was there any of
that breathless absorption in what was passing on the stage which the
dramatic material itself amply deserved.

'I don't think this will last very long,' said Kendal in Wallace's ear.
'There is something tragic in a popularity like this; it rests on
something unsound, and one feels that disaster is not far off. The whole
thing impresses me most painfully. She has some capacity, of course; if
only the conditions had been different--if she had been born within a
hundred miles of the Paris Conservatoire, if her youth had been passed in
a society of more intellectual weight,--but, as it is, this very applause
is ominous, for the beauty must go sooner or later, and there is nothing
else.'

'You remember Desforets in this same theatre last year in _Adrienne
Lecouvreur_?' said Wallace. 'What a gulf between the right thing and the
wrong! But come, we must do our duty;' and he drew Kendal forward towards
the front of the box, and they saw the whole house on its feet, clapping
and shouting, and the curtain just being drawn back to let the White Lady
and the Prince appear before it. She was very pale, but the storm of
applause which greeted her seemed to revive her, and she swept her
smiling glance round the theatre, until at last it rested with a special
gleam of recognition on the party in the box, especially on Forbes, who
was outdoing himself in enthusiasm. She was called forward again and
again, until at last the house was content, and the general exit began.

The instant after her white dress had disappeared from the stage, a
little page-boy knocked at the door of the box with a message that 'Miss
Bretherton begs that Mrs. Stuart and her friends will come and see her.'
Out they all trooped, along a narrow passage, and up a short staircase,
until a rough temporary door was thrown open, and they found themselves
in the wings, the great stage, on which the scenery was being hastily
shifted, lying to their right. The lights were being put out; only a few
gas-jets were left burning round a pillar, beside which stood Isabel
Bretherton, her long phantom dress lying in white folds about her, her
uncle and aunt and her manager standing near. Every detail of the
picture--the spot of brilliant light bounded on all sides by dim,
far-reaching vistas of shadow, the figures hurrying across the back of
the stage, the moving ghost-like workmen all around, and in the midst
that white-hooded, languid figure--revived in Kend