‘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.