Chapter 6

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