"I think Desdemona is the most pathetic of Shakespeare's heroines," said
Lady Hyacinth; "don't you think so, Mr. Hall?"

"It's easy enough to make a figure pathetic, who is strangled by a
nigger," answered Hall. "Now if Desdemona had been a negress Shakespeare
would have started fair."

"If only Shakespeare had lived later," sighed Willmott, "and understood
the condition of the modern stage, he would have written quite
differently."

"If Shakespeare had lived now he would have written novels," said
Faubourg.

"Yes," said Mrs. Baldwin, "I feel sure you are right there."

"If Shakespeare had lived now," said Sciarra to Mrs. Bergmann, "we
shouldn't notice his existence; he would be just un monsieur comme tout
le monde--like that monsieur sitting next to Faubourg," he added in a
low voice.

"The problem about Shakespeare," broke in Hall, "is not how he wrote
his plays. I could teach a poodle to do that in half an hour. But the
problem is--What made him leave off writing just when he was beginning
to know how to do it? It is as if I had left off writing plays ten years
ago."

"Perhaps," said the stranger, hesitatingly and modestly, "he had made
enough money by writing plays to retire on his earnings and live in the