Miss Bretherton | Page 9

head thrown eagerly back, her face
kindling and her hands outstretched as she caught sight of Mrs. Stuart.
There was a vigour and splendour of life about her that made all her
movements large and emphatic, and yet, at the same time, nothing
could exceed the delicate finish of the physical structure itself. What
was indeed characteristic in her was this combination of extraordinary
perfectness of detail, with a flash, a warmth, a force of impression, such
as often raises the lower kinds of beauty into excellence and
picturesqueness, but is seldom found in connection with those types
where the beauty is, as it were, sufficient in and by itself, and does not
need anything but its own inherent harmonies of line and hue to
impress itself on the beholders.
There were some, indeed, who maintained that the smallness and
delicacy of her features was out of keeping with her stature and her
ample gliding motions. But here, again, the impression of delicacy was
transformed half way into one of brilliancy by the large hazel eyes and
the vivid whiteness of the skin. Kendal watched her from his corner,
where his conversation with two musical young ladies had been
suddenly suspended by the arrival of the actress, and thought that his
impression of the week before had been, if anything, below the truth.
'She comes into the room well, too,' he said to himself critically; 'she is

not a mere milkmaid; she has some manner, some individuality. Ah,
now Fernandez'--naming the Minister--'has got hold of her. Then, I
suppose, Rushbrook (the member of the Government) will come next,
and we commoner mortals in our turn. What absurdities these things
are!'
His reflections, however, were stopped by the exclamations of the girls
beside him, who were already warm admirers of Miss Bretherton, and
wild with enthusiasm at finding themselves in the same room with her.
They discovered that he was going to see her in the evening; they
envied him, they described the play to him, they dwelt in superlatives
on the crowded state of the theatre and on the plaudits which greeted
Miss Bretherton's first appearance in the ballroom scene in the first act,
and they allowed themselves--being aesthetic damsels robed in sober
greenish-grays--a gentle lament over the somewhat violent colouring of
one of the actress's costumes, while all the time keeping their eyes
furtively fixed on the gleaming animated profile and graceful shoulders
over which, in the entrance of the second drawing-room, the Minister's
gray head was bending.
Mrs. Stuart did her duty bravely. Miss Bretherton had announced to her,
with a thousand regrets, that she had only half an hour to give. 'We
poor professionals, you know, must dine at four. That made me late,
and now I find I am such a long way from home that six is the latest
moment I can stay.' So that Mrs. Stuart was put to it to get through all
the introductions she had promised. But she performed her task without
flinching, killing remorselessly each nascent conversation in the bud,
giving artist, author, or member of Parliament his proper little sentence
of introduction, and at last beckoning to Eustace Kendal, who left his
corner feeling society to be a foolish business, and wishing the ordeal
were over.
Miss Bretherton smiled at him as she had smiled at all the others, and
he sat down for his three minutes on the chair beside her.
'I hear you are satisfied with your English audiences, Miss Bretherton,'
he began at once, having prepared himself so far. 'To-night I am to
have the pleasure for the first time of making one of your admirers.'

'I hope it will please you,' she said, with a shyness that was still bright
and friendly. 'You will be sure to come and see me afterwards? I have
been arranging it with Mrs. Stuart. I am never fit to talk to afterwards, I
get so tired. But it does one good to see one's friends; it makes one
forget the theatre a little before going home.'
'Do you find London very exciting?'
'Yes, very. People have been so extraordinarily kind to me, and it is all
such a new experience after that little place Kingston. I should have my
head turned, I think,' she added, with a happy little laugh, 'but that
when one cares about one's art one is not likely to think too much of
one's self. I am always despairing over what there is still to do, and
what one may have done seems to make no matter.'
She spoke with a pretty humility, evidently meaning what she said, and
yet there was such a delightful young triumph in her manner, such an
invulnerable consciousness of artistic success, that Kendal felt a secret
stir of amusement as he