice. At any rate, there could be +no doubt that in this one scene she realised the utmost limits of the +author's ideal, and when she faded into the darkness beyond the moonlight +in which she had first appeared, the house, which had been breathlessly +silent during the progress of the apparition, burst into a roar of +applause, in which Wallace and Kendal heartily joined. + +'Exquisite!' said Kendal in Mrs. Stuart's ear, as he stood behind her +chair. 'She was romance itself! Her acting should always be a kind of +glorified and poetical pantomime; she would be inimitable so.' + +Mrs. Stuart looked up and smiled agreement. 'Yes, that scene lives with +one. If everything else in the play is poor, she is worth seeing for that +alone. _Remember it_!' + +The little warning was in season, for the poor White Lady had but too +many after opportunities of blurring the impression she had made. In the +great situation at the end of the second act, in which the Countess has +to give, in the presence of the Court, a summary of the supposed story of +the White Lady, her passion at once of love and hatred charges it with a +force and meaning which, for the first time, rouses the suspicions of the +Prince as to the reality of the supposed apparition. In the two or three +fine and dramatic speeches which the situation involved, the actress +showed the same absence of knowledge and resources as before, the same +powerlessness to create a personality, the same lack of all those quicker +and more delicate perceptions which we include under the general term +'refinement,' and which, in the practice of any art, are the outcome of +long and complex processes of education. There, indeed, was the bald, +plain fact--the whole explanation of her failure as an artist lay in her +lack both of the lower and of the higher kinds of education. It was +evident that her technical training had been of the roughest. In all +technical respects, indeed, her acting had a self-taught, provincial air, +which showed you that she had natural cleverness, but that her models had +been of the poorest type. And in all other respects--when it came to +interpretation or creation--she was spoilt by her entire want of that +inheritance from the past which is the foundation of all good work in the +present. For an actress must have one of the two kinds of knowledge: she +must have either the knowledge which comes from a fine training--in +itself the outcome of a long tradition--or she must have the knowledge +which comes from mere living, from the accumulations of personal thought +and experience. Miss Bretherton had neither. She had extraordinary beauty +and charm, and certainly, as Kendal admitted, some original quickness. He +was 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 on +the physical side, seemed to him to have no future in her. 'It will be +checked,' 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 that +only. The whole pressure of her success is and will be that way.' + +Miss Bretherton's inadequacy, indeed, became more and more visible as the +play was gradually and finely worked up to its climax in the last act. In +the final scene of all, the Prince, who by a series of accidents has +discovered the Countess Hilda's plans, lies in wait for her in the +armoury, where he has reason to know she means to try the effect of a +third and last apparition upon the Princess. She appears; he suddenly +confronts her; and, dragging her forward, unveils before himself and the +Princess the death-like features of his old love. Recovering from the +shock of detection, the Countess pours out upon them both a fury of +jealous passion, sinking by degrees into a pathetic, trance-like +invocation of the past, under the spell of which the Prince's anger melts +away, and the little Princess's terror and excitement change into eager +pity. Then, when she sees him almost reconquered, and her rival weeping +beside her, she takes the poison phial from her breast, drinks it, and +dies 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. The +scene was so obviously beyond Miss Bretherton's resources that even the +enthusiastic house, Kendal fancied, cooled down during the progress of +it. There were signs of restlessness, there was even a little talking in +some of the back rows, and at no time during the scene was there any of +that breathless absorption in what was passing on the stage which the +dramatic 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 on +something unsound, and one feels that disaster is not far off. The whole +thing impresses me most painfully. She has some capacity, of course; if +only the conditions had been different--if she had been born within a +hundred miles of the Paris Conservatoire, if her youth had been passed in +a society of more intellectual weight,--but, as it is, this very applause +is ominous, for the beauty must go sooner or later, and there is nothing +else.' + +'You remember Desforets in this same theatre last year in _Adrienne +Lecouvreur_?' said Wallace. 'What a gulf between the right thing and the +wrong! But come, we must do our duty;' and he drew Kendal forward towards +the front of the box, and they saw the whole house on its feet, clapping +and shouting, and the curtain just being drawn back to let the White Lady +and the Prince appear before it. She was very pale, but the storm of +applause which greeted her seemed to revive her, and she swept her +smiling glance round the theatre, until at last it rested with a special +gleam of recognition on the party in the box, especially on Forbes, who +was outdoing himself in enthusiasm. She was called forward again and +again, until at last the house was content, and the general exit began. + +The instant after her white dress had disappeared from the stage, a +little page-boy knocked at the door of the box with a message that 'Miss +Bretherton 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 themselves +in the wings, the great stage, on which the scenery was being hastily +shifted, lying to their right. The lights were being put out; only a few +gas-jets were left burning round a pillar, beside which stood Isabel +Bretherton, her long phantom dress lying in white folds about her, her +uncle and aunt and her manager standing near. Every detail of the +picture--the spot of brilliant light bounded on all sides by dim, +far-reaching vistas of shadow, the figures hurrying across the back of +the stage, the moving ghost-like workmen all around, and in the midst +that white-hooded, languid figure--revived in Kendal's memory whenever in +after days his thoughts went wandering back to the first moment of real +contact between his own personality and that of Isabel Bretherton. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +A few days after the performance of the _White Lady_, Kendal, in the +course of his weekly letter to his sister, sent her a fairly-detailed +account 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 such +as might balance the impression of her artistic defects, which I suppose +this account of mine cannot but leave on you. When I came away that night +after our conversation with her I had entirely forgotten her failure as +an actress, and it is only later, since I have thought over the evening +in detail, that I have returned to my first standpoint of wonder at the +easy toleration of the English public. When you are actually with her, +talking to her, looking at her, Forbes's attitude is the only possible +and reasonable one. What does art, or cultivation, or training matter!--I +found myself saying, as I walked home, in echo of him,--so long as Nature +will only condescend once in a hundred years to produce for us a creature +so perfect, so finely fashioned to all beautiful uses! Let other people +go through the toil to acquire; their aim is truth: but here is beauty in +its quintessence, and what is beauty but three parts of truth? Beauty is +harmony with the universal order, a revelation of laws and perfections of +which, in our common groping through a dull world, we find in general +nothing to remind us. And if so, what folly to ask of a human creature +that 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 of +life, and cross-examine it for its credentials instead of raising our +altar and sacrificing to it with grateful hearts! + +'That was my latest impression of Friday night. But, naturally, by +Saturday morning I had returned to the rational point of view. The mind's +morning climate is removed by many degrees from that of the evening; and +the critical revolt which the whole spectacle of the _White Lady_ had +originally roused in me revived in all its force. I began, indeed, to +feel as if I and humanity, with its long laborious tradition, were on one +side, holding our own against a young and arrogant aggressor--namely, +beauty, in the person of Miss Bretherton! How many men and women, I +thought, have laboured and struggled and died in the effort to reach a +higher and higher perfection in one single art, and are they to be +outdone, eclipsed in a moment, by something which is a mere freak of +nature, something which, like the lilies of the field, has neither toiled +nor spun, and yet claims the special inheritance and reward of those who +have! It seemed to me as though my feeling in her presence of the night +before, as if the sudden overthrow of the critical resistance in me had +been a kind of treachery to the human cause. Beauty has power enough, I +found myself reflecting with some fierceness,--let us withhold from her a +sway and a prerogative which are not rightfully hers; let us defend +against her that store of human sympathy which is the proper reward, not +of her facile and heaven-born perfections, but of labour and +intelligence, of all that is complex and tenacious in the workings of the +human spirit. + +'And then, as my mood cooled still further, I began to recall many an +evening at the _Francais_ with you, and one part after another, one actor +after another, recurred to me, till, as I realised afresh what dramatic +intelligence and dramatic training really are, I fell into an angry +contempt for our lavish English enthusiasms. Poor girl! it is not her +fault if she believes herself to be a great actress. Brought up under +misleading conditions, and without any but the most elementary education, +how is she to know what the real thing means? She finds herself the rage +within 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 cannot +harmonise all my different impressions of her. Let me begin again. Why is +it 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 impress +themselves upon you. I felt this very strongly two or three times after +the play on Friday night. In her talk with Forbes, for instance, whom she +has altogether in her toils, and whom she plays with as though he were +the gray-headed Merlin and she an innocent Vivien, weaving harmless +spells about him. And then, from this mocking war of words and looks, +this gay camaraderie, in which there was not a scrap of coquetry or +self-consciousness, she would pass into a sudden outburst of anger as to +the impertinence of English rich people--the impertinence of rich +millionaires who have tried once or twice to "order" her for their +evening parties as they would order their ices, or the impertinence of +the young "swell about town" who thinks she has nothing to do behind the +scenes but receive his visits and provide him with entertainment. And, as +the quick impetuous words came rushing out, you felt that here for once +was a woman speaking her real mind to you, and that with a flashing eye +and curving lip, an inborn grace and energy which made every word +memorable. If she would but look like that or speak like that on the +stage! But there, of course, is the rub. The whole difficulty of art +consists in losing your own personality, so to speak, and finding it +again transformed, and it is a difficulty which Miss Bretherton has never +even understood. + +'After this impression of spontaneity and natural force, I think what +struck me most was the physical effect London has already exercised upon +her in six weeks. She looks superbly sound and healthy; she is tall and +fully developed, and her colour, for all its delicacy, is pure and +glowing. But, after all, she was born in a languid tropical climate, and +it is the nervous strain, the rush, the incessant occupation of London +which seem to be telling upon her. She gave me two or three times a +painful impression of fatigue on Friday--fatigue and something like +depression. After twenty minutes' talk she threw herself back against the +iron pillar behind her, her White Lady's hood framing a face so pale and +drooping that we all got up to go, feeling that it was cruelty to keep +her up a minute longer. Mrs. Stuart asked her about her Sundays, and +whether she ever got out of town. "Oh," she said, with a sigh and a look +at her uncle, who was standing near, "I think Sunday is the hardest day +of all. It is our 'at home' day, and such crowds come--just to look at +me, 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 as +well as its pleasures, and that his dear niece could hardly escape her +social duties after the flattering manner in which London had welcomed +her. Miss Bretherton answered, with a sort of languid rebellion, that her +social duties would soon be the death of her. But evidently she is very +docile at home, and they do what they like with her. It seems to me that +the uncle and aunt are a good deal shrewder than the London public; it is +borne in upon me by various indications that they know exactly what their +niece's popularity depends on, and that it very possibly may not be a +long-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 be +made; and, secondly, that she shall find her way into London society, and +secure, if possible, a great _parti_ before the enthusiasm for her has +had time to chill. One hears various stories of the uncle, all in this +sense; 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 League +for the protection of Miss Bretherton from her family; in other words, +we mean to secure that she has occasional rest and country air on +Sunday--her only free day. Mrs. Stuart has already wrung out of Mrs. +Worrall, by a little judicious scaring, permission to carry her off for +two Sundays--one this month and one next--and Miss Bretherton's romantic +side, which is curiously strong in her, has been touched by the +suggestion that the second Sunday should be spent at Oxford. + +'Probably for the first Sunday--a week hence--we shall go to Surrey. You +remember Hugh Farnham's property near Leith Hill? I know all the farms +about there from old shooting days, and there is one on the edge of some +great commons, which would be perfection on a May Sunday. I will write +you a full account of our day. The only rule laid down by the League is +that things are to be so managed that Miss Bretherton is to have no +possible excuse for fatigue so long as she is in the hands of the +society. + +'My book goes on fairly well. I have been making a long study of De +Musset, with the result that the poems seem to me far finer than I had +remembered, and the _Confessions d' un Enfant du Siecle_ a miserable +performance. How was it it impressed me so much when I read it first? His +poems have reminded me of you at every step. Do you remember how you used +to read them aloud to our mother and me after dinner, while the father +had his sleep before going down to the House?' + +Ten days later Kendal spent a long Monday evening in writing the +following letter to his sister:-- + +'Our yesterday's expedition was, I think, a great success. Mrs. Stuart +was happy, because she had for once induced Stuart to put away his papers +and allow himself a holiday; it was Miss Bretherton's first sight of the +genuine English country, and she was like a child among the gorse and the +hawthorns, while Wallace and I amused our manly selves extremely well in +befriending the most beautiful woman in the British Isles, in drawing her +out 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 the +crisis of his fortunes that he should enjoy ten hours' divorce from his +briefs; but he did his best to reach the common level, and his wife, who +is devoted to him, and might as well not be married at all, from the +point of view of marital companionship, evidently thought him perfection. +The day more than confirmed my liking for Mrs. Stuart; there are certain +little follies about her; she is too apt to regard every distinguished +dinner-party she and Stuart attend as an event of enormous and universal +interest, and beyond London society her sympathies hardly reach, except +in that vague charitable form which is rather pity and toleration than +sympathy. But she is kindly, womanly, soft; she has no small jealousies +and none of that petty self-consciousness which makes so many women +wearisome to the great majority of plain men, who have no wish to take +their social exercises too much _au serieux._ + +'I was curious to see what sort of a relationship she and Miss Bretherton +had developed towards each other. Mrs. Stuart is nothing if not +cultivated; her light individuality floats easily on the stream of London +thought, now with this current, now with that, but always in movement, +never left behind. She has the usual literary and artistic topics at her +fingers' end, and as she knows everybody, whenever the more abstract +sides of a subject begin to bore her, she can fall back upon an endless +store of gossip as lively, as brightly-coloured, and, on the whole, as +harmless as she herself is. Miss Bretherton had till a week or two ago +but two subjects--Jamaica and the stage--the latter taken in a somewhat +narrow sense. Now, she has added to her store of knowledge a great number +of first impressions of London notorieties, which naturally throw her +mind and Mrs. Stuart's more frequently into contact with each other. But +I see that, after all, Mrs. Stuart had no need of any bridges of this +kind to bring her on to common ground with Isabel Bretherton. Her strong +womanliness and the leaven of warm-hearted youth still stirring in her +would be quite enough of themselves, and, besides, there is her critical +delight in the girl's beauty, and the little personal pride and +excitement she undoubtedly feels at having, in so creditable and natural +a manner, secured a hold on the most interesting person of the season. It +is curious to see her forgetting her own specialities, and neglecting to +make her own points, that she may bring her companion forward and set her +in the best light. Miss Bretherton takes her homage very prettily; it is +natural to her to be made much of, and she does not refuse it, but she in +her turn evidently admires enormously her friend's social capabilities +and cleverness, and she is impulsively eager to make some return for Mrs. +Stuart's kindness--an eagerness which shows itself in the greatest +complaisance towards all the Stuarts' friends, and in a constant +watchfulness for anything which will please and flatter them. + +'However, here I am as usual wasting time in analysis instead of +describing to you our Sunday. It was one of those heavenly days with +which May startles us out of our winter pessimism, sky and earth seemed +to be alike clothed in a young iridescent beauty. We found a carriage +waiting for us at the station, and we drove along a great main road until +a sudden turn landed us in a green track traversing a land of endless +commons, as wild and as forsaken of human kind as though it were a region +in some virgin continent. On either hand the gorse was thick and golden, +great oaks, splendid in the first dazzling sharpness of their spring +green, threw vast shadows over the fresh moist grass beneath, and over +the lambs sleeping beside their fleecy mothers, while the hawthorns rose +into the sky in masses of rose-tinted snow, each tree a shining miracle +of white set in the environing blue. + +'Then came the farmhouse--old, red-brick, red-tiled, +casemented--everything that the aesthetic soul desires--the farmer and +his wife looking out for us, and a pleasant homely meal ready in the +parlour, 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, made +in the intervals of eating, of the sitters whose portraits he has +condescended to take this year. They range from a bishop and a royalty +down to a little girl picked up in the London streets, and his +presentation of the characteristic attitudes of each--those attitudes +which, according to him, betray the "inner soul" of the bishop or the +foundling--was admirable. Then he fell upon the Academy--that respected +body of which I suppose he will soon be the President--and tore it limb +from limb. With what face I shall ever sit at the same table with him at +the Academy dinners of the future--supposing fortune ever exalts me again +as 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 could +not say it was ill-natured; it was simply the bare truth of things put in +the whimsical manner which is natural to Forbes. + +'Miss Bretherton listened to and laughed at it all, finding her way +through the crowd of unfamiliar names and allusions with a woman's +cleverness, looking adorable all the time in a cloak of some brown velvet +stuff, and a large hat also of brown velvet. She has a beautiful hand, +fine and delicate, not specially small, but full of character; it was +pleasant to watch it playing with her orange, or smoothing back every now +and then the rebellious locks which will stray, do what she will, beyond +the boundaries assigned to them. Presently Wallace was ill-advised enough +to ask her which pictures she had liked best at the Private View; she +replied by picking out a ballroom scene of Forth's and an unutterable +mawkish thing of Halford's--a troubadour in a pink dressing-gown, +gracefully intertwined with violet scarves, singing to a party of robust +young women in a "light which never was on sea or land." "You could count +all 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, remembering +the rodomontade with which Wallace and had been crushed on the night of +the _White Lady_, to see him wince under Miss Bretherton's liking of the +worst art in England! Is the critical spirit worth something, or is it +superfluous in theatrical matters and only indispensable in matters of +painting! I think he caught the challenge in my eye, for he evidently +felt himself in some little difficulty. + +'"Oh, you couldn't," he said with a groan, "you couldn't like that +ballroom,--and that troubadour, Heaven forgive us! Well, there must be +something in it,--there must be something in it, if it really gives you +pleasure,--I daresay there is; we're so confoundedly uppish in the way we +look at things. If either of them had a particle of drawing or a scrap of +taste, if both of them weren't as bare as a broomstick of the least +vestige of gift, or any suspicion of knowledge, there might be a good +deal to say for them! Only, my dear Miss Bretherton, you see it's really +not a matter of opinion; I assure you it isn't. I could prove to you as +plain as that two and two make four, that Halford's figures don't join in +the middle, and that Forth's men and women are as flat as my hand--there +isn't a back among them! And then the taste, and the colour, and the +clap-trap idiocy of the sentiment! No, I don't think I can stand it. I am +all for people getting enjoyment where they can," with a defiant look at +me, "and snapping their fingers at the critics. But one must draw the +line 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 I +wouldn'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 white +brows. Mrs. Stuart and Wallace kept their countenances to perfection; but +I had him, there's no denying it. + +'"Oh, I know nothing about it," said Isabel Bretherton, divinely +unconscious of the little skirmish going on around her. "You must teach +me, Mr. Forbes. I only know what touches me, what I like--that's all I +know in anything." + +'"It's all we any of us know," said Wallace airily. "We begin with 'I +like' and 'I don't like,' then we begin to be proud, and make +distinctions and find reasons; but the thing beats us, and we come back +in the end to 'I like' and 'I don't like.'" + +'The lunch over, we strolled out along the common, through heather which +as yet was a mere brown expanse of flowerless undergrowth, and copses +which overhead were a canopy of golden oak-leaf, and carpeted underneath +with primroses and the young up-curling bracken. Presently through a +little wood we came upon a pond lying wide and blue before us under the +breezy May sky, its shores fringed with scented fir-wood and the whole +air alive with birds. We sat down under a pile of logs fresh-cut and +fragrant, and talked away vigorously. It was a little difficult often to +keep the conversation on lines which did not exclude Miss Bretherton. +Forbes, the Stuarts, Wallace, and I are accustomed to be together, and +one never realises what a freemasonry the intercourse even of a capital +is until one tries to introduce an outsider into it. We talked the +theatre, of course, the ways of different actors, the fortunes of +managers. Isabel Bretherton naturally has as yet seen very little; her +comments were mainly personal, and all of a friendly, enthusiastic kind, +for the profession has been very cordial to her. A month or five weeks +more and her engagement at the _Calliope_ will be over. There are other +theatres 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, I +imagine, made so much money this season that the family cannot in decency +object to her having her own way. "I am wild to get to Italy," she said +to me in her emphatic, impetuous way. "Sir Walter Rutherford has talked +to me so much about it that I am beginning to dream of it. I long to have +done with London and be off! This English sun seems to me so chilly," and +she drew her winter cloak about her with a little shiver, although the +day was really an English summer day, and Mrs. Stuart was in cotton. "I +come from such warmth, and I loved it. I have been making acquaintance +with all sorts of horrors since I came to London--face-ache and +rheumatism and colds!--I scarcely knew there were such things in the +world. And I never knew what it was to be tired before. Sometimes I can +hardly drag through my work. I hate it so: it makes me cross like a +naughty child!" + +'"Do you know," I said, flinging myself down beside her on the grass and +looking up at her, "that it's altogether wrong? Nature never meant you to +feel 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 that +is so prettily pathetic. "I have the roar in my ears all day, and it +seems to be humming through my sleep at night. And then the crowd, and +the hurry people are in, and the quickness and sharpness of things! But I +have only a few weeks more," she added, brightening, "and then by October +I shall be more used to Europe--the climate and the life." + +'I am much impressed, and so is Mrs. Stuart, by the struggle her nervous +strength is making against London. All my nursing of you, Marie, and of +our mother has taught me to notice these things in women, and I find +myself taking often a very physical and medical view of Miss Bretherton. +You see, it is a case of a northern temperament and constitution relaxed +by tropical conditions, and then exposed once more in an exceptional +degree to the strain and stress of northern life. I rage when I think of +such a piece of physical excellence marred and dimmed by our harsh +English 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 a +sense of tragic waste about it. Suppose London destroys her health--there +are some signs of it--what a futile, ironical pathos there would be in +it. 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 moved +on to the other side of the pond and were basking in the fir-wood. The +afternoon sun was slanting through the branches on to the bosom of the +pond; a splendid Scotch fir just beside us tossed out its red-limbed +branches over a great bed of green reeds, starred here and there with +yellow irises. The woman from the keeper's cottage near had brought us +out some tea, and most of us had fallen into a sybaritic frame of mind in +which talk seemed to be a burden on the silence and easeful peace of the +scene. Suddenly Wallace and Forbes fell upon the question of Balzac, of +whom Wallace has been making a study lately, and were soon landed in a +discussion of Balzac's method of character-drawing. Are Eugene de +Rastignac, le Pere Goriot, and old Grandet real beings or mere +incarnations of qualities, mathematical deductions from a given point? At +last I was drawn in, and the Stuarts: Stuart has trained his wife in +Balzac, and she has a dry original way of judging a novel, which is +stimulating and keeps the ball rolling. It was the first time that the +talk had not centred in one way or another round Miss Bretherton, who, of +course, was the first consideration throughout the day in all our minds. +We grew vehement and forgetful, till at last a little movement of hers +diverted the general current. She had taken off her hat and was leaning +back against the oak under which she sat, watching with parted lips and a +gaze of the purest delight and wonder the movements of a nut-hatch +overhead, a creature of the woodpecker kind, with delicate purple gray +plumage, who was tapping the branch above her for insects with his large +disproportionate bill, and then skimming along to a sand-bank a little +distance off, where he disappeared with his prey into his nest. + +'"Ha!" said Wallace, who is a bird-lover, "a truce to Balzac, and let us +watch those nut-hatches! Miss Bretherton's quite right to prefer them to +French novels." + +'"French novels!" she said, withdrawing her eyes from the branch above +her, and frowning a little at Wallace as she spoke. "Please don't expect +me to talk about them--I know nothing about them--I have never wished +to." + +'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 and +her own opinion. I connected it, too, with all one hears of her +determination to look upon herself as charged with a mission for the +reform of stage morals. French novels and French actresses! apparently +she regards them all as so many unknown horrors, standing in the way of +the purification of dramatic art by a beautiful young person with a high +standard of duty. It is very odd! Evidently she is the Scotch +Presbyterian's daughter still, for all her profession, and her success, +and her easy ways with the Sabbath! Her remark produced a good deal of +unregenerate irritation in me. If she were a first-rate artist to begin +with, I was inclined to reflect, this moral enthusiasm would touch and +charm one a good deal more; as it is, considering her position, it is +rather putting the cart before the horse. But, of course, one can +understand that it is just these traits in her that help her to make the +impression she does on London society and the orthodox public in general. + +'Wallace and I went off after the nut-hatches, enjoying a private laugh +by the way over Mrs. Stuart's little look of amazement and discomfort as +Miss Bretherton delivered herself. When we came back we found Forbes +sketching her--she sitting rather flushed and silent under the tree, and +he drawing away and working himself at every stroke into a greater and +greater enthusiasm. And certainly she was as beautiful as a dream, +sitting against that tree, with the brown heather about her and the young +oak-leaves overhead. But I returned in an antagonistic frame of mind, a +little out of patience with her and her beauty, and wondering why Nature +always blunders somewhere! + +'However, on the way home she had another and a pleasanter surprise for +me. A carriage was waiting for us on the main road, and we strolled +towards it through the gorse and the trees and the rich level evening +lights. I dropped behind for some primroses still lingering in bloom +beside a little brook; she stayed too, and we were together, out of +ear-shot of the rest. + +'"Mr. Kendal," she said, looking straight at me, as I handed the flowers +to her, "you may have misunderstood something just now. I don't want to +pretend to what I haven't got. I don't know French, and I can't read +French 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 suddenly +I thought to myself that I too would speak my mind. + +'"Well," I said deliberately, walking on beside her; "you lose a good +deal. There are hosts of French novels which I would rather not see a +woman touch with the tips of her fingers; but there are others, which +take one into a bigger world than we English people with our parochial +ways of writing and seeing have any notion of. George Sand carries you +full into the mid-European stream--you feel it flowing, you are brought +into contact with all the great ideas, all the big interests; she is an +education in herself. And then Balzac! he has such a range and breadth, +he teaches one so much of human nature, and with such conscience, such +force of representation! It's the same with their novels as with their +theatre. Whatever other faults he may have, a first-rate Frenchman of the +artistic sort takes more pains over his work than anybody else in the +world. They don't shirk, they throw their life-blood into it, whether +it's acting, or painting, or writing. You've never seen Desforets, I +think?--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, and +flung it away from her with one of her nervous gestures. "I am not +sorry," she said. "Nothing would have induced me to go and see her." + +'"Indeed!" I said, waiting a little curiously for what she would say +next. + +'"It's not that I am jealous of her," she exclaimed, with a quick proud +look at me; "not that I don't believe she's a great actress; but I can't +separate her acting from what she is herself. It is women like that who +bring discredit on the whole profession--it is women like that who make +people think that no good woman can be an actress. I resent it, and I +mean to take the other line. I want to prove, if I can, that a woman may +be an actress and still be a lady, still be treated just as you treat the +women you know and respect! I mean to prove that there need never be a +word breathed against her, that she is anybody's equal, and that her +private life is her own, and not the public's! It makes my blood boil to +hear the way people--especially men--talk about Madame Desforets; there +is not one of you who would let your wife or your sister shake hands with +her, and yet how you rave about her, how you talk as if there were +nothing in the world but genius--and French genius!" + +'It struck me that I had got to something very much below the surface in +Miss Bretherton. It was a curious outburst; I remembered how often her +critics had compared her to Desforets, greatly to her disadvantage. Was +this championship of virtue quite genuine? or was it merely the best +means of defending herself against a rival by the help of British +respectability? + +'"Mme. Desforets," I said, perhaps a little drily, "is a riddle to her +best friends, and probably to herself; she does a thousand wild, +imprudent, _bad_ things if you will, but she is the greatest actress the +modern world has seen, and that's something to have done for your +generation. To have moved the feelings and widened the knowledge of +thousands by such delicate, such marvellous, such conscientious work as +hers--there is an achievement so great, so masterly, that I for one will +throw no stones at her!" + +'It seemed to me all through as though I were speaking perversely; I +could have argued on the other side as passionately as Isabel Bretherton +herself; but I was thinking of her dialogue with the Prince, of that +feeble, hysterical death-scene, and it irritated me that she, with her +beauty, and with British Philistinism and British virtue to back her, +should be trampling on Desforets and genius. But I was conscious of my +audacity. If a certain number of critics have been plain-spoken, Isabel +Bretherton has none the less been surrounded for months past with people +who have impressed upon her that the modern theatre is a very doubtful +business, that her acting is as good as anybody's, and that her special +mission 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 personal +short-comings, her generation has cause to be grateful to her--must be +repugnant to her. She, too, talks about art, but it is like a child who +learns a string of long words without understanding them. She walked on +beside me while I cooled down and thought what a fool I had been to +endanger a friendship which had opened so well,--her wonderful lips +opening once or twice as though to speak, and her quick breath coming and +going as she scattered the yellow petals of the flowers far and wide with +a sort of mute passion which sent a thrill through me. It was as though +she could not trust herself to speak, and I waited awkwardly on +Providence, wishing the others were not so far off. But suddenly the +tension of her mood seemed to give way. Her smile flashed out, and she +turned upon me with a sweet, eager graciousness, quite indescribable. + +'"No, we won't throw stones at her! She _is_ great, I know, but that +other feeling is so strong in me. I care for my art; it seems to me +grand, magnificent!--but I think I care still more for making people +feel it is work a good woman can do, for holding my own in it, and +asserting myself against the people who behave as if all actresses had +done the things that Madame Desforets has done. Don't think me narrow and +jealous. I should hate you and the Stuarts to think that of me. You have +all been so kind to me--such good, real friends! I shall never forget +this day--Oh! look, there is the carriage standing up there. I wish it +was the morning and not the evening, and that it might all come again! I +hate the thought of London and that hot theatre to-morrow night. Oh, my +primroses! What a wretch I am! I've lost them nearly all. Look, just that +bunch over there, Mr. Kendal, before we leave the common." + +'I sprang to get them for her, and brought back a quantity. She took them +in her hand--how unlike other women she is after all, in spite of her +hatred of Bohemia!--and, raising them to her lips, she waved a farewell +through them to the great common lying behind us in the evening sun. "How +beautiful! 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 a +winning, spontaneous charm. I cannot say what pleasure I got out of those +primroses lying in her soft ungloved hand all the way home. Henceforward, +I feel she may make what judgments and draw what lines she pleases; she +won't change me, and I have some hopes of modifying her; but I am not +very 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 understand +it--but I won't quarrel with her, even in my thoughts, any more! + + * * * * * + +'On looking over this letter it seems to me that if +you were not you, and I were not I, you might with +some plausibility accuse me of being--what?--in love +with Miss Bretherton? But you know me too well. +You know I am one of the old-fashioned people who +believe in community of interests--in belonging to the +same world. When I come coolly to think about it, I +can hardly imagine two worlds, whether outwardly or +inwardly, more wide apart than mine and Miss +Bretherton'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 under +varying circumstances. One night he took it into his head to go to the +pit of the _Calliope_, and came away more persuaded than before that as +an actress there was small prospect for her. Had she been an ordinary +mortal, he thought the original stuff in her might have been disciplined +into something really valuable by the common give and take, the normal +rubs and difficulties of her profession. But, as it was, she had been +lifted at once by the force of one natural endowment into a position +which, from the artistic point of view, seemed to him hopeless. Her +instantaneous success--dependent as it was on considerations wholly +outside those of dramatic art--had denied her all the advantages which +are to be won from struggle and from laborious and gradual conquest. And +more than this, it had deprived her of an ideal; it had tended to make +her take her own performance as the measure of the good and possible. +For, naturally, it was too much to expect that she herself should analyse +truly the sources and reasons of her popularity. She must inevitably +believe that some, at least, of it was due to her dramatic talent in +itself. 'Perhaps some of it is,' Kendal would answer himself. 'It is very +possible that I am not quite fair to her. She has all the faults which +repel me most. I could get over anything but this impression of bare +blank ignorance which she makes upon me. And as things are at present, it +is impossible that she should learn. It might be interesting to have the +teaching of her! But it could only be done by some one with whom she came +naturally 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 Chateauvieux, for whom +Mrs. Stuart had a warm but very respectful admiration. They had met two +or three times in London, and Madame de Chateauvieux's personal +distinction, her refinement, her information, her sweet urbanity of +manner, had made a great impression upon the lively little woman, who, +from the lower level of her own more commonplace and conventional success +in society, felt an awe-struck sympathy for anything so rare, so unlike +the ordinary type. Her intimacy with Miss Bretherton had not gone far +before the subject of 'Mr. Kendal's interesting sister' had been +introduced, and on this particular afternoon, as Kendal entered her +drawing-room, his ear was caught at once by the sound of Marie's name. +Miss Bretherton drew him impulsively into the conversation, and he found +himself 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 in +the public discussion of any subject connected with himself. But Isabel +Bretherton's frank curiosity, her kindling eyes and sweet parted lips, +and that strain of romance in her which made her so quickly responsive to +anything which touched her imagination, were not easy to resist. She was +delightful to his eye and sense, and he was as conscious as he had ever +been of her delicate personal charm. Besides, it was pleasant to him to +talk of that Parisian world, in which he was himself vitally interested, +to any one so naive and fresh. Her ignorance, which on the stage had +annoyed him, in private life had its particular attractiveness. And, with +regard to this special subject, he was conscious of breaking down a +prejudice; he felt the pleasure of conquering a great reluctance in her. +Evidently on starting in London she had set herself against everything +that she identified with the great Trench actress who had absorbed the +theatre-going public during the previous season; not from personal +jealousy, as Kendal became ultimately convinced, but from a sense of keen +moral revolt against Madame Desforets's notorious position and the +stories of her private life which were current in all circles. She had +decided in her own mind that French art meant a tainted art, and she had +shown herself very restive--Kendal had seen something of it on their +Surrey expedition--under any attempts to make her share the interest +which certain sections of the English cultivated public feel in foreign +thought, and especially in the foreign theatre. Kendal took particular +pains, when they glided off from the topic of his sister to more general +matters, to make her realise some of the finer aspects of the French +world of which she knew so little, and which she judged so harshly; the +laborious technical training to which the dwellers on the other side of +the channel submit themselves so much more readily than the English in +any matter of art; the intellectual conscientiousness and refinement due +to the pressure of an organised and continuous tradition, and so on. He +realised that a good deal of what he said or suggested must naturally be +lost upon her. But it was delightful to feel her mind yielding to his, +while it stimulated her sympathy and perhaps roused her surprise to find +in him every now and then a grave and unpretending response to those +moral enthusiasms in herself which were too real and deep for much direct +expression. + +'Whenever I am next in Paris, she said to him, when she perforce rose to +go, with that pretty hesitation of manner which was so attractive in her, +'would you mind--would Madame de Chateauvieux,--if I asked you to +introduce me to your sister? It would be a great pleasure to me.' + +Kendal made a very cordial reply, and they parted knowing more of each +other than they had yet done. Not that his leading impression of her was +in any way modified. Incompetent and unpromising as an artist, delightful +as a woman,--had been his earliest verdict upon her, and his conviction +of its reasonableness had been only deepened by subsequent experience; +but perhaps the sense of delightfulness was gaining upon the sense of +incompetence? After all, beauty and charm and sex have in all ages been +too much for the clever people who try to reckon without them. Kendal was +far too shrewd not to recognise the very natural and reasonable character +of the proceeding, and not to smile at the first sign of it in his own +person. Still, he meant to try, if he could, to keep the two estimates +distinct, and neither to confuse himself nor other people by confounding +them. It seemed to him an intellectual point of honour to keep his head +perfectly cool on the subject of Miss Bretherton's artistic claims, but +he was conscious that it was not always very easy to do--a consciousness +that made him sometimes all the more recalcitrant under the pressure of +her celebrity. + +For it seemed to him that in society he heard of nothing but her--her +beauty, her fascination, and her success. At every dinner-table he heard +stories of her, some of them evident inventions, but all tending in the +same direction--that is to say, illustrating either the girl's proud +independence and her determination to be patronised by nobody, not even +by royalty itself, or her lavish kind-heartedness and generosity towards +the poor and the inferiors of her own profession. She was for the moment +the great interest of London, and people talked of her popularity and +social prestige as a sign of the times and a proof of the changed +position of the theatre and of those belonging to it. Kendal thought it +proved no more than that an extremely beautiful girl of irreproachable +character, brought prominently before the public in any capacity +whatever, is sure to stir the susceptible English heart, and that Isabel +Bretherton's popularity was not one which would in the long run affect +the stage at all. But he kept his reflections to himself, and in general +talked about her no more than he was forced to do. He had a sort of +chivalrous feeling that those whom the girl had made in any degree her +personal friends ought, as far as possible, to stand between her and this +inquisitive excited public. And it was plain to him that the enormous +social success was not of her seeking, but of her relations. + +One afternoon, between six and seven, Kendal was working alone in his +room with the unusual prospect of a clear evening before him. He had +finished a piece of writing, and was standing before the fire deep in +thought over the first paragraphs of his next chapter, when he heard a +knock; the door opened, and Wallace stood on the threshold. + +'May I come in? It's a shame to disturb you; but I've really got +something 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? or +will you stay and dine? I must dine early to-night for my work. I'll ring +and tell Mason.' + +'No, don't; I can't stay. I must be in Kensington at eight.' He threw +himself into Kendal's deep reading-chair, and looked up at his friend +standing silent and expectant on the hearth-rug. 'Do you remember that +play of mine I showed you in the spring?' + +Kendal took time to think. + +'Perfectly; you mean that play by that young Italian fellow which you +altered and translated? I remember it quite well. I have meant to ask you +about it once or twice lately.' + +'You thought well of it, I know. Well, my sister has got me into the most +uncomfortable 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 want +of money just now, and I had set my heart on the thing's being really +good--well written and well acted. Well, Agnes, in a rash moment two or +three days ago, and without consulting me, told Miss Bretherton the whole +story of the play, and said that she supposed I should soon want somebody +to bring it out for me. Miss Bretherton was enormously struck with the +plot, as Agnes told it to her, and the next time I saw her she insisted +that I should read some scenes from it to her--' + +'Good heavens! and now she has offered to produce it and play the +principal part in it herself,' interrupted Kendal. + +Wallace nodded. 'Just so; you see, my relations with her are so friendly +that it was impossible for me to say no. But I never was in a greater +fix. She was enthusiastic. She walked up and down the room after I'd done +reading, repeating some of the passages, going through some of the +situations, and wound up by saying, "Give it me, Mr. Wallace! It shall be +the first thing I bring out in my October season--if you will let me have +it." 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 of +its lessening. Any piece she plays in is bound to be a success, and I +suppose 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 the +part of Elvira--you remember the plot?--even decently. It's an extremely +difficult part. It would be superb--I think so, at least--in the hands +of an actress who really understood her business; but Miss Bretherton +will 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 the +name of fortune, am I to get out of it?' + +'You had thought,' said Kendal, 'I remember, of Mrs. Pearson for the +heroine.' + +'Yes; I should have tried her. She is not first-rate, but at least she is +intelligent; she understands something of what you want in a part like +that. But for poor Isabel Bretherton, and those about her, the great +points in the play will be that she will have long speeches and be able +to wear "medieval" dresses! I don't suppose she ever heard of Aragon in +her life. Just imagine her playing a high-born Spanish woman of the +fifteenth century! Can't you see her?' + +'Well, after all,' said Kendal, with a little laugh, 'I should see what +the public goes for mostly--that is to say, Isabel Bretherton in +effective costume. No, it would be a great failure--not a failure, of +course, in the ordinary sense. Her beauty, the medieval get-up, and the +romantic plot of the piece, would carry it through, and, as you say, you +would probably make a great deal by it. But, artistically, it would be a +ghastly failure. And Hawes! Hawes, I suppose, would play Macias? Good +heavens!' + +'Yes,' said Wallace, leaning his head on his hands and looking gloomily +out 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 the +least in love with that girl, Kendal, but there isn't anything she asked +me to do for her that I wouldn't do if I could. She's the warmest-hearted +creature--one of the kindest, frankest, sincerest women that ever +stepped. I feel at times that I'd rather cut my hand off than hurt her +feelings by throwing her offer in her face, and yet, that play has been +the apple of my eye to me for months; the thought of seeing it spoilt by +clumsy handling is intolerable to me.' + +'I suppose it would hurt her feelings,' said Kendal meditatively, 'if you +refused?' + +'Yes,' said Wallace emphatically; 'I believe it would wound her +extremely. You see, in spite of all her success, she is beginning to be +conscious that there are two publics in London. There is the small +fastidious public of people who take the theatre seriously, and there is +the large easy-going public who get the only sensation they want out of +her beauty and her personal prestige. The enthusiasts have no difficulty, +as yet, in holding their own against the scoffers, and for a long time +Miss 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 more +than she did. It seems to me that there is a little growing soreness in +her mind, and just now if I refuse to let her have that play it will +destroy 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's +sake, Kendal, help me to some plausible fiction or other!' + +'I wish I could,' said Kendal, pacing up and down, his gray hair falling +forward over his brow. There was a pause, and then Kendal walked +energetically 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 on +that. You know how much I like her. She's all you say, and more; but art +is art, and acting is acting. I, at any rate, take these things +seriously, 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 make +one despair. Sometimes I think it will throw back the popular dramatic +taste for years. At any rate, I am clear that if a man has got hold of a +fine work of art, as you have in that play, he has a duty to it and to +the public. You are bound to see it brought out under the best possible +conditions, and we all know that Miss Bretherton's acting, capped with +Hawes's, would kill it, from the artistic point of view.' + +'Perfectly true, perfectly true,' said Wallace. 'Well, would you have me +tell her so?' + +'You must get out of it somehow. Tell her that the part is one you feel +won't suit her--won't do her justice.' + +'Much good that would do! She thinks the part just made for her--costumes +and all.' + +'Well, then, say you haven't finished your revision, and you must have +time for more work at it; that will postpone the thing, and she will hear +of something else which will put it out of her head.' + +'There are all sorts of reasons against that,' said Wallace; 'it's hardly +worth while going through them. In the first place, she wouldn't believe +me; in the second, she won't forget it, whatever happens, and it would +only put the difficulty off a few weeks at most. I feel so stupid about +the whole thing. I like her too much. I'm so afraid of saying anything to +hurt 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 winning +expression. + +'Do you think _you_ could earn my eternal gratitude and manage the thing +for me? You know we're going to Oxford next Sunday, and I suppose we +shall go to Nuneham, and there will be opportunities for walks, and so +on. Could you possibly take it in hand? She has an immense respect for +you intellectually. If you tell her that you're sure the part won't suit +her, that she won't do herself justice in it; if you could lead the +conversation on to it and try to put her out of love for the scheme +without seeming to have a commission from me in any way, I should be +indeed everlastingly obliged! You wouldn't make a mess of it, as I should +be sure to do. You'd keep your head cool.' + +'Well!' said Kendal, laughing, balancing himself on the table facing +Wallace. 'That's a tempting prospect! But if I don't help you out you'll +give in, I know; you're the softest of men, and I don't want you to give +in.' + +'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 known +you do difficult things before; you manage somehow to get your own way +without offending people.' + +'H'm,' said Kendal; 'I don't know whether that's flattering or not.' He +began to walk up and down the room again cogitating. 'I don't mind +trying,' 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 over +the 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 she +really took it to heart. She attaches one to her. I feel towards her as +though she were a sister--only more interesting, because there's the +charm 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 and +looking for his overcoat, while his face darkened; 'it's an experience I +don'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 own +about her and his friend--her departure from London and Wallace's long +absence in the country. But he said nothing, unless there was sympathy in +the cordial grip of his hand as he accompanied the other to the door. + +On the threshold Wallace turned irresolutely. 'It will be a risk next +Sunday,' he said; 'I'm determined it shan't be anything more. She is not +the 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 you +can, and I'll bless you for ever. What a brute I am never to have asked +after your work! Does it get on?' + +'As much as any work can in London just now. I must take it away with me +somewhere 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 into +his room and stood meditating. It seemed to him that Wallace did not +quite realise the magnificence of his self-devotion. 'For, after all, +it's an awkward business,' he said to himself, shaking his head over his +own temerity. 'How I am to come round a girl as frank, as direct, as +unconventional as that, I don't quite know! But she ought not to have +that play; it's one of the few good things that have been done for the +English stage for a long time past. It's well put together, the plot +good, three or four strongly marked characters, and some fine Victor +Hugoish dialogue, especially in the last act. But there is extravagance +in it, as there is in all the work of that time, and in Isabel +Bretherton's hands a great deal of it would be grotesque: nothing would +save it but her reputation and the get-up, and that would be too great +a shame. No, no; it will not do to have the real thing swamped by all +sorts of irrelevant considerations in this way. I like Miss Bretherton +heartily, but I like good work, and if I can save the play from her, I +shall save her too from what everybody with eyes in his head would see to +be a failure!' + +It was a rash determination. Most men would have prudently left the +matter to those whom it immediately concerned, but Kendal had a Quixotic +side to him, and at this time in his life a whole-hearted devotion to +certain intellectual interests, which decided his action on a point like +this. In spite of his life in society, books and ideas were at this +moment much more real to him than men and women. He judged life from the +standpoint of the student and the man of letters, in whose eyes +considerations, which would have seemed abstract and unreal to other +people, had become magnified and all-important. In this matter of Wallace +and Miss Bretherton he saw the struggle between an ideal interest, so to +speak, and a personal interest, and he was heart and soul for the ideal. +Face to face with the living human creature concerned, his principles, as +we have seen, were apt to give way a little, for the self underneath was +warm-hearted and impressionable, but in his own room and by himself they +were strong and vigorous, and would allow of no compromise. + +He ruminated over the matter during his solitary meal, planning his line +of action. 'It all depends,' he said to himself, 'on that,--if what +Wallace says about her is true, if my opinion has really any weight with +her, I shall be able to manage it without offending her. It's good of her +to speak of me as kindly as she seems to do; I was anything but amiable +on that Surrey Sunday. However, I felt then that she liked me all the +better for plain-speaking; one may be tolerably safe with her that she +won't take offence unreasonably. What a picture she made as she pulled +the primroses to pieces--it seemed all up with one! And then her smile +flashing out--her eagerness to make amends--to sweep away a harsh +impression--her pretty gratefulness--enchanting!' + +On Saturday, at lunch-time, Wallace rushed in for a few minutes to say +that he himself had avoided Miss Bretherton all the week, but that things +were coming to a crisis. 'I've just got this note from her,' he said +despairingly, spreading it out before Kendal, who was making a scrappy +bachelor meal, with a book on each side of him, at a table littered with +papers. + +'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 for +an appointment with her and her business manager, and spoke with +enthusiasm of the play. 'It cannot help being a great success,' she +wrote; '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 for +me. You have never, indeed, I remember, consented in so many words to let +me 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 will +see 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 the +pecuniary advantages of her offer, though she must know that almost any +author would give his eyes just now for such a proposal. Well, we shall +see. If I can't make the thing look less attractive to her without +rousing her suspicions, and if you can't screw up your courage to +refuse--why, you must sign the agreement, my dear fellow, and make the +best of it; you will find something else to inspire you before long.' + +'It's most awkward,' sighed Wallace, as though making up his perplexed +mind with difficulty. 'The great chance is that by Agnes's account she is +very much inclined to regard your opinion as a sort of intellectual +standard; she has two or three times talked of remarks of yours as if +they had struck her. Don't quote me at all, of course. Do it as +impersonally as you can--' + +'If you give me too many instructions,' said Kendal, returning the letter +with a smile, 'I shall bungle it. Don't make me nervous. I can't promise +you 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 Agnes +about the trains to-morrow?' + +'Yes, Paddington, 10 o'clock, and there is an 8.15 train back from +Culham. Mrs. Stuart says we're to lunch in Balliol, run down to Nuneham +afterwards, and leave the boats there, to be brought back.' + +'Yes, we lunch with that friend of ours--I think you know him--Herbert +Sartoris. He has been a Balliol don for about a year. I only trust the +weather will be what it is to-day.' + +The weather was all that the heart of man could desire, and the party met +on the Paddington platform with every prospect of another successful day. +Forbes turned up punctual to the moment, and radiant under the combined +influence of the sunshine and of Miss Bretherton's presence; Wallace had +made all the arrangements perfectly, and the six friends found themselves +presently journeying along to Oxford, at that moderated speed which is +all that a Sunday express can reach. The talk flowed with zest and +gaiety; the Surrey Sunday was a pleasant memory in the background, and +all were glad to find themselves in the same company again. It seemed to +Kendal that Miss Bretherton was looking rather thin and pale, but she +would not admit it, and chattered from her corner to Forbes and himself +with 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 them +alighting at the gate of the new Balliol, where stood Herbert Sartoris +looking out for them. He was a young don with a classical edition on hand +which kept him up working after term, within reach of the libraries, and +he led the way to some pleasant rooms overlooking the inner quadrangle of +Balliol, showing in his well-bred look and manner an abundant +consciousness of the enormous good fortune which had sent him Isabel +Bretherton for a guest. For at that time it was almost as difficult to +obtain the presence of Miss Bretherton at any social festivity as it was +to obtain that of royalty. Her Sundays were the objects of conspiracies +for weeks beforehand on the part of those persons in London society who +were least accustomed to have their invitations refused, and to have and +to hold the famous beauty for more than an hour in his own rooms, and +then to enjoy the privilege of spending five or six long hours on the +river with her, were delights which, as the happy young man felt, would +render him the object of envy to all at least of his fellow-dons below +forty. + +In streamed the party, filling up the book-lined rooms and startling the +two old scouts in attendance into an unwonted rapidity of action. Miss +Bretherton 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 of +green, and threw herself down at last on to the low window-seat with a +sigh 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 that +building is over there; it's too new, it ought to be old and gray like +the 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 for +once.' + +'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 admiration +of that marvellous changing face. 'The vacation is the time they show +themselves; 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 in +vacation they have the colleges and the parks and the Bodleian to +themselves, and you may study their ways, and their spectacles, and their +umbrellas, under the most favourable conditions.' + +'Oh yes,' said Miss Bretherton, with a little scorn, 'people always make +fun 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 Oxford +is 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 declares +already; 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 at +him. 'Do you generally find my enthusiasms cool down?' + +'You are as constant as you are kind,' said Forbes, bowing to her; 'I am +only 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 drive +through the streets. Mr. Wallace, are you and Mrs. Stuart really going to +forbid me sight-seeing?' + +'Of course!' said Wallace emphatically. 'That's one of the fundamental +rules of the society. Our charter would be a dead letter if we let you +enter a single college on your way to the river to-day.' + +'The only art, my dear Isabel,' said Mrs. Stuart, 'that you will be +allowed to study to-day, will be the art of conversation.' + +'And a most fatiguing one, too!' exclaimed Forbes; 'it beats sight-seeing +hollow. But, my dear Miss Bretherton, Kendal and I will make it up to +you. We'll give you an illustrated history of Oxford on the way to +Nuneham. I'll do the pictures, and he shall do the letterpress. Oh! the +good times I've had up here--much better than he ever had'--nodding +across at Kendal, who was listening. 'He was too proper behaved to enjoy +himself; he got all the right things, all the proper first-classes and +prizes, poor fellow! But, as for me, I used to scribble over my +note-books all lecture-time, and amuse myself the rest of the day. And +then, you see, I was up twenty years earlier than he was, and the world +was not as virtuous then as it is now, by a long way.' + +Kendal was interrupting, when Forbes, who was in one of his maddest +moods, turned round upon his chair to watch a figure passing along the +quadrangle in front of the bay-window. + +'I say, Sartoris, isn't that Camden, the tutor who was turned out of +Magdalen a year or two ago for that atheistical book of his, and whom you +took in, as you do all the disreputables? Ah, I knew it! + +"By the pricking of my thumbs +Something 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 the +persecutors who are the curiosity.' + +'I don't know that,' said young Sartoris. 'We liberals are by no means +the cocks of the walk that we were a few years ago. You see, now we have +got nothing to pull against, as it were. So long as we had two or three +good grievances, we could keep the party together and attract all the +young men. We were Israel going up against the Philistines, who had us in +their 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 we +who 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 that +prevents Oxford becoming as dull as the rest of the world. All your +picturesqueness, so to speak, has been struck out of the struggle between +the two forces. The Church force is the one that has given you all your +buildings and your beauty, while, as for you liberals, who will know such +a lot of things that you're none the happier for knowing--well, I suppose +you keep the place habitable for the plain man who doesn't want to be +bullied. But it's a very good thing the other side are strong enough to +keep you in order.' + +The conversation flowed on vigorously--Forbes guiding it, now here, now +there, 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 Miss +Bretherton. + +'Edward has told you of my escapade,' said Mrs. Stuart. 'Yes, I have put +my 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 came +to tell her. You see, I've seen so much of her lately, it slipped out +when we were talking.' + +'It was very natural,' said Kendal, glad to notice from Mrs. Stuart's way +of attacking the subject that she knew nothing of his own share in the +matter. It would have embarrassed him to be conscious of another +observer. 'Oh, a hundred things may turn up; there are ways out of these +things if one is determined to find them.' + +Mrs. Stuart shook her head. 'She is so curiously bent upon it. She is +possessed with the idea that the play will suit her better than any she +has had yet. Don't you think her looking very tired? I have come to know +her much better these last few weeks, and it seems absurd; but I get +anxious about her. Of course, she is an enormous success, but I fancy the +theatrical 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 the +temper of the audience a good deal flatter.' + +'Yes,' said Mrs. Stuart; 'and then there is that curious little sister of +hers, whom you haven't seen, and who counts for a good deal. I believe +that in reality she is very fond of Isabel, and very proud of her, but +she's very jealous of her too, and she takes her revenge upon her sister +for her beauty and her celebrity by collecting the hostile things people +say about her acting, and pricking them into her every now and then, like +so many pins. At first Isabel was so sure of herself and the public that +she 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 came +over, nor so happy, I think, and the criticisms tell more. She is +heartily sick of the _White Lady_, and is bent upon a change, and I +believe she thinks this play of Edward's is just what she wants to enable +her to strengthen her hold upon the public.' + +'There never was a greater delusion,' said Kendal; 'it's the last part in +the 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 so +well. It's a long tragic part--a tremendous strain, and would take all +the 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 she +did. The paleness of the beautiful face opposite indeed had touched his +sympathies very keenly, and he was beginning to think the safety of +Wallace'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 be +hanged,' he said to himself, 'if I come within a thousand miles of +hurting 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 the +schools'-quadrangle, and a drive down High Street. Mr. Sartoris, who had +been an examiner during the summer term, and had so crept into the good +graces of the Clerk of the Schools, was sent off to suborn that +functionary for the keys of the iron gates which on Sunday shut out the +Oxford world from the sleepy precincts of the Bodleian. The old clerk was +in a lax vacation mood, and the envoy returned key in hand. Mrs. Stuart +and Forbes undertook the guidance of Miss Bretherton, while the others +started to prepare the boats. It was a hot June day, and the gray +buildings, with their cool shadows, stood out delicately against a pale +blue sky dappled with white cloud. Her two guides led Miss Bretherton +through the quadrangle of the schools, which, fresh as it was from the +hands of the restorer, rose into the air like some dainty white piece of +old-world confectionery. For the windows are set so lightly in the +stone-work, and are so nearly level with the wall, that the whole great +building has an unsubstantial card-board air, as if a touch might dint +it. + +'The doctrinaires call it a fault,' said Forbes indignantly, pointing out +the feature to his companions. 'I'd like to see them build anything +nowadays with half so much imagination and charm.' + +They looked enviously at the closed door of the Bodleian, they read the +Latin names of the schools just freshly painted at intervals round the +quadrangle, and then Forbes led them out upon the steps in front of the +Radcliffe and S. Mary's, and let them take their time a little. + +'How strange that there should be anything in the world,' cried Miss +Bretherton, 'so beautiful all through, so all of a piece as this! I had +no idea it would be half so good. Don't, don't laugh at me, Mr. Forbes. I +have not seen all the beautiful things you other people have seen. Just +let me rave.' + +'_I_ laugh at you!' said Forbes, standing back in the shadow of the +archway, his fine lined face, aglow with pleasure, turned towards her. +'_I_, who have got Oxford in my bones and marrow, so to speak! Why, every +stone in the place is sacred to me! Poetry lives here, if she has fled +from all the world besides. No, no; say what you like, it cannot be too +strong for me.' + +Mrs. Stuart, meanwhile, kept her head cool, admired all that she was +expected to admire, and did it well, and never forgot that the carriage +was waiting for them, and that Miss Bretherton was not to be tired. It +was she who took charge of the other two, piloted them safely into the +fly, carried them down the High Street, sternly refused to make a stop at +Magdalen, and finally landed them in triumph to the minute at the great +gate of Christchurch. Then they strolled into the quiet cathedral, +delighted themselves with its irregular bizarre beauty, its unexpected +turns and corners, which gave it a capricious fanciful air for all the +solidity and business-like strength of its Norman framework, and as they +rambled out again, Forbes made them pause over a window in the northern +aisle--a window by some Flemish artist of the fifteenth century, who +seems to have embodied in it at once all his knowledge and all his +dreams. In front sat Jonah under his golden-tinted gourd--an ill-tempered +Flemish peasant--while behind him the indented roofs of the Flemish town +climbed the whole height of the background. It was probably the artist's +native town; some roof among those carefully-outlined gables sheltered +his own household Lares. But the hill on which the town stood, and the +mountainous background and the purple sea, were the hills and the sea not +of Belgium, but of a dream country--of Italy, perhaps, the medieval +artist's paradise. + +'Happy man!' said Forbes, turning to Miss Bretherton; 'look, he put it +together four centuries ago, all he knew and all he dreamt of. And there +it is to this day, and beyond the spirit of that window there is no +getting. For all our work, if we do it honestly, is a compound of what we +know and what we dream.' + +Miss Bretherton looked at him curiously. It was as though for the first +time 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 to +him sympathetically, and looked at the window closely, as though trying +to follow all he had been saying. But it struck Mrs. Stuart that there +was often a bewilderment in her manner which had been strange to it on +her first entrance into London. Those strong emphatic ways Kendal had +first noticed in her were less frequent. Sometimes she struck Mrs. Stuart +as having the air of a half-blindfold person trying to find her way along +strange roads. + +They passed out into the cool and darkness of the cloisters, and through +the new buildings, and soon they were in the Broad Walk, trees as old as +the Commonwealth bending overhead, and in front the dazzling green of the +June meadows, the shining river in the distance, and the sweep of +cloud-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 the +embarkation, for on Sunday the river is forsaken, and they were the only +adventurers on its blue expanse. Off they pushed, Miss Bretherton, +Kendal, Mr. Stuart, and Forbes in one boat, the remaining members of the +party in the other. Isabel Bretherton had thrown off the wrap which she +always carried with her, and which she had gathered round her in the +cathedral, and it lay about her in green fur-edged folds, bringing her +white dress into relief, the shapely fall of the shoulders and all the +round slimness of her form. As Kendal took the stroke oar, after he had +arranged everything for her comfort, he asked her if Oxford was what she +had expected. + +'A thousand times better!' she said eagerly. + +'You have a wonderful power of enjoyment. One would think your London +life would have spoilt it a little.' + +'I don't think anything ever could. I was always laughed at for it as a +child, I enjoy everything.' + +'Including such a day as you had yesterday? How _can_ you play the _White +Lady_ twice in one day? It's enough to wear you out.' + +'Oh, everybody does it. I was bound to give a _matinee_ to the profession +some time, and yesterday had been fixed for it for ages. But I have only +given three _matinees_ altogether, and I shan't give another before my +time is up.' + +'That's a good hearing,' said Kendal. 'Do you get tired of the _White +Lady_?' + +'Yes,' she said emphatically; 'I am sick of her. But,' she added, bending +forward with her hands clasped on her knee, so that what she said could +be heard by Kendal only; 'have you heard, I wonder, what I have in my +head for the autumn? Oh well, we must not talk of it now; I have no right +to make it public yet. But I should like to tell you when we get to +Nuneham, if there's an opportunity.' + +'We will make one,' said Kendal, with an inward qualm. And she fell back +again with a nod and a smile. + +On they passed, in the blazing sunshine, through Iffley lock and under +the green hill crowned with Iffley village and its Norman church. The hay +was out in the fields, and the air was full of it. Children, in tidy +Sunday frocks, ran along the towing-path to look at them; a reflected +heaven smiled upon them from the river depths; wild rose-bushes overhung +the water, and here and there stray poplars rose like land-marks into +the sky. The heat, after a time, deadened conversation. Forbes every now +and then would break out with some comment on the moving landscape, which +showed the delicacy and truth of his painter's sense, or set the boat +alive with laughter by some story of the unregenerate Oxford of his own +undergraduate days; but there were long stretches of silence when, except +to the rowers, the world seemed asleep, and the regular fall of the oars +like 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 shade +lay deep and green on the still water, spanned by a rustic bridge, and +broken every now and then by the stately whiteness of the swans. Rich +steeply-rising woods shut in the left-hand bank, and foliage, grass, and +wild flowers seemed suddenly to have sprung into a fuller luxuriance than +elsewhere. + +'It's too early for tea,' said Mrs. Stuart's clear little voice on the +bank; 'at least, if we have it directly it will leave such a long time +before the train starts. Wouldn't a stroll be pleasant first?' + +Isabel Bretherton and Kendal only waited for the general assent before +they wandered off ahead of the others. 'I should like very much to have a +word with you,' she had said to him as he handed her out of the boat. And +now, 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 the +wood, a little out of breath after a bit of steep ascent, 'that I have +got hold of a play for next October that I think you are rather specially +interested in--at least, Mr. Wallace told me you had heard it all, and +given him advice about it while he was writing it. I want so much to hear +your ideas about it. It always seems to me that you have thought more +about the stage and seen more acting than any one else I know, and I care +for your opinion very much indeed--do tell me, if you will, what you +thought of _Elvira!_' + +'Well,' said Kendal quietly, as he made her give up her wrap to him to +carry, 'there is a great deal that's fine in it. The original sketch, as +the Italian author left it, was good, and Wallace has enormously improved +upon it. Only--' + +'Isn't it most dramatic?' she exclaimed, interrupting him; 'there are so +many strong situations in it, and though one might think the subject a +little unpleasant if one only heard it described, yet there is nothing in +the treatment but what is noble and tragic. I have very seldom felt so +stirred by anything. I find myself planning the scenes, thinking over +them this way and that incessantly.' + +'It is very good and friendly of you,' said Kendal warmly, 'to wish me to +give 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 are +one or two points in it that might be changed. I shall press Mr. Wallace +to make a few alterations. I wonder what were the changes that occurred +to you?' + +'I wasn't thinking of changes,' said Kendal, not venturing to look at her +as she walked beside him, her white dress trailing over the moss-grown +path, and her large hat falling back from the brilliant flushed cheeks +and queenly throat. 'I was thinking of the play itself, of how the part +would really suit you.' + +'Oh, I have no doubts at all about that,' she said, but with a quick look +at him; 'I always feel at once when a part will suit me, and I have +fallen 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 of +scolding and declaiming. _Elvira_ will give me an opportunity of showing +what I can do with something soft and pathetic. I have had such +difficulties 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 in +something poetical and romantic, and this is new, and the mounting of it +might be quite original.' + +'And yet I doubt,' said Kendal; 'I think the part of Elvira wants +variety, 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 lighter +vein, 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 can +play a comedy part, of course--every actor ought to be able to--but I +don'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 which +would be less of a continuous tragic strain than this. Why, almost all +the modern tragic plays have their passages of relief, but the texture +of _Elvira_ is so much the same throughout,--I cannot conceive a greater +demand on any one. And then you must consider your company. Frankly, I +cannot imagine a part less suited to Mr. Hawes than Macias; and his +difficulties 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 should +have said--only, of course, you must know much better--that it is a +little risky to give the British public such very serious fare as this, +and immediately after the _White Lady_. The English theatre-goer never +seems to me to take kindly to medievalism--kings and knights and nobles +and the fifteenth century are very likely to bore him. Not that I mean to +imply for a moment that the play would be a failure in point of +popularity. You have got such a hold that you could carry anything +through; but I am inclined to think that in _Elvira_ you would be rather +fighting against wind and tide, and that, as I said before, it would be a +great strain upon you.' + +'The public makes no objection to Madame Desforets in Victor Hugo,' she +answered quickly, even sharply. 'Her parts, so far as I know anything +about them, are just these romantic parts, and she has made her enormous +reputation 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 voice +which startled him; 'it is not that. It is that I am I, and Madame +Desforets is Madame Desforets. Oh, I see! I see very well that your mind +is against it. And Mr. Wallace--there were two or three things in his +manner which have puzzled me. He has never said yes to my proposal +formally. I understand perfectly what it means; you think that I shall do +the 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 her +manner 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 does +suit me? Of course, that is what you mean. If I cannot act Elvira, I am +good for nothing--I am worse than good for nothing--I am an impostor, a +sham!' + +She sat down on the raised edge of the bank, for she was trembling, and +clasped her quivering hands on her knees. Kendal was beside himself with +distress. How had he blundered so, and what had brought this about? It +was so unexpected, it was incredible. + +'Do--do believe me!' he exclaimed, bending over her. 'I never meant +anything the least disrespectful to you; I never dreamt of it. You asked +me to give you my true opinion, and my criticism applied much more to the +play than to yourself. Think nothing of it, if you yourself are +persuaded. You must know much better than I can what will suit you. And +as for Wallace--Wallace will be proud to let you do what you will with +his play.' + +It seemed to him that he would have said anything in the world to soothe +her. It was so piteous, so intolerable to him to watch that quivering +lip. + +'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; I +saw 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 is +worth having is beginning to say. My acting has been a nightmare to me +lately. I believe it has all been a great, great mistake.' + +Kendal never felt a keener hatred of the conventions which rule the +relations between men and women. Could he only simply have expressed his +own feeling, he would have knelt beside her on the path, have taken the +trembling 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 yet +it seemed to him as if the whole world had resolved itself into his own +individuality and hers, and as if the gay river party and the bright +friendly relations of an hour before were separated from the present by +an impassable gulf. And, worst of all, there seemed to be a strange +perversity in his speech--a fate which drove him into betraying every +here 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 have +charmed the English public as no one else has ever charmed it. Is not +that a great thing to have done? And if I, who am very fastidious and +very captious, and over-critical in a hundred ways--if I am inclined to +think that a part is rather more than you, with your short dramatic +experience, can compass quite successfully, why, what does it matter? I +may be quite wrong. Don't take any notice of my opinion: forget it, and +let me help you, if I can, by talking over the play.' + +She shook her head with a bitter little smile. 'No, no; I shall never +forget it. Your attitude only brought home to me, almost more strongly +than 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 the +criticisms he had allowed himself to make of her were recoiling in one +avenging mass upon his head. 'I never felt anything but the warmest +admiration for your courage, your work, your womanly goodness and +sweetness.' + +'Yes,' she said, rising and holding out her hand half-unconsciously for +her cloak, which she put round her as though the wood had suddenly grown +cold; '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? Is +there nothing in me but this beauty that people talk of, and which I +sometimes _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 itself +against the judgment which had been passed upon it, as if some hidden +force hardly suspected even by herself were beating against its bars. +Kendal watched her in helpless silence. 'Tell me,' she said, fixing her +deep 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 of +your heart--that is, if you are interested enough in me--what is it I +want? What is it that seems to be threatening me with failure as an +artist? I work all day long, my work is never out of my head; it seems to +pursue me all night. But the more I struggle with it the less successful +I seem even to myself.' + +Her look was haunting: there was despair and there was hope in it. It +implied that she had set him up in her impulsive way as a sort of oracle +who alone could help her out of her difficulty. In presence of that look +his 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 are +dissatisfied with your work--it is the beginning of all real success. But +you want positive knowledge--the knowledge you could get from books, and +the knowledge other people could teach you. You want a true sense of what +has been done and what can be done with your art, and you want an insight +into 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 so +complicated that none of us can get on without using the great stores of +experience others have laid up for us.' + +It was all out now. He had spoken his inmost mind. They had stopped +again, and she was looking at him intently; it struck him that he could +not possibly have said what he had been saying unless he had been led on +by an instinctive dependence upon a great magnanimity of nature in her. +And then the next moment the strange opposites the matter held in it +flashed across him. He saw the crowded theatre, the white figure on the +stage, his ear seemed to be full of the clamour of praise with which +London had been overwhelming its favourite. It was to this spoilt child +of fortune that he had been playing the schoolmaster--he, one captious +man of letters, against the world. + +But she had not a thought of the kind, or rather, the situation presented +itself to her in exactly the contrary light. To her Kendal's words, +instead of being those of a single critic, were the voice and the +embodiment of a hundred converging impressions and sensations, and she +felt a relief in having analysed to the full the vague trouble which had +been 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, but +almost when I first saw you I felt that there was something ominous in +you to me. My dream, in which I have been living, has never been so +perfect since, and now I think it has gone. Don't look so grieved,' she +cried, inexpressibly touched by his face, 'I am glad you told me all you +thought. 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 give +her up. I am not vexed, I am not angry. Don't you think now we had better +go back to Mrs. Stuart? I should like a rest with her before we all meet +again.' + +She moved forward as she spoke, and it seemed to Kendal that her step was +unsteady and that she was deadly white. He planted himself before her in +the descending path, and held out a hand to her to help her. She gave him +her own, and he carried it impetuously to his lips. + +'You are nobleness itself!' he cried, from the depths of his heart. 'I +feel as if I had been the merest pedant and blunderer--the most +incapable, clumsy idiot.' + +She smiled, but she could not answer. And in a few more moments voices +and steps could be heard approaching, and the scene was over. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +The Sunday party separated at Paddington on the night of the Nuneham +expedition, and Wallace and Eustace Kendal walked eastward together. The +journey home had been very quiet. Miss Bretherton had been forced to +declare herself 'extremely tired,' and Mrs. Stuart's anxiety and sense of +responsibility about her had communicated themselves to the rest of the +party. + +'It is the effect of my long day yesterday,' she said apologetically to +Forbes, who hovered about her with those affectionate attentions which a +man on the verge of old age pays with freedom to a young girl. 'It won't +do to let the public see so much of me in future. But I don't want to +spoil our Sunday. Talk to me, and I shall forget it.' + +Wallace, who had had his eyes about him when she and Eustace Kendal +emerged from the wood in view of the rest of the party, was restless and +ill at ease, but there was no getting any information, even by a gesture, +from Kendal, who sat in his corner diligently watching the moonlight on +the flying fields, or making every now and then some disjointed attempts +at conversation with Mrs. Stuart. + +At the station Miss Bretherton's carriage was waiting; the party of +gentlemen saw her and Mrs. Stuart, who insisted on taking her home, into +it; the pale, smiling face bent forward; she waved her hand in response +to the lifted hats, and she was gone. + +'Well?' said Wallace, with a world of inquiry in his voice, as he and +Kendal turned eastward. + +'It has been an unfortunate business,' said Kendal abruptly. 'I never did +a thing worse, I think, or spent a more painful half-hour.' + +Wallace's face fell. 'I wish I hadn't bored you with my confounded +affairs,' he exclaimed. 'It was too bad!' + +Kendal was inclined to agree inwardly, for he was in a state of irritable +reaction; but he had the justice to add aloud, 'It was I who was the fool +to undertake it. And I think, indeed, it could have been done, but that +circumstances, which neither you nor I had weighed sufficiently, were +against 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 it +on 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 she +talked of the "contempt" that you and I feel for her!' + +'Good heavens!' cried Wallace, feeling most unjustly persuaded that his +friend had bungled the matter horribly. + +'Yes,' said Kendal deliberately; '"contempt," that was it. I don't know +how it came about. All I know is, that what I said, which seemed to me +very harmless, was like a match to a mine. But she told me to tell you +that she made no further claim on _Elvira_. So the play is safe.' + +'D---- the play!' cried Wallace vigorously, a sentiment to which perhaps +Kendal's silence gave consent. 'But I cannot let it rest there. I must +write to her.' + +'I don't think I would, if I were you,' said Kendal. 'I should let it +alone. She looks upon the matter as finished. She told me particularly to +tell you that she was _not_ vexed, and you may be quite sure that she +isn'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 I +remember.' + +He gave an abridged account of the conversation, which made matters a +little clearer, though by no means less uncomfortable, to Wallace. When +it was over, they were nearing Vigo Street, the point at which their +routes diverged, Wallace having rooms in the Albany, and Kendal hailed a +hansom. + +'If I were you,' he said, as it came up, 'I should, as I said before, let +the thing alone as much as possible. She will probably speak to you about +it, and you will, of course, say what you like, but I'm pretty sure she +won't take up the play again, and if she feels a coolness towards +anybody, 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 though +determined to strike a lighter key. 'Don't be so dismal, things will look +differently to-morrow morning--they generally do--there's no tremendous +harm done. I'm sorry I didn't do your bidding better. Honestly, when I +come to think over it, I don't see how I could have done otherwise. But +I 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 were +burning, and threw himself into his reading-chair, beside which his books +and papers stood ready to his hand. Generally, nothing gave him a greater +sense of _bien-etre_ than this nightly return, after a day spent in +society, to these silent and faithful companions of his life. He was +accustomed to feel the atmosphere of his room when he came back to it +charged with welcome. It was as though the thoughts and schemes he had +left warm and safe in shelter there started to life again after a day's +torpor, and thronged to meet him. His books smiled at him with friendly +faces, the open page called to him to resume the work of the morning--he +was, in every sense, at home. Tonight, however, the familiar spell seemed +to have lost its force. After a hasty supper he took up some proofs, pen +in hand. But the first page was hardly turned before they had dropped on +to his knee. It seemed to him as if he still felt on his arm the folds of +a green, fur-edged cloak, as if the touch of a soft cold hand were still +lingering in his. Presently he fell to recalling every detail of the +afternoon scene,--the arching beech trees, the rich red and brown of the +earth beneath, tinged with the winter sheddings of the trees, the little +raised bank, her eyes as she looked up at him, the soft wisps of her +golden brown hair under her hat. What superb, unapproachable beauty it +was! how living, how rich in content and expression! + +'Am I in love with Isabel Bretherton?' he asked himself at last, lying +back on his chair with his eyes on the portrait of his sister. 'Perhaps +Marie could tell me--I don't understand myself. I don't think so. And if +I were, I am not a youngster, and my life is a tolerably full one. I +could hold myself in and trample it down if it were best to do so. I can +hardly imagine myself absorbed in a great passion. My bachelor life is a +good many years old--my habits won't break up easily. And, supposing I +felt 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. 'And +there is absolutely no sort of reason in my letting myself fall in love +with Isabel Bretherton! She has never given me the smallest right to +think that she takes any more interest in me than she does in hundreds of +people whom she meets on friendly terms, unless it may be an intellectual +interest, as Wallace imagines, and that's a poor sort of stepping-stone +to love! And if it were ever possible that she should, this afternoon has +taken away the possibility. For, however magnanimous a woman may be, a +thing like that rankles: it can't help it. She will feel the sting of it +worse to-morrow than to-day, and, though she will tell herself that she +bears no grudge, it will leave a gulf between us. For, of course, she +must go on acting, and, whatever depressions she may have, she must +believe in herself; no one can go on working without it, and I shall +always recall to her something harsh and humiliating!' + +'Supposing, by any chance, it were not so--supposing I were able to +gather up my relation with her again and make it a really friendly one--I +should take, I think, a very definite line; I should make up my mind +to be of use to her. After all, it is true what she says: there are many +things in me that might be helpful to her, and everything there was she +should have the benefit of. I would make a serious purpose of it. She +should find me a friend worth having.' + +His thoughts wandered on a while in this direction. It was pleasant to +see 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 a +fool!' he said to himself resolutely at last, 'and I may as well go to +bed and put her out of my mind. The chance is over--gone--done with, if +it ever existed.' + +The next morning, on coming down to breakfast, he saw among his letters a +handwriting which startled him. Where had he seen it before? In Wallace's +hand 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--on +Monday, if all goes well. We go to Switzerland for a while, and then to +Venice, which people tell me is often very pleasant in August. We shall +be there by the first week in August, and Mr. Wallace tells me he hears +from you that your sister, Madame de Chateauvieux, will be there about +the same time. I forgot to ask you yesterday, but, if you think she would +not 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 she +would not find me a troublesome person! We shall hardly, I suppose, meet +again before I start. If not, please remember that my friends can always +find me on Sunday afternoon.--Yours very truly, ISABEL BRETHERTON.' + +Kendal's hand closed tightly over the note. Then he put it carefully back +into its envelope, and walked away with his hands behind him and the note +in them, to stare out of window at the red roofs opposite. + +'That is like her,' he murmured to himself; 'I wound and hurt her: she +guesses I shall suffer for it, and, by way of setting up the friendly +bond 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 work +than that morning, and at last, in despair, he pushed his book aside, and +wrote an answer to Miss Bretherton, and, when that was accomplished, a +long letter to his sister. The first took him longer than its brevity +seemed to justify. It contained no reference to anything but her request. +He felt a compulsion upon him to treat the situation exactly as she had +done, but, given this limitation, how much cordiality and respect could +two sides of letterpaper be made to carry with due regard to decorum and +grammar? + +When he next met Wallace, that hopeful, bright-tempered person had +entirely recovered his cheerfulness. Miss Bretherton, he reported, had +attacked the subject of _Elvira_ with him, but so lightly that he had no +opportunity for saying any of the skilful things he had prepared. + +'She evidently did not want the question seriously opened,' he said, 'so +I followed your advice and let it alone, and since then she has been +charming 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.' To +which Kendal heartily agreed. + +A few days afterwards the newspapers gave a prominent place to reports of +Miss 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, and +compliments, flowers, and farewells showered upon her. Kendal, who had +not meant to go at the time when tickets were to be had, tried about the +middle of the week after the Oxford Sunday to get a seat, but found it +utterly impossible. He might have managed it by applying to her through +Edward 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 and +his answer close his relations with her for the present. Everywhere else +but in the theatre she might still regard him as her friend; but there +they could not but be antagonistic in some degree one to another, and not +even intellectually did Kendal wish just now to meet her on a footing of +antagonism. + +So, when Saturday night came, he passed the hours of Miss Bretherton's +triumph at a ministerial evening party, where it seemed to him that the +air 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 he +thought he noticed in the common talk about her that criticism of her as +an actress was a good deal more general than it had been at the beginning +of the season. The little knot of persons with an opinion and reasons for +it had gradually influenced the larger public. Nevertheless, there was no +abatement whatever of the popular desire to see her, whether on the stage +or in society. The _engouement_ for her personally, for her beauty, and +her fresh pure womanliness, showed no signs of yielding, and would hold +out, Kendal thought, for some time, against a much stronger current of +depreciation on the intellectual side than had as yet set in. + +He laid down the Monday paper with a smile of self-scorn and muttered: 'I +should like to know how much she remembers by this time of the prig who +lectured to her in Nuneham woods a week ago!' In the evening his _Pall +Mall Gazette_ told him that Miss Bretherton had crossed the channel that +morning, _en route_ for Paris and Venice. He fell to calculating the +weeks which must elapse before his sister would be in Venice, and before +he could hear of any meeting between her and the Bretherton party, and +wound up his calculations by deciding that London was already hot and +would soon be empty, and that, as soon as he could gather together +certain books he was in want of, he would carry them and his proofs down +into Surrey, refuse all invitations to country houses, and devote himself +to his work. + +Before he left he paid a farewell call to Mrs. Stuart, who gave him full +and enthusiastic accounts of Isabel Bretherton's last night, and informed +him that her brother talked of following the Brethertons to Venice some +time in August. + +'Albert,' she said, speaking of her husband, 'declares that he cannot get +away for more than three weeks, and that he must have some walking; so +that, what we propose at present is to pick up Edward at Venice at the +end of August, and move up all together into the mountains afterwards. +Oh, Mr. Kendal,' she went on a little nervously, as if not quite knowing +whether to attack the subject or not, 'it _was_ devoted of you to throw +yourself into the breach for Edward as you did at Oxford. I am afraid it +must have been very disagreeable, both to you and to her. When Edward +told me of it next morning it made me cold to think of it. I made up my +mind that our friendship--yours and ours--with her was over. But do you +know she came to call on me that very afternoon--how she made time I +don't know--but she did. Naturally, I was very uncomfortable, but she +began to talk of it in the calmest way while we were having tea. "Mr. +Kendal was probably quite right," she said, "in thinking the part +unsuited to me; anyhow, I asked him for his opinion, and I should be a +poor creature to mind his giving it." And then she laughed and said that +I must ask Edward to keep his eyes open for anything that would do better +for her in the autumn. And since then she has behaved as if she had +forgotten all about it. I never knew any one with less smallness about +her.' + +'No; she is a fine creature,' said Kendal, almost mechanically. How +little Mrs. Stuart knew--or rather, how entirely remote she was from +_feeling_--what had happened! It seemed to him that the emotion of that +scene was still thrilling through all his pulses, yet to what ordinary +little proportions had it been reduced in Mrs. Stuart's mind! He alone +had seen the veil lifted, had come close to the energetic reality of the +girl's nature. That Isabel Bretherton could feel so, could look so, was +known only to him--the thought had pain in it, but the keenest pleasure +also. + +'Do you know,' said Mrs. Stuart presently, with a touch of reproach in +her 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 had +fallen. It was such a pretty sight, you ought not to have missed it. The +Prince had come to say good-bye to her, and, as we came in, she was just +turning away in her long phantom dress with the white hood falling round +her head, like that Romney picture--don't you remember?--of Lady +Hamilton,--Mr. Forbes has drawn her in it two or three times. The stage +was full of people. Mr. Forbes was there, of course, and Edward, and +ourselves, 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 not +having been able to get a seat, which I thought clumsy of him, for, of +course, 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 if +you had been there.' + +'It seems to me,' said Kendal, with vexation in his voice, 'that there is +a fate against my doing anything as I ought to do it. I thought, on the +whole, it would be better not to make a fuss about it when it came to +the last. You see she must look upon me to some extent as a critical, if +not a hostile, influence, and I did not wish to remind her of my +existence.' + +'Oh well,' said Mrs. Stuart in her cheery commonsense way, 'that evening +was such an overwhelming experience that I don't suppose she could have +felt 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 long +scenes she does more intelligently, and even the death-scene is +better,--less monotonous. I sometimes think she will surprise us all +yet.' + +'Very likely,' said Kendal absently, not in reality believing a word of +it, but it was impossible to dissent. + +'I hope so,' exclaimed Mrs. Stuart, 'with all my heart. She has been very +depressed often these last weeks, and certainly, on the whole, people +have been harder upon her than they were at first. I am so glad that she +and your sister will meet in Venice. Madame de Chateauvieux is just the +friend she wants.' + +Kendal walked home feeling the rankling of a fresh pin-point. She had +asked for him, and he had not been there! What must she think, +apparently, but that, from a sour, morose consistency, he had refused to +be a witness of her triumph! + +Oh, hostile fates! + + * * * * * + +A week later Eustace was settled in the Surrey farmhouse which had +sheltered the Sunday League on its first expedition. The Surrey country +was in its full glory: the first purple heather was fully out, and the +distant hills rose blue and vaporous across stretches of vivid crimson, +broken here and there by the dim gray greens of the furze or the sharper +colour of the bracken. The chorus of birds had died away, but the nests +were not yet tenantless. The great sand-pit near the farmhouse was still +vocal with innumerable broods of sand-martins, still enlivened by the +constant skimming to and fro of the parent birds. And under Kendal's +sitting-room window a pair of tomtits, which the party had watched that +May Sunday, were just launching their young family on the world. One of +his first walks was to that spot beyond the pond where they had made +their afternoon camping-ground. The nut-hatches had fled--fled, Kendal +hoped, some time before, for the hand of the spoiler had been near their +dwelling, and its fragments lay scattered on the ground. He presently +learnt to notice that he never heard the sharp sound of the bird's +tapping beak among the woods without a little start of recollection. + +Outside his walks, his days were spent in continuous literary effort. His +book was in a condition which called for all his energies, and he threw +himself vigorously into it. The first weeks were taken up with a long +review of Victor Hugo's prose and poetry, with a view to a final critical +result. It seemed to him that there was stuff in the great Frenchman to +suit all weathers and all skies. There were sombre, wind-swept days, when +the stretches of brown ling not yet in flower, the hurrying clouds, and +the bending trees, were in harmony with all the fierce tempestuous side +of the great Romantic. There were others when the homely, tender, +domestic aspect of the country formed a sort of framework and +accompaniment to the simpler patriarchal elements in the books which +Kendal had about him. Then, when the pages on Victor Hugo were +written, those already printed on Chateaubriand began to dissatisfy him, +and he steeped himself once more in the rolling artificial harmonies, the +mingled beauty and falsity of one of the most wonderful of styles, that +he 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 first +month in the country, was his correspondence with Madame de Chateauvieux, +who was at Etretat with her husband. She wrote her brother very lively, +characteristic accounts of the life there, filling her letters with +amusing sketches of the political or artistic celebrities with whom the +little Norman town swarms in the season. + +After the third or fourth letter, however, Kendal began to look +restlessly at the Etretat postmark, to reflect that Marie had been there +a long time, and to wonder she was not already tired of such a public +sort of existence as the Etretat life. The bathing scenes, and the +fire-eating deputy, and the literary woman with a mission for the spread +of naturalism, became very flat to him. He was astonished that his sister +was not as anxious to start for Italy as he was to hear that she had done +so. + +This temper of his was connected with the fact that after the first of +August he began to develop a curious impatience on the subject of the +daily post. At Old House Farm the post was taken as leisurely as +everything else; there was no regular delivery, and Kendal generally was +content to trust to the casual mercies of the butcher or baker for his +letters. But, after the date mentioned, it occurred to him that his +letters reached him with an abominable irregularity, and that it would do +his work no harm, but, on the contrary, much good, if he took a daily +constitutional in the direction of the post-office, which gave a touch of +official dignity to the wasp-filled precincts of a grocer's shop in the +village, some two miles off. + +For some considerable number of days, however, his walks only furnished +him with food for reflection on the common disproportion of means to ends +in this life. His sister's persistence in sticking to the soil of France +began to seem to him extraordinary! However, at last, the monotony of the +Etretat postmarks was broken by a postcard from Lyons. 'We are here for +the 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 the +Brethertons be? I must trust to my native wits, I suppose, when I get +there. She is not the sort of light to be hidden under a bushel.' + +This postcard disturbed Kendal not a little, and he felt irritably that +somebody had mismanaged matters. He had supposed, and indeed suggested, +that Miss Bretherton should enclose his note in one of her own to his +sister's Paris address, giving, at the same time, some indication of a +place of meeting in Venice. But if she had not done this, it was very +possible that the two women might miss each other after all. Sometimes, +when he had been contemplating this possibility with disgust, he would +with a great effort make himself reflect why it was that he cared about +the matter so disproportionately. Why was he so deeply interested in +Isabel Bretherton's movements abroad, and in the meeting which would +bring her, so to speak, once more into his own world? Why! because it was +impossible, he would answer himself indignantly, not to feel a profound +interest in any woman who had ever shared as much emotion with you as she +had with him in those moments at Nuneham, who had received a wound at +your hands, had winced under it, and still had remained gracious, and +kind, and womanly! 'I should be a hard-hearted brute,' he said to +himself, 'if I did not feel a very deep and peculiar interest in her--if +I did not desire that Marie's friendship should abundantly make up to her +for my blundering!' + +Did he ever really deceive himself into imagining that this was all? It +is difficult to say. The mind of a man no longer young, and trained in +all the subtleties of thought, does not deal with an invading sentiment +exactly as a youth would do with all his experience to come. It steals +upon him more slowly, he is capable of disguising it to himself longer, +of escaping from it into other interests. Passion is in its ultimate +essence the same, wherever it appears and under whatever conditions, but +it possesses itself of human life in different ways. Slowly, and +certainly, the old primeval fire, the commonest, fatalest, divinest force +of life, was making its way into Kendal's nature. But it was making its +way against antagonistic forces of habit, tradition, self-restraint,--it +found a hundred other interests in possession;--it had a strange +impersonality and timidity of nature to fight with. Kendal had been +accustomed to live in other men's lives. Was he only just beginning to +live his own? + +But, however it was, he was at least conscious during this waiting time +that life was full of some hidden savour; that his thoughts were never +idle, never vacant; that, as he lay flat among the fern in his moments of +rest, following the march of the clouds as they sailed divinely over the +rich breadth and colour of the commons, a whole brood of images nestled +at his heart, or seemed to hover in the sunny air before him,--visions +of a slender form fashioned with Greek suppleness and majesty, of a soft +and 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 impulsive +gait! He followed that figure through scene after scene; he saw primroses +in its hand, and the pale spring blue above it; he recalled it standing +tense and still with blanched cheek and fixed appealing eye, while all +round the June woods murmured in the breeze; he surrounded it in +imagination with the pomp and circumstance of the stage, and realised it +as a centre of emotion to thousands. And then from memories he would pass +on to speculations, from the scenes he knew to those he could only guess +at, from the life of which he had seen a little to the larger and +unexplored life beyond. + +And so the days went on, and though he was impatient and restless, yet +indoors his work was congenial to him, and out of doors the sun was +bright, and all the while a certain little god lay hidden, speaking no +articulate word, but waiting with a mischievous patience for the final +overthrow of one more poor mortal. + +At last the old postmistress, whom he had almost come to regard as +cherishing a personal grudge against him, ceased to repulse him, and, +after his seven years of famine, the years of abundance set in. For the +space of three weeks letters from Venice lay waiting for him almost every +alternate morning, and the heathery slopes between the farm and the +village grew familiar with the spectacle of a tall thin man in a rough +tweed suit struggling, as he walked, with sheets of foreign paper which +the wind was doing its best to filch away from him. + +The following extracts from these letters contain such portions of them +as 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, for +we are just settling into our apartment, and the rooms are strewn in the +most distracting way with boxes, books, and garments; while my maid, +Felicie, and the old Italian woman, Caterina, who is to cook and manage +for 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 +_flaner_ on the Piazza, while his women-folk make life tolerable at home; +which is a very unfair and spiteful version of his proceedings, for he +has really gone as much on my business as on his own. I sent him--feeling +his look of misery, as he sat on a packing-case in the middle of this +chaos, 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 your +friends are. It is strange, as you say, that Miss Bretherton should not +have written to me; but I incline to put it down to our old Jacques at +home, who is getting more and more imbecile with the weight of years and +infirmities, and is quite capable of forwarding to us all the letters +which are not worth posting, and leaving all the important ones piled up +in the hall to await our return. It is provoking, for, if the Bretherton +party are not going to stay long in Venice, we may easily spend all our +time in looking for each other; which will, indeed, be a lame and +impotent conclusion. However, I have hopes of Paul's cleverness. + +'And now, four o'clock! There is no help for it, my dear Eustace. I must +go and instruct Caterina how not to poison us in our dinner to-night. She +looks a dear old soul, but totally innocent of anything but Italian +barbarities in the way of cooking. And Felicie also is well-meaning but +ignorant, so, unless I wish to have Paul on my hands for a week, I must +be off. This rough picnicking life, in Venice of all places, is a curious +little experience; but I made up my mind last time we were here that we +would venture our precious selves in no more hotels. The heat, the +mosquitoes, the horrors of the food, were too much. Here we have a +garden, 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 English +consul 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 apparently +all the English people who have as yet ventured to Venice; and these, or +most of them, seemed to be following in the wake of a little party of +four persons--two ladies, a gentleman, and a lame girl walking with a +crutch. An excited English tourist condescended to inform Paul that it +was "the great English actress, Miss Bretherton," who was creating all +the commotion. Then, of course, he went up to her--he was provoked that +he could hardly see her in the dim light of St. Mark's--introduced +himself, and described our perplexities. Of course, she had written. I +expected as much. Jacques must certainly be pensioned off! Paul thought +the other three very inferior to her, though the uncle was civil, and +talked condescendingly of Venice as though it were even good enough to be +admired by a Worrall. It is arranged that the beauty is to come and see +me to-morrow if, after Caterina has operated upon us during two meals, we +are 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 the +little garden which separates one half of our rooms from the other, while +Caterina was arranging the _dejeuner_ under the little acacia arbour in +the centre of it. Suddenly Felicie came out from the house, and behind +her a tall figure in a large hat and a white dress. The figure held out +both hands to me in a cordial, un-English way, and said a number of +pleasant things, rapidly, in a delicious voice; while I, with the dazzle +of the sun in my eyes so that I could hardly make out the features, stood +feeling a little thrilled by the advent of so famous a person. In a few +moments, 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 had +known one another for months, and I was experiencing one of those sudden +rushes of liking which, as you know, are a weakness of mine. She stayed +and took her meal with its. Paul, of course, was fascinated, and for once +has not set her down as a _reputation surfaite_. + +'Her beauty has a curious air of the place; and now I remember that her +mother was Italian--Venetian actually, was it not? That accounts for it; +she is the Venetian type spiritualised. At the foundation of her face, as +it were, lies the face of the Burano lace-maker; only the original type +has been so refined, so chiselled and smoothed away, that, to speak +fancifully, only a beautiful ghost of it remains. That large stateliness +of 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 Edward +Wallace? I knew, of course, from you that he might be here about this +time, but in the hurry of our settling in I had quite forgotten his +existence, so that the sight of his trim person bearing down upon us was +a surprise. He and the Bretherton party, however, had been going about +together for several days, so that he and she had plenty of gossip in +common. Miss Bretherton's enthusiasm about Venice is of a very naive, +hot, outspoken kind. It seems to me that she is a very susceptible +creature. She lives her life fast, and crowds into it a greater number of +sensations than most people. All this zest and pleasure must consume a +vast amount of nervous force, but it makes her very refreshing to people +as _blases_ as Paul and I are. My first feeling about her is very much +what yours was. Personally, there seems to be all the stuff in her of +which an actress is made; will she some day stumble upon the discovery of +how to bring her own individual flame and force to bear upon her art? I +should think it not unlikely, and, altogether, I feel as though I should +take a more hopeful view of her intellectually than you do. You see, my +dear Eustace, you men never realise how clever we women are, how fast we +learn, and how quickly we catch up hints from all quarters under heaven +and improve upon them. An actress so young and so sympathetic as Isabel +Bretherton must still be very much of an unknown quantity dramatically. I +know you think that the want of training is fatal, and that popularity +will 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 from +life rather what stimulates it than what dulls and vulgarises it. +Altogether, when I compare my first impressions of her with the image of +her left by your letters, I feel that I have been pleasantly surprised. +Only in the matter of intelligence. Otherwise it has, of course, been +your descriptions of her that have planted and nurtured in me that strong +sense of attraction which blossomed into liking at the moment of personal +contact.' + + * * * * * + +'_August_ 10. + +'This afternoon we have been out in the gondola belonging to this +modest establishment, with our magnificent gondolier, Piero, and his +boy to convey us to the Lido. I got Miss Bretherton to talk to me about +her Jamaica career. She made us all laugh with her accounts of the +blood-and-thunder pieces in which the audiences at the Kingston theatre +revelled. She seems generally to have played the Bandit's Daughter, the +Smuggler's Wife, or the European damsel carried off by Indians, or some +other 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 positive +dramatic knowledge she must have! She knows some Shakespeare, I think--at +least, she mentions two or three plays--and I gather from something she. +said that she is now making the inevitable study of Juliet that every +actress makes sooner or later; but Sheridan, Goldsmith, and, of course, +all the French people, are mere names to her. When I think of the minute +exhaustive training our Paris actors go through, and compare it with such +a state of nature as hers, I am amazed at what she has done! For, after +all, you know, she must be able to act to some extent; she must know a +great deal more of her business than you and I suspect, or she could not +get on at all.' + + * * * * * + +'_August_ 16. + +'It is almost a week, I see, since I wrote to you last. During that time +we have seen a great deal more of Miss Bretherton, sometimes in company +with her belongings, sometimes without them, and my impressions of her +have ripened very fast. Oh, my dear Eustace, you have been hasty,--all +the world has been hasty! Isabel Bretherton's _real_ self is only now +coming to the front, and it is a self which, as I say to myself with +astonishment, not even your keen eyes have ever seen--hardly suspected +even. Should I, myself a woman, have been as blind to a woman's +capabilities, I wonder? Very likely! These sudden rich developments of +youth are often beyond all calculation. + +'Mr. Wallace's attitude makes me realise more than I otherwise could the +past and present condition of things. He comes and talks to me with +amazement of the changes in her tone and outlook, of the girl's +sharpening intellect and growing sensitiveness, and as he recalls +incidents and traits of the London season--confessions or judgments or +blunders of hers, and puts them beside the impression which he sees her +to be making on Paul and myself--I begin to understand from his talk and +his bewilderment something of the real nature of the case. +Intellectually, it has been "the ugly duckling" over again. Under all the +crude, unfledged imperfection of her young performance, you people who +have watched her with your trained critical eyes seem to me never to have +suspected the coming wings, the strange nascent power, which is only now +asserting itself in the light of day. + +'"What has Eustace been about?" said Paul to me last night, after we had +all returned from rambling round and round the moonlit Piazza, and he had +been describing to me his talk with her. "He ought to have seen farther +ahead. That creature is only just beginning to live--and it will be a +life worth having! He has kindled it, too, as much as anybody. Of course +we have not seen her act yet, and ignorant--yes, she is certainly +ignorant,--though not so much as I imagined. But as for natural power and +delicacy of mind, there can be no question at all about them!" + +'"I don't know that Eustace did question them," I said; "he thought +simply 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 thought +more meanly of her popularity than she did, and he has been talking a +great deal to her about her season. + +'"I never saw a woman at a more critical or interesting point of +development," he exclaimed at last, striding up and down, and so absorbed +in the subject that I could have almost laughed at his eagerness. +"Something or other, luckily for her, set her on the right track three +months ago, and it is apparently a nature on which nothing is lost. One +can see it in the way in which she takes Venice: there isn't a scrap of +her--little as she knows about it--that isn't keen and interested and +wide-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 too +before long."' + + * * * * * + +'_August_ 17-19. + +'And so he has! + +'Paul has been devoting himself more and more to the beauty, Mr. Wallace +and I looking on with considerable amusement and interest; and this +afternoon, finding it intolerable that Miss Bretherton has not even a +bowing acquaintance with any of his favourite plays, Augier, Dumas, +Victor Hugo, or anything else, he has been reading aloud to us in the +garden, running on from scene to scene and speech to speech, translating +as he went--she in rapt attention, and he gesticulating and spouting, +and, except for an occasional queer rendering that made us laugh, getting +on capitally with his English. She was enchanted; the novelty and the +excitement of it absorbed her; and every now and then she would stop Paul +with a little imperious wave of her hand, and repeat the substance of a +speech after him with an impetuous _elan_, an energy, a comprehension, +which drew little nods of satisfaction out of him, and sometimes produced +a strong and startling effect upon myself and Mr. Wallace. However, Mr. +Wallace might stare as he liked; the two people concerned were totally +unconscious of the rest of us, until at last, after the great death-scene +in the _Nuit Blanche_, Paul threw down the book almost with a sob, and +she, rising in a burst of feeling, held out her white arms towards an +imaginary lover, and with extraordinary skill and memory repeated the +substance of the heroine's last speeches:-- + +'"_Achille, beloved! my eyes are dim--the mists of death are gathering. O +Achille! the white cottage by the river--the nest in the reeds--your face +and 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 wind +rising, rising: it chills me to the bone, it chokes, it stifles me! I +cannot see the river, and the cottage is gone, and the sun. O Achille, it +is dark, so dark! Gather me close, beloved!--closer, closer! O death is +kind--tender, like your touch! I have no fears--none!"_ + +'She sank back into her chair. Anything more pathetic, more noble than +her intonation of those words, could not have been imagined. Desforets +herself could not have spoken them with a more simple, a more piercing +tenderness. I was so confused by a multitude of conflicting feelings--my +own impressions and yours, the realities of the present position and the +possibilities of her future--that I forgot to applaud her. It was the +first time I had had any glimpse at all of her dramatic power, and, rough +and imperfect as the test was, it seemed to me enough. I have not been so +devoted to the _Francais_, and to some of the people connected with +it, for ten years, for nothing! One gets a kind of insight from long +habit which, I think, one may trust. Oh, you blind Eustace, how could you +forget 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 of +every friend, out of every sensation. Incident and feeling, praise and +dispraise, will all alike tend to mould the sensitive plastic material +into shape. So far she may have remained outside her art; the art, no +doubt, has been a conventional appendage, and little more. Training would +have given her good conventions, whereas she has only picked up bad and +imperfect ones. But no training could have given her what she will +evidently soon develop for herself, that force and flame of imagination +which fuses together instrument and idea in one great artistic whole. She +has that imagination. You can see it in her responsive ways, her quick +sensitive emotion. Only let it be roused and guided to a certain height, +and it will overleap the barriers which have hemmed it in, and pour +itself into the channels made ready for it by her art. + +'There, at least, you have my strong impression. It is, in many ways, at +variance with some of my most cherished principles; for both you and I +are perhaps inclined to overrate the value of education, whether +technical or general, in its effect on the individuality. And, of course, +a better technical preparation would have saved Isabel Bretherton an +immense amount of time; would have prevented her from contracting a host +of bad habits--all of which she will have to unlearn. But the root of the +matter is in her; of that I am sure; and whatever weight of hostile +circumstance may be against her, she will, if she keeps her health--as to +which I am sometimes, like you, a little anxious--break through it all +and 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 yesterday +abruptly--we were alone in our gondola, far out on the lagoon--"Did your +brother ever tell you of a conversation he and I had in the woods at +Nuneham about Mr. Wallace's play?" + +'"Yes," I answered with outward boldness, but a little inward +trepidation; "I have not known anything distress him so much for a long +time. He thought you had misunderstood him." + +'"No," she said quietly, but as it seemed to me with an undercurrent of +emotion in her voice; "I did not misunderstand him. He meant what he +said, and I would have forced the truth from him, whatever happened. I +was determined to make him show me what he felt. That London season was +sometimes terrible to me. I seemed to myself to be living in two +worlds--one a world in which there was always a sea of faces opposite to +me, or crowds about me, and a praise ringing in my ears which was enough +to turn anybody's head, but which after a while repelled me as if there +was something humiliating in it; and then, on the other side, a little +inner 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 at +all! It was your brother who first roused that sense in me; it was so +strange and painful, for how could I help at first believing in all the +hubbub and the applause?" + +'"Poor child!" I said, reaching out my hand for one of hers. "Did Eustace +make himself disagreeable to you?" + +'"It was more, I think," she answered, as if reflecting, "the standard he +always seemed to carry about with him than anything connected with my own +work. At least, of course, I mean before that Nuneham day. Ah, that +Nuneham day! It cut deep." + +'She turned away from me, and leant over the side of the boat, so that I +could not see her face. + +'"You forced it out of Eustace, you know," I said, trying to laugh at +her, "you uncompromising young person! Of course, he flattered himself +that you forgot all about his preaching the moment you got home. Men +always make themselves believe what they want to believe." + +'"Why should he want to believe so?" she replied quickly. "I had half +foreseen it, I had forced it from him, and yet I felt it like a blow! It +cost me a sleepless night, and some--well, some very bitter tears. Not +that the tears were a new experience. How often, after all that noise at +the theatre, have I gone home and cried myself to sleep over the +impossibility of doing what I wanted to do, of moving those hundreds of +people, 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--it +seemed to me quite in the near future--grown old and ugly, a forgotten +failure, without any of those memories which console people who have been +great when they must give up. I felt myself struggling against such a +weight of ignorance, of bad habits, of unfavourable surroundings. How was +I ever to get free and to reverse that judgment of Mr. Kendal's? My very +success stood in my way, How was 'Miss Bretherton' to put herself to +school?" + +'"But now," I said to her warmly, "you have got free; or, rather, you are +on 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 the +Armenian convent. She seemed to be drinking in the dazzling harmonies of +blue and warm brown and pearly light. When she did speak again it was +very slowly, as though she were trying to give words to a number of +complex impressions. + +'"Yes," she said; "it seems to me that I am different; but I can't tell +exactly how or why. I see all sorts of new possibilities, new meanings +everywhere: 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 which +may come to me tell on my art." And then she changed altogether with one +of those delightful swift transformations of hers, and her face rippled +over with laughter. "At present the chief result of the difference, +whatever it may be, seems to be to make me most unmanageable at home. I +am for ever disagreeing with my people, saying I can't do this and I +won't do that. I am getting to enjoy having my own way in the most +abominable 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 my +own--not even French? That I can't read any French book or any French +play?" + +'"Well," I said, half laughing too, "it is very astonishing. And you know +it can't go on if you are to do what I think you will do. French you +positively must learn, and learn quickly. I don't mean to say that we +haven't good plays and a tradition of our own; but for the moment France +is 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 who +come. Ours is still floating and amateurish--" + +'And so on. You may imagine it, my dear Eustace; I spare you any more of +it verbatim. After I had talked away for a long time and brought it all +back to the absolute necessity that she should know French and become +acquainted with French acting and French dramatic ideals, she pulled me +up in the full career of eloquence, by demanding with a little practical +air, 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 neglected +education; "get a French maid, a French master, and a novel: I will +provide you with _Consuelo_ and a translation to-morrow." + +'"As for the French maid," she answered dubiously, shaking her head, "I +don't know. I expect my old black woman that I brought with me from +Jamaica would ill-treat her--perhaps murder her. But the master can be +managed and the novel. Will none of you laugh at me if you see me +trailing a French grammar about?" + +'And so she has actually begun to-day. She makes a pretence of keeping +her novel and a little dictionary and grammar in a bag, and hides them +when any one appears. But Paul has already begun to tease her about her +new and mysterious occupation, and I foresee that he will presently spend +the greater part of his mornings in teaching her. I never saw anybody +attract him so much; she is absolutely different from anything he has +seen before; and, as he says, the mixture of ignorance and genius in +her--yes, genius; don't be startled!--is most stimulating to the +imagination.' + + * * * * * + +'_August_ 22. + +'During the last few days I have not been seeing so much of Miss +Bretherton as before. She has been devoting herself to her family, and +Paul and I have been doing our pictures. We cannot persuade her to take +any very large dose of galleries; it seems to me that her thoughts are +set on one subject--and one subject only--and while she is in this first +stage of intensity, it is not likely that anything else will have a +chance. + +'It is amusing to study the dissatisfaction of the uncle and aunt with +the turn things have taken since they left London. Mr. Worrall has been +evidently accustomed to direct his niece's life from top to bottom--to +choose her plays for her, helped by Mr. Robinson; to advise her as to her +fellow-actors, and her behaviour in society; and all, of course, with a +shrewd eye to the family profit, and as little regard as need be to any +fantastical 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 which +had been nearly decided on before they left London--a flimsy spectacular +performance quite unworthy of her. As soon as possible she will make +important changes in the troupe who are to be with her, and at the +beginning of September she is coming to stay three weeks with us in +Paris, and, in all probability (though the world is to know nothing of +it), Perrault of the Conservatoire, who is a great friend of ours, will +give her a good deal of positive teaching. This last arrangement is +particularly exasperating to Mr. Worrall. He regards it as sure to be +known, a ridiculous confession of weakness on Isabel's part, and so on. +However, in spite of his wrath and the aunt's sullen or tearful +disapproval, 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 experiences +which remain with one as a sort of perpetual witness to the poetry which +life holds in it, and may yield up to one at any moment. It was in our +little garden; the moon was high above the houses opposite, and the +narrow canal running past our side railing into the Grand Canal was a +shining streak of silver. The air was balmy and absolutely still; no more +perfect 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 read +Romeo and the Nurse in the scenes she had chosen, while in the background +were the Worralls and Lucy Bretherton (the little crippled sister), Mr. +Wallace, and myself. She did the balcony scene, the morning scene with +Romeo, the scene with the nurse after Tybalt's death, and the scene of +the philtre. There is an old sundial in the garden, which caught the +moonbeams. She leaned her arms upon it, her eyes fixed upon the throbbing +moonlit sky, her white brocaded dress glistening here and there in the +pale light--a vision of perfect beauty. And when she began her sighing +appeal-- + +"O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" + +--it seemed to me as if the night--the passionate Italian night--had +found its voice--the only voice which fitted it. + +'Afterwards I tried as much as possible to shake off the impressions +peculiar to the scene itself to think of her under the ordinary +conditions of the stage, to judge her purely as an actress. In the love +scenes there seemed hardly anything to find fault with. I thought I could +trace in many places the influence of her constant dramatic talks and +exercises with Paul. The flow of passion was continuous and electric, but +marked by all the simpleness, all the sweetness, all the young winsome +extravagance which belong to Juliet. The great scene with the Nurse had +many fine things in it; she has evidently worked hard at it line by line, +and that speech of Juliet's, with its extraordinary dramatic +capabilities-- + +"Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?"-- + +was given with admirable variety and suppleness of intonation. The dreary +sweetness of her + +"_Banished!_ that one word _banished!_" + +still lives with me, and her gestures as she paced restlessly along the +little strip of moonlit path. The speech before she takes the potion was +the least satisfactory of all; the ghastliness and horror of it are +beyond her resources as yet; she could not infuse them with that terrible +beauty which Desforets would have given to every line. But where is the +English 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 came +forward listlessly, her beautiful head drooping, and approached Paul like +a 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 was +admirable. You must have worked very hard!" + +'"So I have," she said, brightening at the warmth of his praise. "But +Diderot is wrong, wrong, wrong! When I could once reach the feeling of +the Tybalt speech, when I could once _hate_ him for killing Tybalt in the +same breath in which I _loved_ him for being Romeo, all was easy; gesture +and movement came to me; I learnt them, and the thing was done." + +'The reference, of course, meant that Paul had been reading to her his +favourite _Paradoxe sur le Comedien_, and that she had been stimulated, +but not converted, by the famous contention that the actor should be the +mere "cold and tranquil spectator," the imitator of other men's feelings, +while possessing none of his own. He naturally would have argued, but I +would not have it, and made her rest. She was quite worn out with the +effort, and I do not like this excessive fatigue of hers. I often wonder +whether the life she is leading is not too exciting for her. This is +supposed to be her holiday, and she is really going through more +brain-waste than she has ever done in her life before! Paul is throwing +his 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 a +girl of twenty-one, with everything to learn, and as easily excited as he +is capable of exciting her. I really must keep him in check. + +'Mr. Wallace, when we had sent her home across the canal--their apartment +is on the other side, farther up towards the railway station--could not +say enough to me of his amazement at the change in her. + +'"What have you done to her?" he asked. "I can hardly recognise the old +Miss Bretherton at all. Is it really not yet four months since your +brother and I went to see her in the _White Lady_? Why, you have +bewitched her!" + +'"We have done something, I admit," I said; "but the power you see +developed in her now was roused in her when months ago she first came in +contact with the new world and the new ideal which you and Eustace +represented to her." + +'There, my dear Eustace, have I given you your due? Oh, Miss Bretherton +says so many kind things about you! I'll take especial pains to tell you +some 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, will +interest you as much as they did me. I told Madame de Chateauvieux that I +should write to you to-night, and my letter, she says, must do in place +of one from her for a day or two. We have been to Torcello to-day--your +sister, M. de Chateauvieux, Miss Bretherton, and I. The expedition itself +was delightful, but that I have no time to describe. I only want to tell +you what happened when we got to Torcello. + +'But first, you will, of course, know from your sister's letters--she +tells me she writes to you twice a week--how absorbed we have all been in +the artistic progress of Miss Bretherton. I myself never saw such a +change, such an extraordinary development in any one. How was it that you +and I did not see farther into her? I see now, as I look back upon her +old self, that the new self was there in germ. But I think perhaps it may +have been the vast disproportion of her celebrity to her performance that +blinded us to the promise in her; it was irritation with the public that +made us deliver an over-hasty verdict on her. + +'However that may be, I have been making up my mind for some days past +that the embassy on behalf of _Elvira_, which I thrust upon you, and +which you so generously undertook, was a blunder on my part which it +would be delightful to repair, and which no artistic considerations +whatever need prevent me from repairing. You cannot think how divine she +was in Juliet the other night. Imperfect and harsh, of course, here +and there, but still a creature to build many and great hopes upon, if +ever there was one. She is shaking off trick after trick; your +brother-in-law is merciless to them whenever they appear, and she is for +ever working with a view to his approval, and also, I think, from two +or three things she has said, with a memory of that distant standard of +criticism which she believes to be embodied in you! + +'M. de Chateauvieux has devoted himself to her; it is a pretty sight to +see them together. Your sister and she, too, are inseparable, and Madame +de Chateauvieux's quiet, equable refinement makes a good contrast to +Miss Bretherton's mobility. She will never lose the imprint of her +friendship with these two people; it was a happy thought which led you to +bring them together. + +'Well, we went to Torcello, and I watched for an opportunity of getting +her alone. At last Madame de Chateauvieux gave me one; she carried off +her husband, Ruskin in hand, to study the mosaics, and Miss Bretherton +and I were left sitting under the outer wall of San Fosca till they +should come back. We had been talking of a hundred things--not of acting +at 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 who +pestered us for coppers--and then suddenly, I asked her whether she would +answer me a personal question: Was there any grudge in her mind towards +me for anything I had said and done in London, or caused others to say +and do for me? + +'She was much startled, and coloured a good deal, but she said very +steadily: "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 I +might really see her expression, "if you bear me no grudge, if you feel +kindly 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 to +find 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 on +the point of tears, but suddenly the nervousness of each of us seemed to +strike the other, and we both laughed--she long and helplessly, as if she +could not help herself. + +'Presently she looked up, with her great eyes swimming in tears, and +tried to impress on me that I was speaking hastily, that I had an ideal +for that play she could never promise to reach, that it was my friendship +for her that made me change my mind, that there might be practical +difficulties now that so many arrangements had been made, and so on. But +I would not listen to her. I had it all ready; I had an actor to propose +to her for Macias, and even the costumes in my mind, ready to sketch for +her, if need were. Forbes, I suggested, might and would direct the +setting of the piece; no one could do it with more perfect knowledge +or a more exquisite taste; and for her, as we both knew, he would turn +scene-painter, if necessary. And so I rambled on, soothing her shaken +feeling and my own until she had let me beguile her out of her attitude +of 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 out +of her, and all the way home she was very silent. I, of course, got +anxious, and began to think that my blunder had been irreparable; but, at +any rate, I was determined not to let the thing linger on. So that, when +the Chateauvieux asked me to stay and sup with them and her, I supped, +and afterwards in the garden boldly brought it out before them all, and +appealed to your sister for help. I knew that both she and her husband +were acquainted with what had happened at Oxford, and I supposed that +Miss Bretherton would know that they were, so that it was awkward enough. +Only that women, when they please, have such tact, such an art of +smoothing over and ignoring the rough places of life, that one often with +them gets through a difficult thing without realising how difficult it +is. M. de Chateauvieux smoked a long time and said nothing, then he asked +me a great many questions about the play, and finally gave no opinion. I +was almost in despair--she said so little--until, just as I was going +away with _Elvira's_ fate still quite unsettled, she said to me with a +smile and a warm pressure of the hand, "To-morrow come and see me, and I +will 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 20th +November, in this year of grace, and Isabel Bretherton will play the +heroine, and your friend is already plunged in business, and aglow with +hope and expectation. How I wish--how we all wish--that you were here! I +feel more and more penitent towards you. It was you who gave the impulse +of 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 readily +in spirit. "Tell Mr. Kendal," were almost her last words to me, "that I +cannot say how much I owe to his influence and his friendship. He first +opened my eyes to so many things. He was so kind to me, even when he +thought 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. She +meant 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 off +homewards, look up Forbes and begin operations. She will be in town in +about three weeks from now--as you know she is going to stay first with +your sister in Paris--and then we shall have hard work till about the +middle of November, when I suppose the play will be produced. This will +be more than a fortnight later than she intended to open, and Mr. Worrall +will probably be furious over the delay, but she has developed a will of +her own lately. + +'_Au revoir_ then. You must have had a peaceful summer with your books +and your heather. I wish I had anything like the same digestion for work +that you have; I never saw a man get as much pleasure out of his books as +you 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 she +will be in that last act!--Where were my eyes last spring?--I wish there +were a chance of her seeing much that is interesting in Paris. However, +flat as September generally is, she will get some Moliere at the +_Francais_, and your sister will take care that she sees the right +people. Perrault, I hear, is to give her lessons--under the rose. Happy +man!' + + * * * * * + +Kendal read this letter on a glowing August morning as he walked homeward +along the side of the pond, where the shade of the fir-trees was a +welcome protection against the rising heat, and the air was fragrant with +the scent of the ling, which was just out in all its first faint flush of +beauty. He threw himself down among it after he had finished the sheets, +and stared for long at the sunlit motionless water, his hat drawn forward +over his brows. So this was the outcome of it all. Isabel Bretherton was +about to become a great actress,--Undine had found her soul! + +It seemed to him, as he lay there buried in the ling, that during the +past three weeks he had lived through a whole drama of feeling--a drama +which had its beginning, its complications, its climax. While it had been +going on he had been only half-conscious of its bearings, half-conscious +of himself. Wallace's letter had made him sensible of the situation, as +it concerned himself, with a decisive sharpness and completeness. There +was no possibility of any further self-delusion: the last defences were +overcome, the last veil between himself and the pursuing force which had +overtaken him had fallen, and Kendal, with a shiver of pain, found +himself looking straight into the wide, hungry eyes of Love! Oh, was this +love,--this sore desire, this dumb craving, this restlessness of the +whole being? + +The bees hummed among the heather, every now and then a little +brown-streaked lizard rustled faintly beside him, a pair of kingfishers +flashed across the pond. But he saw and heard nothing, responsive as +every sense in him commonly was to the details of the wild life about +him. His own miserable reverie absorbed him. What was it that had made +the charm of those early weeks in July immediately after his parting with +her? What was it which had added zest to his work, and enchantment to the +summer beauty of the country, and, like a hidden harmony dimly resonant +within him, had kept life tuneful and delightful? He could put words to +it now. It had been nothing less than a settled foresight, a deep +conviction, of _Isabel Bretherton's failure_! What a treachery! But +yes,--the vision perpetually before his eyes had been the vision of a +dying fame, a waning celebrity, a forsaken and discrowned beauty! And +from that abandonment and that failure he had dimly foreseen the rise +and upspringing of new and indescribable joy. He had seen her, conscious +of defeat and of the inexorable limits of her own personality, turning +to the man who had read her truly and yet had loved her, surely, from +the very beginning, and finding in his love a fresh glory and an +all-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 sharp +distinctness,--now that every perception was intensified by pain and +longing. + +Then, as he went over the past, he saw how this consciousness had been +gradually invaded and broken up by his sister's letters. He remembered +the incredulous impatience with which he had read the earlier ones. So, +Marie thought him mistaken! 'Isabel Bretherton would be an actress +yet'--'she had genius, after all'--'she was learning, growing, developing +every day.' Absurd! _He_, had been able to keep his critical estimate of +the actress and his personal admiration of the woman separate from one +another. But evidently Marie's head had been confused, misled, by her +heart. And then, little by little, his incredulity had yielded, and his +point of view had changed. Instead of impatience of Marie's laxity of +judgment, what he had been fiercely conscious of for days was jealousy of +Paul de Chateauvieux--jealousy of his opportunities, his influence, his +relation towards that keen sweet nature. That, too, had been one of his +dreams of the future,--the dream of tutoring and training her young +unformed intelligence. He had done something towards it; he had, as it +were, touched the spring which had set free all this new and unexpected +store of power. But, if he had planted, others had watered, and others +would reap. In this great crisis of her fortunes he had been nothing to +her. Other voices and other hands had guided and directed her. Her +kindly, grateful messages only stung and tortured him. They seemed to him +the merest friendly commonplace. In reality her life had passed out of +his ken; her nature had flowered into a new perfection, and he had not +been there to see or to help. She would never connect him with the +incidents or the influences which had transformed existence to her, and +would probably irrevocably change the whole outline of her future. Once +he had wounded and startled her, and had despaired for awhile of undoing +the impression made upon her. But now he felt no quick anxiety, no fear +how things might turn, only a settled flat consciousness of division, of +a life that had once been near to his swept away from him for ever, of +diverging roads which no kindly fate would ever join again. + +For, by the end of this time of solitary waiting, his change of attitude +was 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 so +vivid, as this new and strange foreboding of her true success. Marie must +be right. He had been a mere blind hair-splitting pedant, judging Isabel +Bretherton by principles and standards which left out of count the inborn +energy, the natural power of growth, of such a personality as hers. And +the more he had once doubted the more he now believed. Yes, she would be +great--she would make her way into that city of the mind, in which he +himself had made his dwelling-place; she, too, would enter upon the +world's vast inheritance of knowledge. She would become, if only her +physical frame proved equal to the demands upon it, one of that little +band of interpreters, of ministers of the idea, by whom the intellectual +life of a society is fed and quickened. Was he so lost in his own selfish +covetous need as not to rejoice? + +Oh, but she was a woman, she was beautiful, and he loved her! Do what he +would, all ideal and impersonal considerations fell utterly away from +him. Day by day he knew more of his own heart; day by day the philosopher +grew weaker in him, and the man's claim fiercer. Before him perpetually +were two figures of a most human and practical reality. He saw a great +actress, absorbed in the excitement of the most stimulating of lives, her +power ripening from year to year, her fame growing and widening with +time; and beside this brilliant vision he saw himself, the quiet man of +letters, with the enthusiasms of youth behind him, the calm of middle-age +before him. What possible link could there be between them? + +At last Wallace's letter cleared still further the issues of the +conflict; or rather, it led to Kendal's making a fatalist compact with +himself. He was weary of the struggle, and it seemed to him that he must +somehow or other escape from the grip in which his life was held. He must +somehow deaden this sense, this bitter sense of loss, if it were only by +postponing the last renunciation. He would go back to his work and force +himself not to hate it. It was his only refuge, and he must cling to it +for dear life. And he would not see her again till the night of the first +performance of _Elvira_. She would be in London in a month's time, but he +would take care to be out of reach. He would not meet those glorious eyes +or 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 of +peace, and he went back to his papers and his books like a man who has +escaped from the grasp of some deadly physical ill into a period of +comparative ease and relief. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +It was a rainy November night. A soft continuous downpour was soaking the +London streets, without, however, affecting their animation or the +nocturnal brightness of the capital, for the brilliance of the gas-lamps +was flashed back from innumerable patches of water, and every ray of +light seemed to be broken by the rain into a hundred shimmering +reflections. It was the hour when all the society of which an autumnal +London can boast is in the streets, hurrying to its dinner or its +amusements, and when the stream of diners-out, flowing through the +different channels of the west, is met in all the great thoroughfares by +the stream of theatre-goers setting eastward. + +The western end of D---- Street was especially crowded, and so was the +entrance to a certain narrow street leading northwards from it, in which +stood the new bare buildings of the _Calliope_. Outside the theatre +itself there was a dense mass of carriages and human beings, only kept in +order by the active vigilance of the police, and wavering to and fro with +kaleidoscopic 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 sterner +ordeal of the struggling well-dressed crowd within, surging up the double +staircase of the newly-decorated theatre. The air inside was full of the +hum 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 into +the theatre. Everybody seemed to know everybody else; there were +politicians, and artists, and writers of books, known and unknown; there +were fair women and wise women and great ladies; and there was that large +substratum of faithful, but comparatively nameless, persons on whom a +successful manager learns to depend with some confidence on any first +night of importance. + +And this was a first night of exceptional interest. So keen, indeed, had +been the competition for tickets that many of those present had as vague +and confused an idea of how they came to be among the favoured multitude +pouring into the _Calliope_ as a man in a street panic has of the devices +by which he has struggled past the barrier which has overthrown his +neighbour. Miss Bretherton's first appearance in _Elvira_ had been the +subject of conversation for weeks past among a far larger number of +London circles than generally concern themselves with theatrical affairs. +Among those which might be said to be within a certain literary and +artistic circumference, people were able to give definite grounds for the +public interest. The play, it was said, was an unusually good one, and +the progress of the rehearsals had let loose a flood of rumours to the +effect that Miss Bretherton's acting in it would be a great surprise to +the public. Further, from the intellectual centre of things, it was only +known 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 social +decalogue laid it down as necessary that you should, first of all, see +her 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 sat +three people who had arrived early, and had for some time employed +themselves in making a study of the incoming stream through their +opera-glasses. They were Eustace Kendal, his sister, Madame de +Chateauvieux, and her husband. The Chateauvieux had travelled over +from Paris expressly for the occasion, and Madame de Chateauvieux, her +gray-blue eyes sparkling with expectation and all her small delicate +features alive with interest and animation, was watching for the rising +of the heavy velvet curtain with an eagerness which brought down upon her +the occasional mockery of her husband, who was in reality, however, +little less excited than herself. It was but three weeks since they had +parted with Isabel Bretherton in Paris, and they were feeling on this +first night something of the anxiety and responsibility which parents +feel when they launch a child upon whom they have expended their best +efforts into a critical world. + +As for Eustace, he also had but that afternoon arrived in London. He had +been paying a long duty-visit to some aged relatives in the North, and +had so lengthened it out, in accordance with the whim which had taken +possession of him in Surrey, that he had missed all the preparations for +_Elvira_, and had arrived upon the scene only at the moment when the +final _coup_ was to be delivered. Miss Bretherton had herself sent him a +warm note of invitation, containing an order for the first night and an +appeal to him to come and 'judge me as kindly as truth will let you.' And +he had answered her that, whatever happened, he would be in his place in +the _Calliope_ on the night of the 20th of November. + +And now here he was, wearing outwardly precisely the same aspect of +interested expectation as those around him, and all the time conscious +inwardly that to him alone, of all the human beings in that vast theatre, +the experience of the evening would be so vitally and desperately +important, that life on the other side of it would bear the mark of it +for ever. It was a burden to him that his sister suspected nothing of his +state of feeling; it would have consoled him that she should know it, but +it seemed to him impossible to tell her. + +'There are the Stuarts,' he said, bending down to her as the orchestra +struck up, 'in the box to the left. Forbes, I suppose, will join them +when 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 she +refuse 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 could +not be got over. I believe her associations with the play were so painful +that it would have seemed an evil omen to her to begin a new season with +it.' + +'Was she wise, I wonder?' + +'I think she did well to follow her fancy in the matter, and she herself +has had plenty of time. She was working at it all the weeks she was with +us, and young Harting, too, I think had notice enough. Some of the +smaller parts may go roughly to-night, but they will soon fall into +shape.' + +'Poor Wallace!' said Kendal; 'he must be wishing it well over. I never +saw a house better stocked with critics.' + +'Here he is,' cried Madame de Chateauvieux, betraying her suppressed +excitement 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 misery +so far as his face, which Nature had moulded in one of her cheerfullest +moods, was capable of it. + +'My dear Madame de Chateauvieux, I have no more notion than the man in +the moon. Miss Bretherton is an angel, and without Forbes we should have +collapsed a hundred times already, and that's about all I know. As for +the 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 goes +the hell; now for it.' + +The sketch for the play of _Elvira_ had been found among the papers of a +young penniless Italian who had died, almost of starvation, in his Roman +garret, during those teeming years after 1830, when poets grew on every +hedge and the romantic passion was abroad. The sketch had appeared in a +little privately-printed volume which Edward Wallace had picked up by +chance 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 the +sketch into a play. But, in developing it, he had carefully preserved the +character of the original conception. It was a conception strictly of the +Romantic time, and the execution of it presented very little of that +variety of tone which modern audiences have learnt to expect. The play +told one rapid breathless story of love, jealousy, despair, and death, +and it told it directly and uninterruptedly, without any lighter +interludes. Author and adapter alike had trusted entirely to the tragic +force 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 the +school of Victor Hugo. It was, indeed, rather a dramatic love-poem than a +play, in the modern sense, and it depended altogether for its success +upon the two characters of Macias and Elvira. + +In devising the character of Macias the Italian author had made use of a +traditional Spanish type, which has its historical sources, and has +inspired many a Spanish poet from the fifteenth century downwards. Macias +is knight, poet, and lover; his love is a kind of southern madness which +withers every other feeling in its neighbourhood, and his tragic death is +the only natural ending to a career so fierce and uncontrolled. Elvira, +with whom Macias is in love, the daughter of Nuno Fernandez, is embodied +gentleness and virtue, until the fierce progress of her fate has taught +her that men are treacherous and the world cruel. For her love had been +prosperous and smooth until, by a series of events, it had been brought +into antagonism with two opposing interests--those of her father and of a +certain Fernan Perez, the tool and favourite of the powerful Duke of +Villena. The ambition and selfish passion of these two men are enlisted +against her. Perez is determined to marry her; her father is determined +to sweep Macias out of the path of his own political advancement. The +intrigue devised between the two is perfectly successful. Macias is +enticed away; Elvira, forced to believe that she is deserted and +betrayed, is half driven, half entrapped, into a marriage with Perez; and +Macias, returning to claim her against a hundred obstacles, meets the +wedding party on their way back to the palace of the Duke. The rest of +the play represented, of course, the struggle between the contending +forces thus developed. In plan and mechanism the story was one of a +common romantic type, neither better nor worse than hundreds of others of +which the literary archives of the first half of the present century are +full. It required all the aid that fine literary treatment could give it +to 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 in +the Italian sketch with delicacy and a true tragic insight, and Edward +Wallace had brought all the resources of a very evenly-trained and +critical mind to bear upon his task. It could hardly have been foreseen +that he would be attracted by the subject, but once at work upon it he +had worked with enthusiasm. + +The curtain drew up on the great hall of the Villena Palace. Everything +that antiquarian knowledge could do had been brought to bear upon the +surroundings of the scene; the delicate tilework of the walls and floor, +the leather hangings, the tapestries, the carved wood and brass work of a +Spanish palace of the fifteenth century, had been copied with lavish +magnificence; and the crowded expectant house divided its attention and +applause during the first scene between the beauty and elaboration of its +setting and the play of the two tolerable actors who represented Elvira's +father and the rival of Macias, Fernan Perez. + +Fernan Perez, having set the intrigue on foot which is to wreck the love +of Macias and Elvira, had just risen from his seat, when Wallace, who was +watching the stage in a torment of mingled satisfaction and despair, +touched Madame de Chateauvieux's arm. + +'_Now_!' he said. 'That door to the left.' + +Kendal, catching the signal, rose from his seat behind Madame de +Chateauvieux and bent forward. The great door at the end of the palace +had slowly opened, and gliding through it with drooping head and hands +clasped before her came Elvira, followed by her little maid Beatriz. The +storm which greeted her appearance was such as thrilled the pulses of the +oldest _habitue_ in the theatre. Tears came to Madame de Chateauvieux's +eyes, and she looked up at her brother. + +'What a scene! It is overpowering--it is too much for her! I wish they +would let her go on!' + +Kendal made no answer, his soul was in his eyes; he had no senses for any +but one person. _She_ was there, within a few yards of him, in all the +sovereignty of her beauty and her fame, invested with the utmost romance +that circumstances could bestow, and about, if half he heard were true, +to reap a great artistic, no less than a great personal triumph. Had he +felt towards her only as the public felt it would have been an experience +beyond the common run, and as it was--oh, this aching, intolerable sense +of desire, of separation, of irremediable need! Was that her voice? He +had heard that tone of despair in it before--under over-arching woods, +when the June warmth was in the air! That white outstretched hand had +once lain close clasped in his own; those eyes had once looked with a +passionate trouble into his. Ah, it was gone for ever, nothing would ever +recall it--that one quick moment of living contact! In a deeper sense +than met the ear, she was on the stage and he among the audience. To the +end his gray life would play the part of spectator to hers, or else she +would soon have passed beyond his grasp and touch, just as Elvira would +have vanished in a little while from the sight of the great audience +which 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 was +stirring the multitude of human beings around him, and he found himself +gradually mastered by considerations of a different order altogether. Was +this the actress he had watched with such incessant critical revolt six +months before? Was this the half-educated girl, grasping at results +utterly beyond her realisation, whom he remembered? + +It seemed to him impossible that this quick artistic intelligence, this +nervous understanding of the demands made upon her, this faculty in +meeting them, could have been developed by the same Isabel Bretherton +whose earlier image was so distinctly graven on his memory. And yet his +trained eye learned after a while to decipher in a hundred indications +the past history of the change. He saw how she had worked, and where; the +influences which had been brought to bear upon her were all familiar to +him; they had been part of his own training, and they belonged, as he +knew, to the first school of dramatic art in Europe--to the school which +keeps alive from generation to generation the excellence and fame of the +best 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 an +actress without a future, condemned by the inexorable logic of things to +see her fame desert her with the first withering of her beauty. Now she +had, as it were, but started towards her rightful goal, but her feet were +in the great high-road, and Kendal saw before her, if she had but +strength to reach it, the very highest summit of artistic success. + +The end of the first act was reached; Elvira, returning from the +performance of the marriage ceremony in the chapel of the palace, had +emerged hand-in-hand with her husband, and, followed by her wedding +train, upon the great hall. She had caught sight of Macias standing +blanched and tottering under the weight of the incredible news which had +just been given to him by the Duke. She had flung away the hateful hand +which held her, and, with a cry, instinct with the sharp and terrible +despair of youth, she had thrown herself at the feet of her lover. + +When the curtain fell, Edward Wallace could have had few doubts--if he +had ever cherished any--of the success of his play. He himself escaped +behind 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 a +constant murmur of congratulation, which was music in the ears of Madame +de Chateauvieux, and, for the moment, silenced in Kendal his own +throbbing and desolate consciousness. + +'There never was a holiday turned to such good account before,' a +gray-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 Chateauvieux? Last spring +we all felt as though one fairy godmother at least had been left out at +the christening. And now it would seem as though even she had repented of +it, and brought her gift with the rest. Well, well, I always felt there +was something at the bottom in that nature that might blossom yet. Most +people who are younger at the trade than I would not hear of it. It was +commonly agreed that her success would last just as long as the first +freshness of her beauty, and no more. And _now_--the English stage has +laid its hold at last upon a great actress.' + +Madame de Chateauvieux's smiling reply was broken by the reappearance of +Wallace, round whom the buzz of congratulation closed with fresh vigour. + +'How is she?' asked Madame de Chateauvieux, 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. Forbes +in the wings, looking on, is a play in himself!' + +In another minute the hubbub had swept out again, and the house had +settled into silence. + +Macias was the central figure of the second act. In the great scene of +explanation between himself and Elvira, after he had forced his way into +her apartment, his fury of jealous sarcasm, broken by flashes of the old +absolute trust, of the old tender worship, had been finely conceived, and +was well rendered by the promising young actor, whom Wallace had himself +chosen for the part, Elvira, overwhelmed by the scorn and despair of her +lover, and, conscious of the treachery which has separated them, is yet +full of a blind resolve to play the part she has assumed to the bitter +end, to save her own name and her father's from dishonour, and to +interpose the irrevocable barrier of her marriage vow between herself and +Macias. Suddenly they are interrupted by the approach of the Duke and of +Fernan Perez. Elvira throws herself between her husband and her lover, +and, having captured the sword of Macias, hands it to the Duke. Macias is +arrested after a tumultuous scene, and is led away, shaking off Elvira's +efforts to save him with bitter contempt, and breaking loose from her +with the prophecy that in every joy of the future and every incident of +her 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 a +kind of incredulous admiration that Isabel Bretherton never once lost +herself, that every gesture was true, every word struck home. Her +extraordinary 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 his +death an unarmed and defenceless man. Then, when he becomes conscious of +the approach of his rival, the soldier's instinct revives in him; he +calls for his sword; she refuses it, and he makes a threatening step +towards 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 it +in this breast.' + +All the desperate energy of a loving woman driven to bay was in her +attitude as she repelled Macias, whereas in the agony of her last +clinging appeal to him, as his guards lead him off, every trace of her +momentary heroism had died away. Faint and trembling, recoiling from +every harsh word of his as from a blow, she had followed him towards the +door, and in her straining eyes and seeking, outstretched hands as she +watched him disappear, there was a pathos so true, so poignant, that it +laid a spell upon the audience, and the curtain fell amid a breathless +silence, which made the roar that almost instantly followed doubly +noticeable. + +But it was in the third act that she won her highest triumph. The act +opened with a scene between Elvira and her husband, in which she implored +him, with the humility and hopelessness of grief, to allow her to retire +from the world and to hide the beauty which had wrought such ruin from +the light of day. He, in whom jealousy has taken fierce root, refuses +with reproach and insult, and in the full tide of her passionate reaction +against his tyranny, the news is brought her by Beatriz that Fernan, in +his determination to avoid the duel with Macias on the morrow, which the +Duke, in accordance with knightly usage, has been forced to grant, has +devised means for assassinating his rival in prison. Naturally, her whole +soul 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 him +of the fate that threatens him and to persuade him to fly. + +It was, indeed, a dramatic moment when the gloom of Macias's cell was +first broken by the glimmer of the hand-lamp, which revealed to the vast +expectant audience the form of Elvira standing on the threshold, +searching the darkness with her shaded eyes; and in the great love scene +which followed the first sharp impression was steadily deepened word by +word and gesture after gesture by the genius of the actress. Elvira finds +Macias in a mood of calm and even joyful waiting for the morrow. His +honour is satisfied; death and battle are before him, and the proud +Castilian is almost at peace. The vision of Elvira's pale beauty and his +quick intuition of the dangers she has run in forcing her way to him +produce a sudden revulsion of feeling towards her, a flood of passionate +reconciliation; 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 her +efforts in dimming his ecstasy of joy or in awakening him to the +necessity of flight, and at last he even resents her terror for him, her +entreaties 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 awful +pressure of the situation, her love resists his no longer, but rather she +sees in the full expression of her own heart the only chance of +reconciling him to life, and of persuading him to take thought for his +own 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 needs +open all her weak heart to you, if she must needs tell you that she lives +only in your life and dies in your death, her lip will brace itself even +to that pitiful confession! Ah me! these poor cheeks have been so +blanched with weeping, they have no blushes left.' + +To her this supreme avowal is the only means of making him believe her +report of his danger, and turn towards flight; but in him it produces a +joy which banishes all thought of personal risk, and makes separation +from 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 and +to 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 his +prison, it is too late. Fernan and his assassins are at hand, the stairs +are surrounded, and escape is cut off. Again, in these last moments, when +the locked door still holds between them and the death awaiting them, her +mood 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 it +nothing--nothing! Come, the bonds which linked us to it are for ever +broken! Death is at the door; _we are already dead_! Come, and make death +beautiful: tell me you love, love, love me to the end!' + +Then, putting her from him, he goes out to meet his enemies. There is a +clamour outside, and he returns wounded to death, pursued by Fernan and +his men. He falls, and Elvira defends him from her husband with a look +and gesture so terrible that he and the murderers fall back before her as +though she were some ghastly avenging spirit. Then, bending over him, she +snatches the dagger from the grasp of the dying man, saying to him, with +a voice into which Isabel Bretherton threw a wealth of pitiful +tenderness, 'There is but one way left, beloved. Your wife that should +have been, that is, saves herself and you--_so_!' + +And in the dead silence that followed, her last murmur rose upon the air +as the armed men, carrying torches, crowded round her. 'See, Macias, the +torches--how they shine! _Bring more--bring more--and light--our +marriage festival_!' + + * * * * * + +'Eustace! Eustace! there, now they have let her go! Poor child, poor +child! 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't +want to stay, but I must just see her, and so must Paul. Ah, Mr. Wallace +is gone already, but he described to me how to find her. This way!' + +And Madame de Chateauvieux, brushing the tears from her eyes with one +hand, took Kendal's arm with the other, and hurried him along the narrow +passages leading to the door on to the stage, M. de Chateauvieux +following them, his keen French face glistening with a quiet but intense +satisfaction. + +As for Kendal, every sense in him was covetously striving to hold and fix +the experiences of the last half-hour. The white muffled figure standing +in the turret door, the faint lamp light streaming on the bent head and +upraised arm--those tones of self-forgetful passion, drawn straight, as +it were, from the pure heart of love--the splendid energy of that last +defiance of fate and circumstance--the low vibrations of her dying +words--the power of the actress and the personality of the woman,--all +these different impressions were holding wild war within him as he +hastened on, with Marie clinging to his arm. And beyond the little +stage-door the air seemed to be even more heavily charged with +excitement than that of the theatre. For, as Kendal emerged with his +sister, his attention was perforce attracted by the little crowd of +persons already assembled round the figure of Isabel Bretherton, and, as +his eye travelled over them, he realised with a fresh start the full +compass of the change which had taken place. To all the more eminent +persons in that group Miss Bretherton had been six months before an +ignorant and provincial beauty, good enough to create a social craze, and +nothing more. Their presence round her at this moment, their homage, the +emotion visible everywhere, proved that all was different, that she had +passed the barrier which once existed between her and the world which +knows and thinks, and had been drawn within that circle of +individualities which, however undefined, is still the vital circle of +any time or society, for it is the circle which represents, more or less +brilliantly and efficiently, the intellectual life of a generation. + +Only one thing was unchanged--the sweetness and spontaneity of that +rich womanly nature. She gave a little cry as she saw Madame de +Chateauvieux enter. She came running forward, and threw her arms round +the elder woman and kissed her; it was almost the greeting of a daughter +to a mother. And then, still holding Madame de Chateauvieux with one +hand, she held out the other to Paul, asking him how much fault he had to +find, and when she was to take her scolding; and every gesture had a glow +of youth and joy in it, of which the contagion was irresistible. She had +thrown off the white head-dress she had worn during the last act, and her +delicately-tinted head and neck rose from the splendid wedding-gown of +gold-embroidered satin--vision of flowerlike and aerial beauty. + +Fast as the talk flowed about her, Kendal noticed that every one seemed +to be, first of all, conscious of her neighbourhood, of her dress +rustling past, of her voice in all its different shades of gaiety or +quick emotion. + +'Oh, Mr. Kendal,' she said, turning to him again after their first +greeting--was it the magnetism of his gaze which had recalled hers?--'if +you only knew what your sister has been to me! How much I owe to her and +to you! It was kind of you to come to-night. I should have been so +disappointed 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 rash +and 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, were +so hard to meet! + +'You have played Elvira,' he said, 'as I never thought it would be played +by anybody; and I was blind from first to last. I hoped you had forgotten +that piece of pedantry on my part.' + +'One does not forget the turning-points of one's life,' she answered with +a 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 him +impossible that his self-restraint should hold much longer. Those +wonderful eyes of hers were full upon him; there was emotion in +them,--evidently the Nuneham scene was in her mind, as it was in +his,--and a great friendliness, even gratitude, seemed to look out +through them. But it was as though his doom were written in the very +candour and openness of her gaze, and he rushed desperately into speech +again, hardly knowing what he was saying. + +'It gives me half pain, half pleasure, that you should speak of it so. I +have never ceased to hate myself for that day. But you have travelled far +indeed since the _White Lady_--I never knew any one do so much in so +short a time!' + +She smiled--did her lip quiver? Evidently his praise was very pleasant to +her, and there must have been something strange and stirring to her +feeling in the intensity and intimacy of his tone. Her bright look caught +his again, and he believed for one wild moment that the eyelids sank and +fluttered. He lost all consciousness of the crowd; his whole soul seemed +concentrated on that one instant. Surely she must feel it, or love is +indeed impotent! + +But no,--it was all a delusion! she moved away from him, and the +estranging present rushed in again between them. + +'It has been M. de Chateauvieux's doing, almost all of it,' she said +eagerly, with a change of voice, 'and your sister's. Will you come and +see me some time and talk about some of the Paris people? Oh, I am +wanted! But first you must be introduced to Macias. Wasn't he good? It +was such an excellent choice of Mr. Wallace's. There he is,-and there is +his wife, that pretty little dark woman.' + +Kendal followed her mechanically, and presently found himself talking +nothings to Mr. Harting, who, gorgeous in his Spanish dress, was +receiving the congratulations which poured in upon him with a pleasant +mixture of good manners and natural elation. A little farther on he +stumbled upon Forbes and the Stuarts, Mrs. Stuart as sparkling and fresh +as ever, a suggestive contrast in her American crispness and prettiness +to the high-bred distinction of Madame de Chateauvieux, who was standing +near her. + +'Well, my dear fellow,' said Forbes, catching hold of him, 'how is that +critical demon of yours? Is he scotched yet?' + +'He is almost at his last gasp,' said Kendal, with a ghostly smile, and a +reckless impulse to talk which seemed to him his salvation. 'He was never +as vicious a creature as you thought him, and Miss Bretherton has had no +difficulty in slaying him. But that hall was a masterpiece, Forbes! How +have your pictures got on with all this?' + +'I haven't touched a brush since I came back from Switzerland, except to +make 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 and +I would have our way, and it's all right--the play will run for twelve +months, if she chooses, easily.' + +Near by were the Worralls, looking a little sulky, as Kendal fancied, in +the midst of this great inrush of the London world, which was sweeping +their niece from them into a position of superiority and independence +they were not at all prepared to see her take up; Nothing, indeed, could +be prettier than her manner to them whenever she came across them, but it +was evident that she was no longer an automaton to be moved at their will +and pleasure, but a woman and an artist, mistress of herself and of her +fate. Kendal fell into conversation on the subject with Mrs. Stuart, who +was as communicative and amusing as usual, and who chattered away to him +till he suddenly saw Miss Bretherton signalling to him with her arm in +that of his sister. + +'Do you know, Mr. Kendal,' she said as he went up to her, 'you must +really take Madame de Chateauvieux away out of this noise and crowd? It +is all very well for her to preach to me. Take her to your rooms and +get her some food. How I wish I could entertain you here; but with this +crowd it is impossible.' + +'Isabel, my dear Isabel,' cried Madame de Chateauvieux, holding her, +'can't you slip away too, and leave Mr. Wallace to do the honours? There +will be nothing left of you to-morrow.' + +'Yes, directly, directly! only I feel as if sleep were a thing that did +not exist for me. But you must certainly go. Take her, Mr. Kendal; +doesn't she look a wreck? I will tell M. de Chateauvieux and send +him 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 and +kindest of friends!' and the brother and sister hurried away, Kendal +dropping the hand which had been cordially stretched out to himself. + +'Do you mind, Eustace?' said Madame de Chateauvieux, as they walked +across the stage. 'I ought to go, and the party ought to break up. But it +is a shame to carry you off from so many friends.' + +'Mind? Why, I have ordered supper for you in my rooms, and it is just +midnight. 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 the +quadrangle under a sky still heavy with storm-clouds, Madame de +Chateauvieux said to her brother with a sigh: 'Well, it has been a great +event. I never remember anything more exciting, or more successful. But +there is one thing, I think, that would make me happier than a hundred +Elviras, and that is to see Isabel Bretherton the wife of a man she +loved!' Then a smile broke over her face as she looked at her +brother. + +'Do you know, Eustace, I quite made up my mind from those first letters +of yours in May, in spite of your denials, that you were very deeply +taken with her? I remember quite seriously discussing the pros and cons +of it with myself.' + +The words were said so lightly, they betrayed so clearly the speaker's +conviction that she had made a foolish mistake, that they stung Kendal to +the quick. How could Marie have known? Had not his letters for the last +three months been misleading enough to deceive the sharpest eyes? And yet +he felt unreasonably that she ought to have known--there was a blind +clamour in him against the bluntness of her sisterly perception. + +His silence was so prolonged that Madame de Chateauvieux was startled by +it. She slipped her hand into his arm. 'Eustace!' Still no answer. 'Have +I said anything to annoy you--Eustace? Won't you let your old sister have +her dreams?' + +But still it seemed impossible for him to speak. He could only lay his +hand over hers with a brotherly clasp. By this time they were at the foot +of the stairs, and he led the way up, Madame de Chateauvieux following in +a tumult of anxious conjecture. When they reached his rooms he put her +carefully into a chair by the fire, made her take some sandwiches, and +set the kettle to boil in his handy bachelor way, that he might make her +some tea, and all the time he talked about various nothings, till at last +Marie, unable to put up with it any longer, caught his hand as he was +bending over the fire. + +'Eustace,' she exclaimed, 'be kind to me, and don't perplex me like +this.--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 into +the fire, the lines of his mobile face settling into repose. + +'Yes,' he said, as though to himself; 'I love her. I believe I have loved +her from the first moment.' + +Madame de Chateauvieux was tremblingly silent, her thoughts travelling +back over the past with lightning rapidity. Could she remember one word, +one look of Isabel Bretherton's, of which her memory might serve to throw +the smallest ray of light on this darkness in which Eustace seemed to be +standing? No, not one. Gratitude, friendship, esteem--all these had been +there abundantly, but nothing else, not one of those many signs by which +one woman betrays her love to another! She rose and put her arm round her +brother's neck. They had been so much to one another for nearly forty +years; he had never wanted anything as a child or youth that she had not +tried to get for him. How strange, how intolerable, that this toy, this +boon, was beyond her getting! + +Her mute sympathy and her deep distress touched him, while, at the same +time, they seemed to quench the last spark of hope in him. Had he counted +upon hearing something from her whenever he should break silence which +would lighten the veil over the future? It must have been so, otherwise +why 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 deal +out of London for the present, and my books are a wonderful help. After +all, life is not all summed up in one desire, however strong. Other +things are real to me--I am thankful to say. I shall live it down.' + +'But why despair so soon?' she cried, rebelling against this heavy +acquiescence of his and her own sense of hopelessness. 'You are a man any +woman might love. Why should she not pass from the mere friendly +intellectual relation to another? Don't go away from London. Stay and see +as much of her as you can.' + +Kendal shook his head. 'I used to dream,' he said huskily, 'of a time +when failure should have come, when she would want some one to step in +and shield her. Sometimes I thought of her protected in my arms against +the world. But now!' + +She felt the truth of his unspoken argument--of all that his tone +implied. In the minds of both the same image gathered shape and +distinctness. Isabel Bretherton in the halo of her great success, in all +the intensity of her new life, seemed to her and to him to stand afar +off, divided by an impassable gulf from this simple, human craving, which +was crying to her, unheard and hopeless, across the darkness. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +A month after the first performance of _Elvira_ Kendal returned to town +on a frosty December afternoon from the Surrey lodgings on which he had +now established a permanent hold. He mounted to his room, found his +letters lying ready for him, and on the top of them a telegram, which, as +his man-servant informed him, had arrived about an hour before. He took +it 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 much +alarmed. Can you come to-night_?' He put it down in stupefaction. Marie +ill! the doctors alarmed! Good heavens! could he catch that evening +train? He looked at his watch, decided that there was time, and plunged, +with his servant's help, into all the necessary preparations. An hour and +a half later he was speeding along through the clear cold moonlight to +Dover, realising for the first time, as he leant back alone in his +compartment, the full meaning of the news which had hurried him off. All +his tender affection for his sister, and all his stifling sense of +something unlucky and untoward in his own life, which had been so strong +in him during the past two months, combined to rouse in him the blackest +fears, the most hopeless despondency. Marie dead,--what would the world +hold for him! Books, thought, ideas--were they enough? Could a man live +by them if all else were gone? For the first time Kendal felt a doubt +which seemed to shake his nature to its depths. + +During the journey his thoughts dwelt in a dull sore way upon the +past. He saw Marie in her childhood, in her youth, in her rich +maturity. He remembered her in the schoolroom spending all her spare +time over contrivances of one kind or another for his amusement. He +had a vision of her going out with their mother on the night of her +first ball, and pitying him for being left behind. He saw her tender +face bending over the death-bed of their father, and through a hundred +incidents and memories--all beautiful, all intertwined with that lovely +self-forgetfulness which was characteristic of her, his mind travelled +down to an evening scarcely a month before, when her affection had once +more stood, a frail warm barrier, between him and the full bitterness of +a great renunciation. Oh Marie, Marie! + +It was still dark when he reached Paris, and the gray winter light was +only just dawning when he stopped at the door of his brother-in-law's +house in one of the new streets near the Champs Elysees. M. de +Chateauvieux was standing on the stairs, his smoothly-shaven, clear-cut +face drawn and haggard, and a stoop in his broad shoulders which Kendal +had never noticed before. Kendal sprang up the steps and wrung his hand. +M. de Chateauvieux shook his head almost with a groan, in answer to the +brother's inquiry of eye and lip, and led the way upstairs into the +forsaken _salon_, which looked as empty and comfortless as though its +mistress had been gone from it years instead of days. Arrived there, the +two men standing opposite to each other in the streak of dull light made +by 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 now +till--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 long +preparation for the worst. 'What is it--how did it happen?' he asked. + +'Internal chill. She was only taken ill the day before yesterday, and the +pain was frightful till yesterday afternoon; then it subsided, and I +thought she was better--she herself was so cheerful and so thankful for +the relief--but when the two doctors came in again, it was to tell me +that the disappearance of the pain meant only the worst--meant that +nothing more can be done--she may go at any moment.' + +There was a silence. M. de Chateauvieux walked up and down with the +noiseless 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 same +painful whisper, 'You must have some food, then I will tell her you are +here.' + +'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 little +anteroom, lifted a curtain, and knocked. The nurse came, there was a +little parley, and Paul went in, while Eustace waited outside, conscious +of the most strangely trivial things, of the passers-by in the street, of +a wrangle between two _gamins_ on the pavement opposite, of the +misplacement of certain volumes in the bookcase beside him, till the +door opened again, and M. de Chateauvieux drew him in. + +He stepped over the threshold, his whole being wrought up to he knew not +what solemn pageant of death and parting, and the reality within startled +him. The room was flooded with morning light, a frosty December sun was +struggling through the fog, the curtains had just been drawn back, and +the wintry radiance rested on the polished brass of the bed, on the +bright surfaces of wood and glass with which the room was full, on the +little tray of tea-things which the nurse held, and on his sister's face +of greeting as she lay back smiling among her pillows. There was such a +cheerful home peace and brightness in the whole scene--in the crackling +wood 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 him +incredible that under all this familiar household detail there should be +lying in wait that last awful experience of death. + +Marie kissed him with grateful affectionate words spoken almost in her +usual voice, and then, as he sat beside her holding her hands, she +noticed that he looked pale and haggard. + +'Has he had some breakfast, Paul? Oh, poor Eustace, after that long +journey! Nurse, let him have my cup, there is some tea left; let me see +you 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, while +she took one hand from him and slipped it into that of her husband as he +sat beside her on the bed. Her touch seemed to have meaning in it, for +Paul rose presently and went to the far end of the large room; the nurse +carried away the tea-things, and the brother and sister were practically +alone. + +'Dear Eustace,' she began, after a few pathetic moments of silence, in +which look and gesture took the place of speech, 'I have so longed to see +you. It seemed to me in that awful pain that I must die before I could +gather my thoughts together once more, before I could get free enough +from 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 always +promised one another that there should never be any concealment between +us when either of us came to die, and I think I shall have a few hours +more with you.' + +She was silent a little; the voice had all its usual intonations, but it +was low and weak, and it was necessary for her from time to time to +gather such strength as might enable her to maintain the calm of her +manner. Eustace, in bewildered misery, had hidden his face upon her +hands, which were clasped in his, and every now and then she felt the +pressure of his lips upon her fingers. + +'There are many things I want to say to you,' she went on. 'I will try to +remember them in order. Will you stay with Paul a few days--after--? will +you always remember to be good to him? I know you will. My poor Paul, oh +if I had but given you a child!' + +The passion of her low cry thrilled Eustace's heart. He looked up and saw +on her face the expression of the hidden yearning of a lifetime. It +struck him as something awful and sacred; he could not answer it except +by look and touch, and presently she went on after another pause: + +'His sister will come to him very likely--his widowed sister. She has a +girl he is fond of. After a while he will take pleasure in her.--Then I +have thought so much of you and of the future. So often last night I +thought I saw you and _her_, and what you ought to do seemed to grow +plain to me. Dear Eustace, don't let anything I say now ever be a burden +to you--don't let it fetter you ever--but it is so strong in me you must +let me say it all. She is not in love with you, Eustace--at least, I +think not. She has never thought of you in that way; but there is +everything 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. She +knows that you are good and true. I want you to try and carry it farther +for her sake and yours.' He looked up and would have spoken, but she put +her soft hand over his mouth. 'Wait one moment. Those about her are not +people to make her happy--at any time if things went wrong--if she broke +down--she would be at their mercy. Then her position--you know what +difficulties it has--it makes my heart ache sometimes to think of it. She +won 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 with +you--in those true hands of yours. Oh, you will try, darling?' He +answered 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 beauty +and her fame? Anybody would be proud to marry her, and she has such a +quick eager nature. + +'There is no one!' said Marie, with deep conviction in the whispered +words. 'Her life has been too exciting--too full of one interest. She +stayed with me; I got to know her to the bottom. She would not have +hidden it. Only say you will make one trial and I should be content.' + +And then her innate respect for another's individuality, her shrinking +from what might prove to be the tyranny of a dying wish interposed, and +she checked herself. 'No, don't promise; I have no right--no one has any +right. I can only tell you my feeling--my deep sense that there is +hope--that there is nothing against you. Men--good men--are so often +over-timid when courage would be best. Be bold, Eustace; respect your +own love; do not be too proud to show it--to offer it!' Her voice died +away into silence, only Eustace still felt the caressing touch of the +thin fingers clasped round his. It seemed to him as if the life still +left in her were one pure flame of love, undimmed by any thought of +self, undisturbed by any breath of pain. Oh, this victory of the spirit +over the flesh, of soul over body, which humanity achieves and renews +from day to day and from age to age, in all those nobler and finer +personalities upon whom the moral life of the world depends! How it burns +its testimony into the heart of the spectator! How it makes him thrill +with the apprehension which lies at the root of all religion--the +apprehension 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 our +leaning upon, and stand the strain of human questioning! It was borne in +upon Eustace, as he sat bowed beside his dying sister, that through this +fragile body and this failing breath the Eternal Mind was speaking, and +that in Marie's love the Eternal Love was taking voice. He said so to her +brokenly, and her sweet eyes smiled back upon him a divine answer of +peace and faith. + +Then she called faintly, 'Paul!' The distant figure came back; and she +laid her head upon her husband's breast, while Eustace was gently drawn +away by the nurse. Presently, he found himself mechanically taking food +and mechanically listening to the low-voiced talk of the kindly +white-capped woman who was attending to him. Every fact, every +impression, was misery,--these details so unexpected, so irrevocable, so +charged with terrible meaning, which the nurse was pouring out upon +him,--that presence in the neighbouring room of which his every nerve was +conscious,--and in front of him, like a frowning barrier shutting off the +view of the future, the advancing horror of death! Yesterday, at the same +time, he had been walking along the sandy Surrey roads, delighting in the +last autumn harmonies of colour, and conscious of the dawn of a period of +rest after a period of conflict, of the growth within him of a temper of +quiet and rational resignation to the conditions of life and of his own +individual lot, over the development of which the mere fact of his +sister's existence had exercised a strong and steadying influence. Life, +he had persuaded himself, was for him more than tolerable, even without +love 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 of +personal relations, one heart was safely his, the sympathy and trust and +tenderness of one human soul would never fail him at his need. And now +this last tender bond was to be broken with a rough, incredible +suddenness. The woman he loved with passion would never be his; for not +even now, fresh from contact with his sister's dying hope, could he raise +himself 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 a +consciousness fell upon him which made him ashamed. In the neighbouring +room his ear was caught now and then by an almost imperceptible, murmur +of voices. What was his loss, his agony, compared to theirs? + +When he softly returned into the room he found Marie lying as though +asleep upon, her husband's arm. It seemed to him that since he had left +her there had been a change. The face was more drawn, the look of +exhaustion more defined. Paul sat beside her, his eyes riveted upon her. +He scarcely seemed to notice his brother-in-law's entrance; it was as +though he were rapidly losing consciousness of every fact but one; and +never had Kendal seen any countenance so grief-stricken, so pinched with +longing. But Marie heard the familiar step. She made a faint movement +with her hand towards him, and he resumed his old place, his head bowed +upon the bed. And so they sat through the morning, hardly moving, +interchanging at long intervals a few words--those sad sacred words which +well from the heart in the supreme moments of existence--words which, in +the case of such natures as Marie de Chateauvieux, represent the intimate +truths and fundamental ideas of the life that has gone before. There was +nothing to hide, nothing to regret. A few kindly messages, a few womanly +commissions, and every now and then a few words to her husband, as simple +as the rest, but pregnant with the deepest thoughts and touching the +vastest problems of humanity,--this was all. Marie was dying as she had +lived--bravely, tenderly, simply. + +Presently they roused her to take some nourishment, which she swallowed +with difficulty. It gave her a momentary strength. Kendal heard himself +called, and looked up. She had opened the hand lying on the bed, and he +saw 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 I +can think of. She has been ill, Eustace: did I tell you? I forget. I +should have gone--but for this. It is too much for her,--that life. It +will break her down. You can save her and cherish her--you will. It seems +as if I saw you--together!' + +Then her eyes fell and she seemed to sleep--gently wandering now and +then, and mentioning in her dying dream names and places which made the +reality before them more and more terrible to the two hushed listeners, +so different were the associations they called up. Was this white +nerveless form, from which mind and breath were gently ebbing away, all +that fate had grudgingly left to them, for a few more agonised moments, +of the brilliant, high-bred woman who had been but yesterday the centre +of an almost European network of friendships and interests! Love, loss, +death,--oh, how unalterable is this essential content of life, embroider +it and adorn it as we may! + +Kendal had been startled by her words about Isabel Bretherton. He had not +heard of any illness; it could hardly be serious, for he vaguely +remembered that in the newspapers he had tried to read on the journey his +eye had caught the familiar advertisement of the _Calliope_. It must have +happened while he was in Surrey. He vaguely speculated about it now and +then as he sat watching through the afternoon. But nothing seemed to +matter very much to him--nothing but Marie and the slow on-coming of +death. + +At last when the wintry light was fading, when the lamps were being lit +outside, and the bustle of the street seemed to penetrate in little +intermittent waves of sound into the deep quiet of the room, Marie +Raised herself and, with a fluttering sigh, withdrew her hand softly from +her brother, and laid her arm round her husband's neck. He stooped to +her--kissed the sweet lips and the face on which the lines of middle age +had hardly settled--caught a wild alarm from her utter silence, called +the nurse and Kendal, and all was over. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +The morning of Marie's funeral was sunny but bitterly cold; it was one of +those days when autumn finally passes into winter, and the last memory of +the summer warmth vanishes from the air. It had been the saddest, +dreariest laying to rest. The widowed sister, of whom Marie had spoken in +her last hours, had been unable to come, and the two men had gone through +it all alone, helped only by the tearful, impulsive sympathy and the +practical energy of the maid who had been with Marie ever since her +marriage, and was as yet hardly capable of realising her mistress's +death. + +It was she who, while they were away, had done her best to throw a little +air of comfort over the forsaken _salon_. She had kindled the fire, +watered the plants, and thrown open the windows to the sunshine, finding +in her toil and movement some little relief from her own heart-ache and +oppression. When Paul came back, and with numb, trembling fingers had +stripped himself of his scarf and his great-coat, he stepped over the +threshold into the _salon_, and it seemed to him as though the sunlight +and the open windows and the crackling blaze of the fire dealt him a +sudden blow. He walked up to the windows, and, shuddering, drew them down +and closed the blinds, Felicie watching him anxiously from the landing +through the half-open door. Then he had thrown himself into a chair; and +Kendal, coming softly upstairs after him, had gently closed the door from +the outside, said a kind word to Felicie, and himself slipped noiselessly +down again and out into the Champs Elysees. There he had paced up and +down for an hour or more under the trees, from which a few frosty leaves +were still hanging in the December air. + +He himself had been so stunned and bewildered by the loss which had +fallen upon him, that, when he found himself alone and out of doors +again, 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 dumb +physical congeniality in the sunshine, in the clear blue and white of the +sky, in the cheerful distinctness and sharpness of every outline. And +then, little by little, the cheated grief reasserted itself, the numbed +senses woke into painful life, and he fell into broken musings on the +past, or into a bitter wonder over the precarious tenure by which men +hold those good things whereon, so long as they are still their own, they +are so quick to rear an edifice of optimist philosophy. A week before, +his sister's affection had been to him the one sufficient screen between +his own consciousness and the desolate threatening immensities of thought +and of existence. The screen had fallen, and the darkness seemed to be +rushing in upon him. And still, life had to be lived, work to be got +through, 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, and +possession after possession swept away, and still find the years +tolerable and the sun pleasant, still cherish in themselves that +inexhaustible faith in an ideal something which supplies from century to +century the invincible motive power of the race? + +Presently--by virtue of long critical and philosophical habit--his mind +brought itself to bear more and more steadily upon his own position; he +stepped back, as it were, from himself and became his own spectator. The +introspective temper was not common with him; his mind was naturally +turned outward--towards other people, towards books, towards intellectual +interests. But self-study had had its charm for him of late, and, amongst +other things, it was now plain to him that up to the moment of his first +meeting with Isabel Bretherton his life had been mostly that of an +onlooker--a bystander. Society, old and new, men and women of the past +and of the present, the speculative achievements of other times and of +his own,--these had constituted a sort of vast drama before his eyes, +which he had watched and studied with an ever-living curiosity. But his +interest in his particular _role_ had been comparatively weak, and in +analysing other individualities he had run some risk of losing his own. + +Then love came by, and the half-dormant personality within him had been +seized upon and roused, little by little, into a glowing, although a +repressed and hidden energy. He had learnt in his own person what it +means to crave, to thirst, to want. And now, grief had followed and had +pinned him more closely than ever to his special little part in the human +spectacle. The old loftiness, the old placidity of mood, were gone. He +had loved, and lost, and despaired. Beside those great experiences how +trivial and evanescent seemed all the interests of the life that went +before them! He looked back over his intercourse with Isabel Bretherton, +and the points upon which it had turned seemed so remote from him, so +insignificant, that for the moment he could hardly realise them. The +artistic and aesthetic questions which had seemed to him so vital six +months before had faded almost out of view in the fierce neighbourhood of +sorrow and passion. His first relation to her had been that of one who +knows to one who is ignorant; but that puny link had dropped, and he was +going to meet her now, fresh from the presence of death, loving her as a +man 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 and +hers! In the early morning after Marie's death, when he woke up from a +few heavy hours of sleep, his mind had been full of her. How was the news +to be broken to her? He himself did not feel that he could leave his +brother-in-law. There was a strong regard and sympathy between them; and +his presence in the house of mourning would undoubtedly be useful to Paul +for a while; besides, there were Marie's words--'Will you stay with him a +few days--after--?'--which were binding on him. He must write, then; but +it was only to be hoped that no newspaper would bring her the news before +his letter could reach. + +However, as the day wore on, Paul came noiselessly out of the quiet room +where the white shrouded form seemed still to spread a tender presence +round 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 a +brotherly 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 motherly +carefulness over the bright creature who had charmed her had passed into +Paul. He was saying what Marie would have said, taking thought as she +would have taken it for one she loved, and it was settled as he wished. + +When his long pacing in the Champs Elysees was over Kendal went back to +find Paul busy with his wife's letters and trinkets, turning them over +With a look of shivering forlornness, as though the thought of the +uncompanioned lifetime to come were already closing upon him like some +deadly chill in the air. Beside him lay two miniature cases open; one of +them was the case which Eustace had received from his sister's hand on +the afternoon before her death, and both of them contained identical +portraits of Marie in her first brilliant womanhood. + +'Do you remember them?' Paul said in his husky Voice, pointing them +out to him. 'They were done when you were at college and she was +twenty-three. Your mother had two taken--one for herself and one for your +old aunt Marion. Your mother left me hers when she died, and your aunt's +copy 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 stood +beside him, mechanically spreading out his hands to the fire. + +'To-morrow, as soon as you are gone, I shall go off to Italy. There are +some little places in the south near Naples that she was very fond of. I +shall stay about there for a while. As soon as I feel I can, I shall come +back to the Senate and my work. It is the only thing left me,--she was so +keen about it.' His voice sank into a whisper, and a long silence fell +upon them. Women in moments of sorrow have the outlet of tears and +caresses; men's great refuge is silence; but the silence may be charged +with 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 make +some necessary preparations for his journey, when Paul detained him, +looking up at him with sunken eyes which seemed to carry in them all the +history of the two nights just past. 'Will you ever ask her what Marie +wished?' The tone was the even and passionless tone of one who for the +moment feels none of the ordinary embarrassments of intercourse; Kendal +met it with the same directness. + +'Some day I shall ask her, or at least I shall let her know; but it will +be no use.' + +Paul shook his head, but whether in protest or agreement Kendal could +hardly tell. Then he went back to his task of sorting the letters, and +let the matter drop. It seemed as if he were scarcely capable of taking +an interest in it for its own sake, but simply as a wish, a charge of +Marie's. + +Kendal parted from him in the evening with an aching heart, and was +haunted for hours by the memory of the desolate figure returning slowly +into the empty house, and by a sharp prevision of all the lonely nights +and the uncomforted morrows which lay before the stricken man. + +But, as Paris receded farther and farther behind him, and the sea drew +nearer, and the shores of the country which held Isabel Bretherton, it +was but natural that even the grip upon him of this terrible and +startling calamity should relax a little, and that he should realise +himself as a man seeking the adored woman, his veins still beating with +the 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 that +loss for ever. But Isabel Bretherton was still among the living, the +warm, the beautiful, and every mile brought him nearer to the electric +joy of her presence. He took a sad strange pleasure in making the +contrast between the one picture and the other as vivid as possible. +Death and silence on the one side--oh, how true and how irreparable! But +on the other, he forced on his imagination till it drew for him an +image of youth and beauty so glowing that it almost charmed the sting out +of his grief. The English paper which he succeeded in getting at Calais +contained the announcement: 'Miss Bretherton has, we are glad to say, +completely recovered from the effects of the fainting fit which so much +alarmed the audience at the _Calliope_ last week. She was able to play +_Elvira_ as usual last night, and was greeted by a large and sympathetic +house.' He read it, and turned the page hastily, as if what the paragraph +suggested was wholly distasteful to him. He refused altogether to think +of her as weak or suffering; he shrank from his own past misgivings, his +own prophecies about her. The world would be a mere dark prison-house if +her bright beauty were over-clouded! She was not made for death, and she +should stand to him as the image of all that escapes and resists and +defies that tyrant of our years, and pain, his instrument and herald. + +He reached London in the midst of a rainy fog. The endless black streets +stretched before him in the dreary December morning like so many roads +into the nether regions; the gas-lamps scattered an unseasonable light +through the rain and fog; it was the quintessence of murky, cheerless +winter. + +He reached his own rooms, and found his man up and waiting for him, and a +meal ready. It was but three days since he had been last there, the open +telegram was still lying on the table. One of his first acts was to put +it hastily out of sight. Over his breakfast he planned his embassy to +Miss Bretherton. The best time to find her alone, he imagined, would be +about mid-day, and in the interval he would put his books and papers to +rights. They lay scattered about--books, proofs, and manuscript. As his +orderly hands went to work upon them, he was conscious that he had never +been so remote from all that they represented. But his nature was +faithful and tenacious, and under the outward sense of detachment there +was an inward promise of return. 'I will come back to you,' seemed to be +the cry of his thought. 'You shall be my only friends. But first I must +see her, and all my heart is hers!' + +The morning dragged away, and at half-past eleven he went out, carrying +the little case with him. As he stood outside the Bayswater house, in +which she had settled for the winter, he realised that he had never yet +been 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_, to +come and see her. But, instead of doing so, he had buried himself in his +Surrey lodging, striving to bring the sober and austere influences of the +country to bear upon the feverish indecision of his mood. Perhaps his +disappearance and silence had wounded her; after all, he knew that he +had some place in her thoughts. + +The servant who opened the door demurred to his request to see Miss +Bretherton. 'The doctor says, sir, that at home she must keep quiet; she +has not seen any visitors just lately.' But Kendal persisted, and his +card was taken in, while he waited the result. The servant hurried along +the ground-floor passage, knocked at the door at the farther end, went in +for a moment, and came out beckoning to him. He obeyed with a beating +heart, and she threw open the door for him. + +Inside stood Isabel Bretherton, with eager surprise and pleasure in her +whole attitude. She had just risen from her chair, and was coming +forward; a soft white cashmere shawl hung around her; her dress, of some +dark rich stuff, fell with the flowing, stately lines peculiar to it; her +face was slightly flushed, and the brilliancy of her colour, of her hair, +of her white, outstretched hand, seemed to Kendal to take all the chill +and gloom out of the winter air. She held some proof sheets of a new play +in her hand, and the rest lay piled beside her on a little table. + +'How kind of you, Mr. Kendal,' she said, advancing with her quick +impulsive step towards him. 'I thought you had forgotten us, and I have +been wanting your advice so badly! I have just been complaining of you a +little in a letter to Madame de Chateauvieux! She--' + +Then she suddenly stopped, checked and startled by his face. He was +always colourless and thin, but the two nights he had just passed through +had given him an expression of haggard exhaustion. His black eyes seemed +to have lost the keenness which was so remarkable in them, and his +prematurely gray hair gave him almost a look of age in spite of the +lightness 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 seeking +anxiously word by word how he might soften what, after all, could not be +softened. 'M. de Chateauvieux sent me to you at once, that you should +not hear in any other way. But it must be a shock to you--for you loved +her!' + +'Oh!' she cried, interrupting him, speaking in short, gasping words, and +answering not so much his words as his look. 'She is ill--she is in +danger--something has happened?' + +'I was summoned on Wednesday,' said Kendal, helpless after all in the +grip of the truth which would not be managed or controlled. 'When I got +there she had been two days ill, and there was no hope.' + +He paused; her eyes of agonised questioning implored him to go on. 'I was +with 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 from +cheek and lip; when he stopped, she gave a little cry. He let go her +hand, and she sank into a chair near, so white and breathless that he was +alarmed. + +'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, waiting +anxiously. She struggled against the physical oppression which had seized +upon her, and fought it down bravely. But he noticed with a pang now that +the flush was gone, that she looked fragile and worn, and, as his thought +went back for a moment to the Surrey Sunday and her young rounded beauty +among the spring green, he could have cried out in useless rebellion +against the unyielding physical conditions which press upon and imprison +the flame of life. + +At last the faintness passed off, and she sat up, her hands clasped round +her knees, and the tears running fast over her cheeks. Her grief was like +herself--frank, simple, expressive. + +'Will you tell me more about it? Oh, I cannot believe it! Why, only last +week when I was ill she talked of coming to me! I have just been writing +to her--there is my letter. I feel as if I could not bear it; she was +like 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, much +moved. And he went on to tell her the story of Marie's dying hours, +describing that gentle withdrawal from life with a manly tenderness of +feeling and a quick memory for all that could soften the impression of it +to the listener. And then he brought out the miniature and gave it to +her, and she accepted it with a fresh burst of sorrow, putting it to her +lips, studying it and weeping over it, with an absolute spontaneity and +self-abandonment which was lovely because it was so true. + +'Oh, poor M. de Chateauvieux!' she cried after a long pause, looking up +to 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 learn +to bear it.' + +She gazed at him with quick startled sympathy, and all her womanly nature +seemed to rise into her upturned face and yearning eyes. It was as though +her attention had been specially recalled to him; as though his +particular loss and sorrow were brusquely brought home to her. And then +she was struck by the strangeness and unexpectedness of such a meeting +between them. He had been to her a judge, an authority, an embodied +standard. His high-mindedness had won her confidence; his affection for +his sister had touched and charmed her. But she had never been conscious +of any intimacy with him. Still less had she ever dreamt of sharing a +common grief with him, of weeping at his side. And the contrast between +her old relation with him and this new solemn experience, rushing in upon +her, filled her with emotion. The memory of the Nuneham day woke again in +her--of the shock between her nature and his, of her overwhelming sense +of the intellectual difference between them, and then of the thrill which +his verdict upon _Elvira_ had stirred in her. The relation which she had +regarded as a mere intellectual and friendly one, but which had been far +more real and important to her than even she herself had ever guessed, +seemed to have transformed itself since he had entered the room into +something close and personal. His last words had called up in her a sharp +impression of the man's inmost nature as it was, beneath the polished +scholarly surface. They had appealed to her on the simplest, commonest, +human ground; she felt them impulsively as a call from him to her, and +her own heart overflowed. + +She rose, and went near to him, bending towards him like a spirit of +healing, her whole soul in her eyes 'Oh, I am so sorry for you!' she +exclaimed, and again the quick tears dropped. 'I know it is no common +loss to you. You were so much more to each other than brother and sister +often are. It is terrible for you.' + +His whole man was stirred by her pity, by the eager expansiveness of her +sympathy. + +'Say it again!' he murmured, as their eyes met; 'say it again. It is so +sweet--from you!' + +There was a long pause; she stood as if fascinated, her hands falling +slowly beside her. Her gaze wavered till the eyelids fell, and she stood +absolutely motionless, the tears still on her cheek. The strange +intoxicating force of feeling, set in motion by sorrow and pity, and the +unsuspected influence of his love, was sweeping them out into deep +waters. She could hardly breathe, but as he watched her all the manhood +in him rose, and from the midst of grief put forward an imperious claim +to the beloved and beautiful woman before him. He came forward a step, +took the cold, unresisting hands, and, bending before her, pressed them +to his lips, while her bewildered eyes looked down upon him. + +'Your pity is heavenly,' he said brokenly; 'but give me more, give me +more! 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 the +stretches of Surrey common, to the Nuneham woods, and all she had ever +seen or imagined of his feelings towards her. She had never, never +suspected him of loving her. She had sent him her friendly messages from +Venice in the simplest good faith; she had joined in his sister's +praises of him without a moment's self-consciousness. His approval of her +play in _Elvira_ had given her the same frank pleasure that a master's +good 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 and +certainty began to assert itself against the overmastering impulse which +had led him on. + +'I have startled you--shocked you,' he cried. 'I ought not to have +spoken--and at such a time. It was your pity overcame me--your sweet +womanly kindness. I have loved you, I think, ever since that first +evening after the _White Lady_. At least, when I look back upon my +feeling, I see that it was love from the beginning. After that day at +Nuneham I knew that it was love; but I would not acknowledge it; I fought +against it. It seemed to me that you would never forget that I had been +harsh, that I had behaved rather like an enemy than a friend. But you did +forget--you showed me how noble a woman could be, and every day after we +parted in July I loved you more. I thought of you all the summer when I +was buried in the Country--my days and nights were full of you. Then when +your great success came--it was base of me--but all the time while I was +sending my congratulations to you through my sister at Venice, I was +really feeling that there was no more hope for me, and that some cruel +force was carrying you away from me. Then came _Elvira_--and I seemed to +give you up for ever.' + +Her hands dropped from her face, and her great hazel eyes were fixed upon +him with that intent look he remembered long ago when she had asked him +for the 'truth' about herself and her position. But there was no pain in +it 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 made +him eloquent. + +'Why? Because I thought you must inevitably be absorbed, swallowed up by +the great new future before you; because my own life looked so gray and +dull beside yours. I felt it impossible you should stoop from your height +to 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 sank +lower still--'came the summons to Paris, and Marie on her death-bed tried +to 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 of +the depth, the tenacity, the rich, illimitable promise of the passion +which she had roused. The tenderness of Marie seemed to encompass them, +and a sacred pathetic sense of death and loss drew them together. Her +respect, her reverence, her interest had been yielded long ago; did this +troubled yearning within mean something more, something infinitely +greater? + +She raised herself suddenly, and, as he knelt beside her, he felt her +warm breath on his cheek, and a tear dropped on his hands, which her own +were blindly and timidly seeking. + +'Oh!' she whispered, or rather sobbed, 'I never dreamt of it. I never +thought of anything like this. But--do not leave me again. I could not +bear it.' + +Kendal bowed his head upon the hands nestling in his, and it seemed to +him as if life and time were suspended, as if he and she were standing +within the 'wind-warm space' of love, while death and sorrow and +parting--three grave and tender angels of benediction--kept watch and +ward without. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Miss Bretherton, by Mrs. Humphry Ward + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISS BRETHERTON *** + +***** This file should be named 13432.txt or 13432.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/4/3/13432/ + +Produced by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/old/13432.zip b/old/13432.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..eda9eec --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13432.zip |