The beauty had just begun her answer when Kendal became conscious of Mrs.
Stuart standing beside him, with another aspirant at her elbow, and
nothing remained for him but to retire with a hasty smile and handshake,
Miss Bretherton brightly reminding him that they should meet again.
A few minutes afterwards there was once more a general flutter in the room. Miss Bretherton was going. She came forward in her long flowing black garments, holding Mrs. Stuart by the hand, the crowd dividing as she passed. On her way to the door stood a child, Mrs. Stuart's youngest, looking at her with large wondering brown eyes, and finger on lip. The actress suddenly stooped to her, lifted her up with the ease of physical strength into the midst of her soft furs and velvets, and kissed her with a gracious queenliness. The child threw its little white arms around her, smiled upon her, and smoothed her hair, as though to assure itself that the fairy princess was real. Then it struggled down, and in another minute the bright vision was gone, and the crowded room seemed to have grown suddenly dull and empty.
'That was prettily done,' said Edward Wallace to Kendal as they stood together looking on. 'In another woman those things would be done for effect, but I don't think she does them for effect. It is as though she felt herself in such a warm and congenial atmosphere, she is so sure of herself and her surroundings, that she is able to give herself full play, to follow every impulse as it rises. There is a wonderful absence of mauvaise honte about her, and yet I believe that, little as she knows of her own deficiencies, she is really modest—'
'Very possibly,' said Kendal; 'it is a curious study, a character taken so much au naturel, and suddenly transported into the midst of such a London triumph as this. I have certainly been very much attracted, and feel inclined to quarrel with you for having run her down. I believe I shall admire her more than you do to-night.'
'I only hope you may,' said the American cordially; 'I am afraid, however, that from any standard that is worth using there is not much to be said for her as an actress. But as a human being she is very nearly perfection.'
The afternoon guests departed, and just as the last had gone, Mr. Forbes was announced. He came in in a bad temper, having been delayed by business, and presently sat down to dinner with Mrs. Stuart and Wallace and Kendal in a very grumbling frame of mind. Mr. Stuart, a young and able lawyer, in the first agonies of real success at the bar, had sent word that he could not reach home till late.
'I don't know, I'm sure, what's the good of going to see that girl with you two carping fellows,' he began, combatively, over his soup. 'She won't suit you, and you'll only spoil Mrs. Stuart's pleasure and mine.'
'My dear Forbes,' said Wallace in his placid undisturbed way, 'you will see I shall behave like an angel. I shall allow myself no unpleasant remarks, and I shall make as much noise as anybody in the theatre.'
'That's all very well; but if you don't say it, Kendal will look it; and
I don't know which is the most damping.'
'Mrs. Stuart, you shall be the judge of our behaviour,' said Kendal, smiling—he and Forbes were excellent friends. 'Forbes is not in a judicial frame of mind, but we will trust you to be fair. I suppose, Forbes, we may be allowed a grumble or two at Hawes if you shut our mouths on the subject of Miss Bretherton.'