‘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.