As for Kendal, every sense in him was covetously striving to hold and fix the experiences of the last half-hour.  The white muffled figure standing in the turret door, the faint lamp light streaming on the bent head and upraised arm—­those tones of self-forgetful passion, drawn straight, as it were, from the pure heart of love—­the splendid energy of that last defiance of fate and circumstance—­the low vibrations of her dying words—­the power of the actress and the personality of the woman,—­all these different impressions were holding wild war within him as he hastened on, with Marie clinging to his arm.  And beyond the little stage-door the air seemed to be even more heavily charged with excitement than that of the theatre.  For, as Kendal emerged with his sister, his attention was perforce attracted by the little crowd of persons already assembled round the figure of Isabel Bretherton, and, as his eye travelled over them, he realised with a fresh start the full compass of the change which had taken place.  To all the more eminent persons in that group Miss Bretherton had been six months before an ignorant and provincial beauty, good enough to create a social craze, and nothing more.  Their presence round her at this moment, their homage, the emotion visible everywhere, proved that all was different, that she had passed the barrier which once existed between her and the world which knows and thinks, and had been drawn within that circle of individualities which, however undefined, is still the vital circle of any time or society, for it is the circle which represents, more or less brilliantly and efficiently, the intellectual life of a generation.

Only one thing was unchanged—­the sweetness and spontaneity of that rich womanly nature.  She gave a little cry as she saw Madame de Chateauvieux enter.  She came running forward, and threw her arms round the elder woman and kissed her; it was almost the greeting of a daughter to a mother.  And then, still holding Madame de Chateauvieux with one hand, she held out the other to Paul, asking him how much fault he had to find, and when she was to take her scolding; and every gesture had a glow of youth and joy in it, of which the contagion was irresistible.  She had thrown off the white head-dress she had worn during the last act, and her delicately-tinted head and neck rose from the splendid wedding-gown of gold-embroidered satin—­vision of flowerlike and aerial beauty.

Fast as the talk flowed about her, Kendal noticed that every one seemed to be, first of all, conscious of her neighbourhood, of her dress rustling past, of her voice in all its different shades of gaiety or quick emotion.

‘Oh, Mr. Kendal,’ she said, turning to him again after their first greeting—­was it the magnetism of his gaze which had recalled hers?—­’if you only knew what your sister has been to me!  How much I owe to her and to you!  It was kind of you to come to-night.  I should have been so disappointed if you hadn’t!’