rs, watching him, flattered Mr. May.

"I'm afraid it is," he said. "Yes. Popular taste is a mysterious
thing. How do you feel, now? Do you feel they appreciate your work
as much as they did?"

Madame watched him with her black eyes.

"No," she replied. "They don't. The pictures are driving us away.
Perhaps we shall last for ten years more. And after that, we are
finished."

"You think so," said Mr. May, looking serious.

"I am sure," she said, nodding sagely.

"But why is it?" said Mr. May, angry and petulant.

"Why is it? I don't know. I don't know. The pictures are cheap, and
they are easy, and they cost the audience nothing, no feeling of the
heart, no appreciation of the spirit, cost them nothing of these.
And so they like them, and they don't like us, because they must
_feel_ the things we do, from the heart, and appreciate them from
the spirit. There!"

"And they don't want to appreciate and to feel?" said Mr. May.

"No. They don't want. They want it all through the eye, and
finished--so! Just curiosity, impertinent curiosity. That's all. In
all countries, the same. And so--in ten years' time--no more
Kishwegin at all."

"No. Then what future have you?" said Mr. May gloomily.

"I may be dead--who knows. If not, I shall have my little apartment
in Lausanne, or in Bellizona, and I shall be a bourgeoise once more,
and the good Catholic which I am."

"Which I am also," said Mr. May.

"So! Are you? An American Catholic?"

"Well--English--Irish--American."

"So!"

Mr. May never felt more gloomy in his life than he did that day.
Where, finally, was he to rest his troubled head?

There was not all peace in the Natcha-Kee-Tawara group either. For
Thursday, there was to be a change of program--"Kishwegin's
Wedding--" (with the white prisoner, be if said)--was to take the
place of the previous scene. Max of course was the director of the
rehearsal. Madame would not come near the theatre when she herself
was not to be acting.

Though very quiet and unobtrusive as a rule, Max could suddenly
assume an air of _hauteur_ and overbearing which was really very
annoying. Geoffrey always fumed under it. But Ciccio it put into
unholy, ungovernable tempers. For Max, suddenly, would reveal his
contempt of the Eyetalian, as he called Ciccio, using the Cockney
word.

"Bah! quelle tete de veau," said Max, suddenly contemptuous and
angry because Ciccio, who really was slow at taking in the things
said to him, had