Miss Bretherton | Page 8

his eyes in the May green which was
triumphing more and more every day over the grayness of London, and
would soon have reached that lovely short-lived pause of victory which
is all that summer can hope to win amid the dust and crowd of a great
city.
Kendal was in that condition which is proper to men possessed of the
true literary temperament, when the first fervour of youth for mere
living is gone, when the first crude difficulties of accumulation are over,
and when the mind, admitted to regions of an ampler ether and diviner
air than any she has inhabited before, feels the full charm and spell of
man's vast birthright of knowledge, and is seized with subtler
curiosities and further-reaching desires than anything she has yet been
conscious of. The world of fact and of idea is open, and the explorer's
instruments are as perfect as they can be made. The intoxication of
entrance is full upon him, and the lassitude which is the inevitable
Nemesis of an unending task, and the chill which sooner or later
descends upon every human hope, are as yet mere names and shadows,
counting for nothing in the tranquil vista of his life, which seems to lie
spread out before him. It is a rare state, for not many men are capable
of the apprenticeship which leads to it, and a breath of hostile

circumstance may put an end to it; but in its own manner and degree,
and while it lasts, it is one of the golden states of consciousness, and a
man enjoying it feels this mysterious gift of existence to have been a
kindly boon from some beneficent power.
Arrived at Mrs. Stuart's, Kendal found a large gathering already filling
the pleasant low rooms looking out upon trees at either end, upon
which Mrs. Stuart had impressed throughout the stamp of her own keen
little personality. She was competent in all things--competent in her
criticism of a book, and more than competent in all that pertained to the
niceties of house management. Her dinner-parties, of which each was
built up from foundation to climax with the most delicate skill and
unity of plan; her pretty dresses, in which she trailed about her
soft-coloured rooms; her energy, her kindliness, and even the evident
but quite innocent pursuit of social perfection in which she
delighted--all made her popular; and it was not difficult for her to
gather together whom she would when she wished to launch a social
novelty. On the present occasion she was very much in her element. All
around her were people more or less distinguished in the London world;
here was an editor, there an artist; a junior member of the Government
chatted over his tea with a foreign Minister, and a flow of the usual
London chatter of a superior kind was rippling through the room when
Kendal entered.
Mrs. Stuart put him in the way of a chair and of abundant chances of
conversation, and then left him with a shrug of her shoulders and a
whisper, 'The beauty is shockingly late! Tell me what I shall do if all
these people are disappointed.' In reality, Mrs. Stuart was beginning to
be restless. Kendal had himself arrived very late, and, as the talk flowed
faster, and the room filled fuller of guests eager for the new sensation
which had been promised them, the spirits of the little hostess began to
sink. The Minister had surreptitiously looked at his watch, and a
tiresome lady friend had said good-bye in a voice which might have
been lower, and with a lament which might have been spared. Mrs.
Stuart set great store upon the success of her social undertakings, and to
gather a crowd of people to meet the rising star of the season, and then
to have to send them home with only tea and talk to remember, was one

of those failures which no one with any self-respect should allow
themselves to risk.
However, fortune was once more kind to one of her chief favourites.
Mrs. Stuart was just listening with a tired face to the well-meant, but
depressing condolences of the barrister standing by her, who was
describing to her the 'absurd failure' of a party to meet the leading
actress of the Comédie Française, to which he had been invited in the
previous season, when the sound of wheels was heard outside. Mrs.
Stuart made a quick step forward, leaving her Job's comforter planted
in the middle of his story; the hum of talk dropped in an instant, and the
crowd about the door fell hastily back as it was thrown open and Miss
Bretherton entered.
What a glow and radiance of beauty entered the room with her! She
came in rapidly, her graceful