se rather rude physical felicities formed in
short her only mark of a vocation. He almost hated to have to recognise
them; he had seen them so often when they meant nothing at all that he
had come at last to regard them as almost a guarantee of incompetence.
He knew Madame Carre valued them singly so little that she counted them
out in measuring an histrionic nature; when deprived of the escort of
other properties which helped and completed them she almost held them a
positive hindrance to success--success of the only kind she esteemed.
Far oftener than himself she had sat in judgement on young women for
whom hair and eyebrows and a disposition for the statuesque would have
worked the miracle of sanctifying their stupidity if the miracle were
workable. But that particular miracle never was. The qualities she rated
highest were not the gifts but the conquests, the effects the actor had
worked hard for, had dug out of the mine by unwearied study.
Sherringham remembered to have had in the early part of their
acquaintance a friendly dispute with her on this subject, he having been
moved at that time to defend doubtless to excess the cause of the gifts.
She had gone so far as to say that a serious comedian ought to be
ashamed of them--ashamed of resting his case on them; and when
Sherringham had cited the great Rachel as a player whose natural
endowment was rich and who had owed her highest triumphs to it, she had
declared that Rachel was the very instance that proved her point;--a
talent assisted by one or two primary aids, a voice and a portentous
brow, but essentially formed by work, unremitting and ferocious work. "I
don't care a straw for your handsome girls," she said; "but bring me one
who's ready to drudge the tenth part of the way Rachel drudged, and I'll
forgive her her beauty. Of course, _notez bien_, Rachel wasn't a _grosse
bete_: that's a gift if you like!"

Mrs. Rooth, who was evidently very proud of the figure her daughter had
made--her daughter who for all one could tell affected their hostess
precisely as a _grosse bete_--appealed to Madame Carre rashly and
serenely for a verdict; but fortunately this lady's voluble _bonne_ came
rattling in at the same moment with the tea-tray. The old actress busied
herself in dispensing this refreshment, an hospitable attention to her
English visitors, and under cover of the diversion thus obtained, while
the others talked together, Sherringham put her the question: "Well,