I don't want the money, and--'

'Yes, yes, I see,' said Kendal, thoughtfully; 'you don't want the money,
and you feel that she will ruin the play. It's a great bore certainly.'

'Well, you know, how could she help ruining it? She couldn't play the
part of Elvira--you remember the plot?--even decently. It's an extremely
difficult part. It would be superb--I think so, at least--in the hands
of an actress who really understood her business; but Miss Bretherton
will make it one long stagey scream, without any modulation, any shades,
any delicacy. It drives one wild to think of it. And yet how, in the
name of fortune, am I to get out of it?'

'You had thought,' said Kendal, 'I remember, of Mrs. Pearson for the
heroine.'

'Yes; I should have tried her. She is not first-rate, but at least she is
intelligent; she understands something of what you want in a part like
that. But for poor Isabel Bretherton, and those about her, the great
points in the play will be that she will have long speeches and be able
to wear "medieval" dresses! I don't suppose she ever heard of Aragon in
her life. Just imagine her playing a high-born Spanish woman of the
fifteenth century! Can't you see her?'

'Well, after all,' said Kendal, with a little laugh, 'I should see what
the public goes for mostly--that is to say, Isabel Bretherton in
effective costume. No, it would be a great failure--not a failure, of
course, in the ordinary sense. Her beauty, the medieval get-up, and the
romantic plot of the piece, would carry it through, and, as you say, you
would probably make a great deal by it. But, artistically, it would be a