‘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.’