ing, however, in Chapter III., that she needs _Robert's_ devotion
more than anything else, she conceives a plot. _Dr. Cornish_ makes an
opportune call, not this time as a doctor, but as a whole-hearted
admirer. With just such an one for my husband, thinks _Caroline_,
_Robert_ could again assume his accustomed part of loyal friend and
incense-bearer. She accordingly proposes. Appreciating the difficulty of
directly refusing without discourtesy, he temporises and appears to fall
in with her suggestion that he shall announce their engagement to
_Robert_ and her interfering friends, who are promptly telephoned for to
hear an interesting statement. But _Cornish_ proves himself a WOLFF in
sheep's clothing. Instead of announcing the engagement he asserts that
he has just seen _Stephen Ashley_, the husband: a lie which obtains
credence with the others because of the dead man's amiable habit of
occasionally putting about a rumour of his decease. _Caroline_, with
superb presence of mind, seeing a glorious way out of a dilemma, adopts
the lie, contrives a more or less plausible explanation, and thus
establishes the _status quo ante_--the grass widow with the faithful and
contented adorer.

The play, whose only flaw was a certain rather upsetting ambiguity
(whether accidental or designed I could not quite gather) in the last
few sentences before the curtain fell, was interpreted with a very fine
intelligence. Miss IRENE VANBRUGH'S superbly trained talent showed
itself in an astonishing range of moods tethered in a plausible unity of
conception. Mr. BOYNE, who is just coming into his own, scored bull
after bull. Perhaps he didn't make _Oldham_ quite the Englishman that
the author (I should say) designed, but rather an Irishman of that
delightfully faint flavour which is so entirely attractive. Miss LILLAH
MACARTHY, as _Maude Fulton_, a well-preserved bachelor in the most
bizarre modern mode, also a dexterous liar and officious matchmaker,
played with her head in her most accomplished manner and gave full value
in the general scheme to a character which the author made a person when
he might have been content with a peg. Mr. DION BOUCICAULT'S physician
was as bland a humbug as ever coined guineas in Mayfair. Mr. MARTIN
LEWIS, as a profoundly silly ass, played a difficult hand without fault.
Miss NINA SEVENING, as a consoler of handsome men in trouble, and Miss
FLORENCE LLOYD, as _Caroline's_ maid, competently rounded off in
subsidiar