n
his large chair, and closed his eyes in the ecstatic distention of his
surfeit. After a grunt or two, he turned suddenly and asked with a
strange intensity,--

'Charles Mann--is he a genius?'

'Of course,' replied Clara.

'Then why does he talk so much?'

'He works very hard.'

'Hm!'

'You can't expect me to discuss him.'

'No, no. I only think it is a pity he gave up acting. He's lost touch
with the public.... I've tried it at intervals; giving up acting, I
mean. The public lose interest, and no amount of advertising will get
it back.'

'It is for the artist to command the public,' said Clara, rather
uncomfortably feeling that she was only an echo. It was a very curious
thing that words in this room lost half their meaning, and she, who was
accustomed to giving all her words their precise value, was rather at a
loss.

'Little girl,' said Sir Henry, 'I feel that you understand me. That is
rare. After all, we actors are human. We are governed by the heart in
a world that is standing on its head.'

He took out a little book and made a note of that last observation.
Then with a sigh he leaned over and held Clara's hands, looked long
into her large dark eyes, and said,--

'With such purity you could outstare the angels.'

For answer Clara outstared him, and he dropped her hands and began to
hum. 'Opera!' he said. 'I feel opera in the air; music invading the
theatre, uplifting the souls of the people.... Ah! life is not long
enough....'

Clara began to feel sorry for him though she knew in her heart that
this was precisely what he wanted.

'You mustn't be angry,' he rumbled in his deepest bass, 'if I tell you
that Charles Mann ought to have his neck wrung.'

'But--you are going to do his _Tempest_?'

'If it were not for you, little girl, I would not have him near the
theatre,' said Sir Henry, with a sudden heat.

'How dare you talk like that?' Clara was all on fire. 'It is an
honour for you to be associated with him at all.'

Sir Henry laughed.

'We know our Charles,' he said. 'We knew his father. We are not all
so young as you.'

Clara hid her alarm, but it was as though the ground had suddenly
opened and swallowed her up, as though the London about which she had
been hovering in delighted excitement had engulfed her. And then she
felt that she was failing Charles.

'I won't allow you to talk like that. I won't let Charles do _The
Tempest_ at all, if you talk like that. He