“I doubt it,” he answered bluntly. “You have not feeling enough.”
She smiled at him.
“It is like old times,” she said, “to hear these home truths. All the same, I don’t admit it.”
“To be an actress,” he said, “you require a special and peculiar temperament. I do not believe that there has ever lived a really great actress whose moral character from the ordinary point of view would bear inspection.”
“Then I,” she said, “have too much character.”
“Too much character, and too little sentiment,” he answered. “Too much sensibility and too cold a heart. Too easily roused emotions and too little passion. How could you draw the curtain aside which hides the great and holy places of life—you, who have never loved?”
“You have become French to the core,” she murmured. “You would believe that life is kindled by the passions alone.”
There was silence between them. Then a servant girl brought in a telegram. Anna tore it open and passed it to Courtlaw. It was from Brendon.
“Hill gradually recovering consciousness. Doctor says depositions to-night. Recovery impossible.—Brendon.”