to her. She, too, talks about art, but it is like a child who
learns a string of long words without understanding them. She walked on
beside me while I cooled down and thought what a fool I had been to
endanger a friendship which had opened so well,--her wonderful lips
opening once or twice as though to speak, and her quick breath coming and
going as she scattered the yellow petals of the flowers far and wide with
a sort of mute passion which sent a thrill through me. It was as though
she could not trust herself to speak, and I waited awkwardly on
Providence, wishing the others were not so far off. But suddenly the
tension of her mood seemed to give way. Her smile flashed out, and she
turned upon me with a sweet, eager graciousness, quite indescribable.

'"No, we won't throw stones at her! She _is_ great, I know, but that
other feeling is so strong in me. I care for my art; it seems to me
grand, magnificent!--but I think I care still more for making people
feel it is work a good woman can do, for holding my own in it, and
asserting myself against the people who behave as if all actresses had
done the things that Madame Desforets has done. Don't think me narrow and
jealous. I should hate you and the Stuarts to think that of me. You have
all been so kind to me--such good, real friends! I shall never forget
this day--Oh! look, there is the carriage standing up there. I wish it
was the morning and not the evening, and that it might all come again! I
hate the thought of London and that hot theatre to-morrow night. Oh, my
primroses! What a wretch I am! I've lost them nearly all. Look, just that
bunch over there, Mr. Kendal, before we leave the common."

'I sprang to get them for her, and brought back a quantity. She took them
in her hand--how unlike other women she is after all, in spite of her
hatred of Bohemia!--and, raising them to her lips, she waved a farewell
through them to the great common lying behind us in the evening sun. "How
beautiful! how beautiful! This English country is so kind, so friendly!
It has gone to my heart. Good-night, you wonderful place!"

'She had conquered me altogether. It was done so warmly--with such a
winning, spontaneous charm. I cannot say what pleasure I got out of those
primroses lying in her soft ungloved hand all the way home. Henceforward,
I feel she may make what judgments and draw what lines she pleases; she
won't change me, and I have some hopes of modifying her; but I am not
very