hands outstretched as she caught sight of Mrs. Stuart. There was a vigour
and splendour of life about her that made all her movements large and
emphatic, and yet, at the same time, nothing could exceed the delicate
finish of the physical structure itself. What was indeed characteristic
in her was this combination of extraordinary perfectness of detail, with
a flash, a warmth, a force of impression, such as often raises the lower
kinds of beauty into excellence and picturesqueness, but is seldom found
in connection with those types where the beauty is, as it were,
sufficient in and by itself, and does not need anything but its own
inherent harmonies of line and hue to impress itself on the beholders.

There were some, indeed, who maintained that the smallness and delicacy
of her features was out of keeping with her stature and her ample gliding
motions. But here, again, the impression of delicacy was transformed half
way into one of brilliancy by the large hazel eyes and the vivid
whiteness of the skin. Kendal watched her from his corner, where his
conversation with two musical young ladies had been suddenly suspended by
the arrival of the actress, and thought that his impression of the week
before had been, if anything, below the truth.

'She comes into the room well, too,' he said to himself critically; 'she
is not a mere milkmaid; she has some manner, some individuality. Ah, now
Fernandez'--naming the Minister--'has got hold of her. Then, I suppose,
Rushbrook (the member of the Government) will come next, and we commoner
mortals in our turn. What absurdities these things are!'

His reflections, however, were stopped by the exclamations of the girls
beside him, who were already warm admirers of Miss Bretherton, and wild
with enthusiasm at finding themselves in the same room with her. They
discovered that he was going to see her in the evening; they envied him,
they described the play to him, they dwelt in superlatives on the crowded
state of the theatre and on the plaudits which greeted Miss Bretherton's
first appearance in the ballroom scene in the first act, and they allowed
themselves--being aesthetic damsels robed in sober greenish-grays--a
gentle lament over the somewhat violent colouring of one of the actress's
costumes, while all the time keeping their eyes furtively fixed on the
gleaming animated profile and graceful shoulders over which, in the
entrance of the second drawing-room, the Minister's gray head wa