ways in which he meant to show it. He talked of them almost to no
one else--she spoiled him for other listeners. With her fair bloom
and her quiet grace she was indeed an ideal public, and if she had
ever confided to him that she would have liked to scribble (she had
in fact not mentioned it to a creature), he would have been in a
perfect position for asking her why a woman whose face had so much
expression should not have felt that she achieved. How in the world
could she express better? There was less than that in Shakespeare
and Beethoven. She had never been more generous than when, in
compliance with her invitation, which I have recorded, he brought his
play to read to her. He had spoken of it to her before, and one dark
November afternoon, when her red fireside was more than ever an
escape from the place and the season, he had broken out as he came
in--"I've done it, I've done it!" She made him tell her all about
it--she took an interest really minute and asked questions
delightfully apt. She had spoken from the first as if he were on the
point of being acted, making him jump, with her participation, all
sorts of dreary intervals. She liked the theatre as she liked all
the arts of expression, and he had known her to go all the way to
Paris for a particular performance. Once he had gone with her--the
time she took that stupid Mrs. Mostyn. She had been struck, when he
sketched it, with the subject of his drama, and had spoken words that
helped him to believe in it. As soon as he had rung down his curtain
on the last act he rushed off to see her, but after that he kept the
thing for repeated last touches. Finally, on Christmas day, by
arrangement, she sat there and listened to it. It was in three acts
and in prose, but rather of the romantic order, though dealing with
contemporary English life, and he fondly believed that it showed the
hand if not of the master, at least of the prize pupil.