the physical side, seemed to him to have no future in her. 'It will be
checked,' he said to himself, 'by her beauty and all that flows from it.
She must come to depend more and more on the physical charm, and on that
only. The whole pressure of her success is and will be that way.'

Miss Bretherton's inadequacy, indeed, became more and more visible as the
play was gradually and finely worked up to its climax in the last act. In
the final scene of all, the Prince, who by a series of accidents has
discovered the Countess Hilda's plans, lies in wait for her in the
armoury, where he has reason to know she means to try the effect of a
third and last apparition upon the Princess. She appears; he suddenly
confronts her; and, dragging her forward, unveils before himself and the
Princess the death-like features of his old love. Recovering from the
shock of detection, the Countess pours out upon them both a fury of
jealous passion, sinking by degrees into a pathetic, trance-like
invocation of the past, under the spell of which the Prince's anger melts
away, and the little Princess's terror and excitement change into eager
pity. Then, when she sees him almost reconquered, and her rival weeping
beside her, she takes the poison phial from her breast, drinks it, and
dies in the arms of the man for whose sake she has sacrificed beauty,
character, and life itself.

A great actress could hardly have wished for a better opportunity. The
scene was so obviously beyond Miss Bretherton's resources that even the
enthusiastic house, Kendal fancied, cooled down during the progress of
it. There were signs of restlessness, there was even a little talking in
some of the back rows, and at no time during the scene was there any of
that breathless absorption in what was passing on the stage which the
dramatic material itself amply deserved.