’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