omething or other in your bearing, your manner, your look, when
you tackle this sort of thing that I always believed a man had
to be born to and couldn't possibly acquire in any other way."

"There you are wrong, my dear friend. It _is_ possible, as you
see. That is what makes the difference between the mere actor and
the real _artiste_," replied Cleek, with an air of conceited
self-appreciation which was either a clever illusion or an exhibition
of great weakness. "If one man might not do these things better than
another man, we should have no Irvings to illuminate the stage,
and acting would drop at once from its place among the arts to the
undignified level of a tawdry trade. And now, as our American
cousins say, 'Let's come down to brass tacks.' What's the case and
who's the lady?"

"The widow of the late Sir George Essington, and grandmother of the
young gentleman in whose interest you are to be consulted."

"Grandmother, eh? Then the lady is no longer young?"

"Not as years go, although, to look at her, you would hardly suspect
that she is a day over five-and-thirty. The Gentleman with the Hour
Glass has dealt very, very lightly with her. Where he has failed to
be considerate, however, the ladies, who conduct certain 'parlours'
in Bond Street, have come to the rescue in fine style."

"Oh, she is that kind of woman, is she?" said Cleek with a pitch of
the shoulders. "I have no patience with the breed! As if there was
anything more charming than a dear, wrinkly old grandmother who
bears her years gracefully and fusses over her children's children
like an old hen with a brood of downy chicks. But a grandmother who
goes in for wrinkle eradicators, cream of lilies, skin-tighteners,
milk of roses, and things of that kind--faugh! It has been my
experience, Mr. Narkom, that when a woman has any real cause for
worrying over the condition of her face, she usually has a just one
to be anxious over that of her soul. So this old lady is one of
the 'face painters,' is she?"

"My dear chap, let me correct an error: a grandmother her ladyship
may be, but she is decidedly not an old one. I believe she was only
a mere girl when she married her late husband. At any rate, she
certainly can't be a day over forty-five at the present moment.
A frivolous and a recklessly extravagant woman she undoubtedly
is--indeed, her extravagances helped as much as anything to bring
her husband into the bankruptcy court before he died--but beyo