; there are different ways of taking it. Do I think it's
important? Is that what you mean? Important certainly to managers and
stage-carpenters who want to make money, to ladies and gentlemen who
want to produce themselves in public by limelight, and to other ladies
and gentlemen who are bored and stupid and don't know what to do with
their evening. It's a commercial and social convenience which may be
infinitely worked. But important artistically, intellectually? How _can_
it be--so poor, so limited a form?"

"Upon my honour it strikes me as rich and various! Do _you_ think it's a
poor and limited form, Nick?" Sherringham added, appealing to his
kinsman.

"I think whatever Nash thinks. I've no opinion to-day but his."

This answer of the hope of the Dormers drew the eyes of his mother and
sisters to him and caused his friend to exclaim that he wasn't used to
such responsibilities--so few people had ever tested his presence of
mind by agreeing with him. "Oh I used to be of your way of feeling,"
Nash went on to Sherringham. "I understand you perfectly. It's a phase
like another. I've been through it--_j'ai ete comme ca._"

"And you went then very often to the Theatre Francais, and it was there
I saw you. I place you now."

"I'm afraid I noticed none of the other spectators," Nash explained. "I
had no attention but for the great Carre--she was still on the stage.
Judge of my infatuation, and how I can allow for yours, when I tell you
that I sought her acquaintance, that I couldn't rest till I had told her
how I hung upon her lips."

"That's just what _I_ told her," Sherringham returned.

"She was very kind to me. She said: '_Vous me rendez des forces_.'"

"That's just what she said to me!"

"And we've remained very good friends."

"So have we!" laughed Sherringham. "And such perfect art as hers--do you
mean to say you don't consider _that_ important, such a rare dramatic
intelligence?"

"I'm afraid you read the _feuilletons_. You catch their phrases"--Nash
spoke with pity. "Dramatic intelligence is never rare; nothing's more
common."

"Then why have we so many shocking actors?"

"Have we? I thought they were mostly good; succeeding more easily and
more completely in that business than in anything else. What could they
do--those people generally--if they didn't do that poor thing? And
reflect that the poor thing enables them to succeed! Of course, always,
there are numbers of people on the stage who are no