mpathy
with the decadent."

"I do not properly understand the use of the word 'decadent,'"
Matravers said. "But you need not be alarmed as to my attitude.
Whatever my own gods may be, I am no slave to them. Isteinism has its
devotees, and whatever has had humanity and force enough in it to
attract a following must at least demand a respectful attention from
the Press. And to-night I am the Press!"

"I am sorry," Ellison remarked, glancing out into the gloomy well of
the theatre with an impatient frown, "that there is so bad a house
to-night. It is depressing to play seriously to a handful of people!"

"It will not affect my judgment," Matravers said.

"It will affect her acting, though," Ellison replied gloomily. "There
are times when, even to us who know her strength, and are partial to
her, she appears to act with difficulty,--to be encumbered with all
the diffidence of the amateur. For a whole scene she will be little
better than a stick. The change, when it comes, is like a sudden fire
from Heaven. Something flashes into her face, she becomes inspired,
she holds us breathless, hanging upon every word; it is then one
realizes that she is a genius."

"Let us hope," Matravers said, "that some such moment may visit her
to-night. One needs some compensation for a dinnerless evening, and
such surroundings as these!"

He turned from the contemplation of the dreary, half-empty auditorium
with a faint shudder. The theatre was an ancient and unpopular one.
The hall-mark of failure and poverty was set alike upon the tawdry and
faded hangings, the dust-eaten decorations and the rows of bare seats.
It was a relief when the feeble overture came to an end, and the
curtain was rung up. He settled himself down at once to a careful
appreciation of the performance.

Matravers was not in any sense of the word a dramatic critic. He was a
man of letters; amongst the elect he was reckoned a master in his art.
He occupied a singular, in many respects a unique, position. But in
matters dramatic, he confessed to an ignorance which was strictly
actual and in no way assumed. His presence at the New Theatre on that
night, which was to become for him a very memorable one, was purely a
matter of chance and good nature. The greatest of London dailies had
decided to grant a passing notice to the extraordinary series of
plays, which in flightier journals had provoked something between the
blankest wonderment and the most boisterous ridicule