she possessed any special claim to beauty; yet now, her face, illumined by those dark eyes filled with quick intelligence, became most decidedly attractive, peculiarly lovable and womanly.  Besides, she evidently possessed a rare taste in dress, which met with his masculine approval.  Much of this, it is true, he reasoned out later and slowly, for during that first meal only two circumstances impressed him clearly—­the depth of feeling glowing within those wonderfully revealing eyes, and her complete ignoring of his presence.  If she recognized any addition to their number, there was not the slightest sign given.  Once their eyes met by merest accident; but hers apparently saw nothing, and Winston returned to his disagreeable labors at the Opera House, nursing a feeling akin to disappointment.

Concealed within the gloomy shadows of the wings, he stood entranced that night watching her depict the character of a wife whose previous happy life had been irretrievably ruined by deceit; and the force, the quiet originality of her depiction, together with its marvellous clearness of detail and its intense realism, held him captive.  The plot of the play was ugly, melodramatic, and entirely untrue to nature; against it Winston’s cultivated taste instantly revolted; yet this woman interpreted her own part with the rare instinct of a true artist, picturing to the very life the particular character intrusted to her, and holding the house to a breathless realization of what real artistic portrayal meant.  In voice, manner, action, in each minute detail of face and figure, she was truly the very woman she represented.  It was an art so fine as to make the auditors forget the artist, forget even themselves.  Her perfect workmanship, clear-cut, rounded, complete, stood forth like a delicate cameo beside the rude buffoonery of T. Macready Lane, the coarse villany of Albrecht, and the stiff mannerisms of the remainder of the cast.  They were automatons as compared with a figure instinct with life animated by intelligence.  She seemed to redeem the common clay of the coarse, unnatural story, and give to it some vital excuse for existence, the howls of laughter greeting the cheap wit of the comedian changed to a sudden hush of expectancy at her mere entrance upon the stage, while her slightest word, or action, riveted the attention.  It was a triumph beyond applause, beyond any mere outward demonstration of approval.  Winston felt the spell deeply, his entire body thrilling to her marvellous delineation of this common thing, her uplifting of it out of the vile ruck of its surroundings and giving unto it the abundant life of her own interpretation.  Never once did he question the real although untrained genius back of those glowing eyes, that expressive face, those sincere, quiet tones which so touched and swayed the heart.  In other days he had seen the stage at its best, and now he recognized in this woman that subtle power which must conquer all things, and eventually “arrive.”