_pis-aller,_ because the _Calliope_ could not receive them. And yet he
thought he noticed in the common talk about her that criticism of her as
an actress was a good deal more general than it had been at the beginning
of the season. The little knot of persons with an opinion and reasons for
it had gradually influenced the larger public. Nevertheless, there was no
abatement whatever of the popular desire to see her, whether on the stage
or in society. The _engouement_ for her personally, for her beauty, and
her fresh pure womanliness, showed no signs of yielding, and would hold
out, Kendal thought, for some time, against a much stronger current of
depreciation on the intellectual side than had as yet set in.

He laid down the Monday paper with a smile of self-scorn and muttered: 'I
should like to know how much she remembers by this time of the prig who
lectured to her in Nuneham woods a week ago!' In the evening his _Pall
Mall Gazette_ told him that Miss Bretherton had crossed the channel that
morning, _en route_ for Paris and Venice. He fell to calculating the
weeks which must elapse before his sister would be in Venice, and before
he could hear of any meeting between her and the Bretherton party, and
wound up his calculations by deciding that London was already hot and
would soon be empty, and that, as soon as he could gather together
certain books he was in want of, he would carry them and his proofs down
into Surrey, refuse all invitations to country houses, and devote himself
to his work.

Before he left he paid a farewell call to Mrs. Stuart, who gave him full
and enthusiastic accounts of Isabel Bretherton's last night, and informed
him that her brother talked of following the Brethertons to Venice some
time in August.

'Albert,' she said, speaking of her husband, 'declares that he cannot get