knees. 'In two or
three years I will make a great actress of you. You shall be the great
woman of your time.... A Spring day in the country with you would make
me young as Romeo....'

'Please get up,' said Clara, 'and let us talk business. You promised
early this year that you would do Charles Mann's _Tempest_.'

'Yes. I'm always making promises. One lives on promises. Life is a
promise.... If I promise to do _The Tempest_ will you come and stay
with us in The Lakes in August? I want you to meet the Bracebridges;
you ought to know the best people, the gay people, the aristocrats, the
only people who know how to be amusing.'

This was getting further and further away from business, though Clara
knew that it was impossible to keep Sir Henry to the point. She
ignored his invitation and replied,--

'If you will do _The Tempest_ I can get Lord Verschoyle to support it.'

Sir Henry was at once jealous. He pouted like a baby.

'I don't want Verschoyle or any other young cub to help you. _I_ want
to help you.... Verschoyle can't appreciate you. He can't possibly
see you as you are, or as you are going to be.'

Clara smiled. Verschoyle had become her best friend, and with him she
enjoyed a deep, quiet intimacy which the young gentleman preserved with
exquisite tact and taste, delighting in it as he did in a work of art,
or a good book, and appreciating fully that the girl's capacity for it
was her rarest and most irresistible power.... Sir Henry was like a
silly boy in his desire to impress on her that he alone could
understand her.

He continued,--

'It seems so unnatural that you have no women friends other than old
Julia.... An actress nowadays has her part to play in society.... You
have brought new life into my theatre.'

'Then,' said Clara, 'let us do _The Tempest_.'

'But I don't want to do _The Tempest_.'

'Charles said you did.'

'We talked about it, but we are always talking in the theatre.... I
would give up everything if you would only be a little kinder to me.'

Was this the great Sir Henry speaking? Clara saw that he was on the
verge of a schoolboy outburst, perhaps a declaration, and she was never
fonder of the man than in this moment of self-humiliation. He waited
for some relaxation in her, but was met only with sallies. He rose,
drew his hand over his eyes, and walked up and down the room sighing.

'At my age, to love for the first time.... It is appalling: it is
tragic