Mrs. Milden was soon engaged in a deep tete-a-tete with Mr. Peebles, who was heard every now and then to say, “Quite, quite,” Miss Tring was holding forth to Silvester on French sculpture, and Silvester now and again said:  “Oh! really!” in the tone of intense interest which his friends knew indicated that he was being acutely bored.  Lady Hyacinth was discussing Socialism with Osmond Hall, Lady Herman was discussing the theory of evolution with Professor Newcastle, Mrs. Lockton, the question of the French Church, with Faubourg; and Blenheim was discharging molten fragments of embryo exordiums and perorations on the subject of the stage to Willmott; in fact, there was a general buzz of conversation.

“Have you been to see Antony and Cleopatra?” asked Willmott of the stranger.

“Yes,” said the neighbour, “I went last night; many authors have treated the subject, and the version I saw last night was very pretty.  I couldn’t get a programme so I didn’t see who——­”

“I think my version,” interrupted Willmott, with pride, “is admitted to be the best.”

“Ah! it is your version!” said the stranger.  “I beg your pardon, I think you treated the subject very well.”

“Yes,” said Willmott, “it is ungrateful material, but I think I made something fine of it.”

“No doubt, no doubt,” said the stranger.

“Do tell us,” Mrs. Baldwin was heard to ask M. Faubourg across the table, “what the young generation are doing in France?  Who are the young novelists?”

“There are no young novelists worth mentioning,” answered M. Faubourg.

Miss Tring broke in and said she considered “Le Visage Emerveille,” by the Comtesse de Noailles, to be the most beautiful book of the century, with the exception, perhaps, of the “Tagebuch einer Verlorenen.”

But from the end of the table Blenheim’s utterance was heard preponderating over that of his neighbours.  He was making a fine speech on the modern stage, comparing an actor-manager to Napoleon, and commenting on the campaigns of the latter in detail.

Quite heedless of this Mr. Willmott was carrying on an equally impassioned but much slower monologue on his conception of the character of Cyrano de Bergerac, which he said he intended to produce.  “Cyrano,” he said, “has been maligned by Coquelin.  Coquelin is a great artist, but he did not understand Cyrano.  Cyrano is a dreamer, a poet; he is a martyr of thought like Tolstoi, a sacrifice to wasted, useless action, like Hamlet; he is a Moliere come too soon, a Bayard come too late, a John the Baptist of the stage, calling out in vain in the wilderness—­of bricks and mortar; he is misunderstood;—­an enigma, an anachronism, a premature herald, a false dawn.”

Count Sciarra was engaged in a third monologue at the head of the table.  He was talking at the same time to Mrs. Bergmann, Lady Irene, and Lady Hyacinth about the devil.  “Ah que j’aime le diable!” he was saying in low, tender tones.  “The devil who creates your beauty to lure us to destruction, the devil who puts honey into the voice of the siren, the dolce sirena—­