Mrs. Bergmann felt sorry that she had not taken decisive measures to
prevent the stranger's intrusion.

"Shakespeare wrote his own plays," said Sciarra, "and I don't know if he
knew law, but he knew _le coeur de la femme_. Cleopatra bids her slave
find out the colour of Octavia's hair; that is just what my wife, my
Angelica, would do if I were to marry some one in London while she was
at Rome."

"Mr. Gladstone used to say," broke in Lockton, "that Dante was inferior
to Shakespeare, because he was too great an optimist."

"Dante was not an optimist," said Sciarra, "about the future life of
politicians. But I think they were both of them pessimists about man and
both optimists about God."

"Shakespeare," began Blenheim; but he was interrupted by Mrs. Duncan who
cried out:--

"I wish he were alive now and would write me a part, a real woman's
part. The women have so little to do in Shakespeare's plays. There's
Juliet; but one can't play Juliet till one's forty, and then one's too
old to look fourteen. There's Lady Macbeth; but she's got nothing to
do except walk in her sleep and say, 'Out, damned spot!' There were not
actresses in his days, and of course it was no use writing a woman's
part for a boy."

"You should have been born in France," said Faubourg, "Racine's women
are created for you to play."