or did he imagine
that an actress whose name was as yet unknown would hesitate to play
with him at the Pall Mall Theatre. Yet he himself had been hoping that
there might be some difficulty,--he had a "Bathilde" of his own who
would take a great deal of pacifying. The thing was settled now
however.

"I should like," he said, "to make her acquaintance at once."

"I have thought of that," Matravers said. "Will you lunch with me at
my rooms on Sunday and meet her? that is, of course, if she is able to
come."

"I shall be delighted," Fergusson answered. "About two, I suppose?"

Matravers assented, and the two men parted. The actor, with a little
shrug of his shoulders and the air of a man who has an unpleasant task
before him, turned southwards to interview the lady who certainly had
the first claim to play "Bathilde." He found her at home and anxiously
expecting him.

"If you had not come to-day," she remarked, "I should have sent for
you. I want you to contradict that rubbish."

She threw the theatrical paper across at him, and watched him, whilst
he read the paragraph to which she had pointed. He laid the paper
down.

"I cannot altogether contradict it," he said. "There is some truth in
what the man writes."

The lady was getting angry. She came over to Fergusson and stood by
his side.

"You mean to tell me," she exclaimed, "that you have accepted a play
for immediate production which I have not even seen, and in which the
principal part is to be given to one of those crackpots down at the
New Theatre, an amateur, an outsider--a woman no one ever heard of
before."

"You can't exactly say that," he interposed calmly. "I see you have
her novel on your table there, and she is a woman who has been talked
about a good deal lately. But the facts of the case are these.
Matravers brought me a play a few days ago which almost took my
breath away. It is by far the best thing of the sort I ever read. It
is bound to be a great success. I can't tell you any more now,--you
shall read it yourself in a day or two. He was very easy to deal with
as to terms, but he made one condition: that a certain part in
it,--the principal one, I admit,--should be offered to this woman. I
tried all I could to talk him out of it, but absolutely without
effect. I was forced to consent. There is not a manager in London who
would not jump at the play on any conditions. You know our position.
'Her Majesty' is a failure, and I haven't a single