secretaries--scarcely one of whom he felt he might count upon for
a modicum of gush when the girl should have finished.

Miss Rooth gave a representation of Juliet drinking the potion,
according to the system, as her mother explained, of the famous Signor
Ruggieri--a scene of high fierce sound, of many cries and contortions:
she shook her hair (which proved magnificent) half-down before the
performance was over. Then she declaimed several short poems by Victor
Hugo, selected among many hundred by Mrs. Rooth, as the good lady was
careful to make known. After this she jumped to the American lyre,
regaling the company with specimens, both familiar and fresh, of
Longfellow, Lowell, Whittier, Holmes, and of two or three poetesses now
revealed to Sherringham for the first time. She flowed so copiously,
keeping the floor and rejoicing visibly in her luck, that her host was
mainly occupied with wondering how he could make her leave off. He was
surprised at the extent of her repertory, which, in view of the
circumstance that she could never have received much encouragement--it
must have come mainly from her mother, and he didn't believe in Signor
Ruggieri--denoted a very stiff ambition and a blundering energy. It was
her mother who checked her at last, and he found himself suspecting that
Gabriel Nash had intimated to the old woman that interference was
necessary. For himself he was chiefly glad Madame Carre hadn't come. It
was present to him that she would have judged the exhibition, with its
badness, its impudence, the absence of criticism, wholly indecent.

His only new impression of the heroine of the scene was that of this
same high assurance--her coolness, her complacency, her eagerness to go
on. She had been deadly afraid of the old actress but was not a bit
afraid of a cluster of _femmes du monde_, of Julia, of Lady Agnes, of
the smart women of the embassy. It was positively these personages who
were rather in fear; there was certainly a moment when even Julia was
scared for the first time he had ever remarked it. The space was too
small, the cries, the convulsions and rushes of the dishevelled girl
were too near. Lady Agnes wore much of the time the countenance she
might have shown at the theatre during a play in which pistols were
fired; and indeed the manner of the young reciter had become more
spasmodic and more explosive. It appeared, however, that the company in
general thought her very clever and successful; which