s of age. In a week she read him as easily as if
he had been a printed book. He treated her with condescending courtesy,
_en grand seigneur_, and, naturally, she had her revenge on him.

"One day her mother came in and asked Watts what he was going to do
about Ellen. Watts said he didn't understand. 'You have made Ellen in
love with you,' said the mother, and it is impossible that could have
happened unless you had been attentive to her.'

"Poor Watts protested and protested, but the mother broke down and
sobbed, and said the girl's heart would be broken, and at length, in
despair, Watts asked what he was to do, and the mother could only
suggest marriage.

"Finally they were married."

"You don't mean that," I cried, "I never knew that Watts had married
Ellen Terry."

"Oh, yes," said Oscar, "they were married all right. The mother saw to
that, and to do him justice, Watts kept the whole family like a
gentleman. But like an idealist, or, as a man of the world would say, a
fool, he was ashamed of his wife; he showed great reserve to her, and
when he gave his usual dinners or receptions, he invited only men and
so, carefully, left her out.

"One evening he had a dinner; a great many well-known people were
present and a bishop was on his right hand, when, suddenly, between the
cheese and the pear, as the French would say, Ellen came dancing into
the room in pink tights with a basket of roses around her waist with
which she began pelting the guests. Watts was horrified, but everyone
else delighted, the bishop in especial, it is said, declared he had
never seen anything so romantically beautiful. Watts nearly had a fit,
but Ellen danced out of the room with all their hearts in her basket
instead of her roses.

"To me that's the true story of Ellen Terry's life. It may be true or
false in reality, but I believe it to be true in fact as in symbol; it
is not only an image of her life, but of her art. No one knows how she
met Irving or learned to act, though, as you know, she was one of the
best actresses that ever graced the English stage. A great personality.
Her children even have inherited some of her talent."

It was only famous actresses such as Ellen Terry and Sarah Bernhardt and
great ladies that Oscar ever praised. He was a snob by nature; indeed
this was the chief link between him and English society. Besides, he had
a rooted contempt for women and especially for their brains. He said
once, of some one: "he is