of a judge to
tempt those on whom he is to deliver judgment to crime.'

'Don't put too much violence on yourselves!' said Mrs. Stuart, laughing.
'You and Edward can have the back of the box to talk what heresy you like
in, so long as you let Mr. Forbes perform his devotions undisturbed.'

At this Forbes half turned round, and shook his great mane, under which
gleamed a countenance of comedy menace, at the two men behind him. But in
another instant the tones of Isabel Bretherton's voice riveted his
attention, and the eyes of all those in the box were once more turned
towards the stage.

The scene which followed was one of the most meritorious passages in the
rather heavy German play from which the _White Lady_ had been adapted. It
was intended to show the romantic and passionate character of the
Countess, and to suggest that vein of extravagance and daring in her
which was the explanation of the subsequent acts. In the original the
dialogue had a certain German force and intensity, which lost nothing of
its occasional heaviness in the mouth of Hawes, the large-boned
swaggering personage who played the Prince. An actress with sufficient
force of feeling, and an artistic sense subtle enough to suggest to her
the necessary modulations, could have made a great mark in it. But the
first words, almost, revealed Isabel Bretherton's limitations, and before
two minutes were over Kendal was conscious of a complete collapse of that
sympathetic relation between him and the actress which the first scene
had produced. In another sentence or two the spell had been irrevocably
broken, and he seemed to himself to have passed from a state of
sensitiveness to all that was exquisite and rare in her to a state of
mere irritable consciousness of her defects. It was evident to him that
in a scene of great capabilities she never once rose beyond the tricks of
an elementary elocution, that her violence had a touch of commonness in
it which was almost vulgarity, and that even her attitudes had lost half
their charm. For, in the effort--the conscious and laboured effort of
acting--her movements, which had exercised such an enchantment over him
in the first scene, had become mere strides and rushes, never indeed
without grace, but often without dignity, and at all times lacking in
that consistency, that unity of plan which is the soul of art.

The sense of chill and disillusion was extremely disagreeable to him,
and, by the time the scene was ha