the same again.... I'm not the same.'

'What do you mean?' he asked, in alarm.

'I'll tell you after the performance. Where are you sitting?'

'I'm in the Author's box.'

'With his ghost?'

'No. He has only turned in his grave.'

The stage-hands were pretty alert and busy for the shipwreck, which
Charles had contrived very simply: a darkened stage, a mast with a
lamp, which was to sway and founder, and low moving clouds.

Clara and he parted. The music ceased. The storm broke and the
curtain rose.

After a few moments the novelty of the ship scene wore off, a certain
section of the audience, perceiving how it was done laughed at the
simplicity of it and another section cried 'Hush.' The play had to
proceed to a divided house.

The bold sweep of Charles's design for the island-cell carried in spite
of the lighting and was applauded, but, as usual with English actors,
the pace was slow and the verse was ponderously spoken. Lady
Bracebridge's sense of caricature was almost infallible. Sir Henry as
Prospero did look exactly like General Booth and again a section of the
audience laughed. They had come to laugh, as the English always do, at
novelty, and they went on laughing until Miranda was put to sleep.

Clara, put to the challenge of this audience, summoned up every ounce
of her vitality and did coldly and consciously what before she had done
almost in an ecstacy. In the full light, before the huge audience she
felt that the play was betrayed, that there are some things too holy to
be made public.... She loathed that audience, tittering and giggling.
Her entrance was almost a contemptuous command to bid them be silent,
with her wild hair fiercely flying as she danced, every step taken
lightly as though she were dropping from a friendly wind.

'All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come
To answer thy best pleasure; be't to fly,
To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride
On the curl'd clouds, to thy strong bidding task
Ariel and all his quality.'

She stood poised as she had stood on the crag in Westmorland. Even in
her stillness there was the very ecstacy of movement, for nothing in
her was still.... A great sigh of pleasure came from the audience,
and, with a movement that was imperceptible and yet made itself felt,
she turned into a thing of stone, and uttered in an unearthly voice her
description of the storm.

'Damme!' said Prospero, under his breath. 'You've got them.'