A mighty rushing sound, as of a Niagara of moire antique, heralded the approach of the lady in question, who bounced into the green-room, and swept past Mr. Desmond with the air of a Semiramis in high-heeled boots. She was a tall stalwart personage of about thirty-five years of age, and she was as handsome as rouge, pearl-powder, painted lips, painted nostrils, painted eyelids, painted eyebrows, and a liberal supply of false hair could make her. The share that nature had in her beauty was limited to a pair of fierce black eyes, which might have been sufficiently large and lustrous without the aid of Indian ink or belladonna; and the outline of a figure which the masculine critic usually denominates “fine.” Mauve moire antique, a white-lace burnous, and a bonnet from the Burlington Arcade, did the rest; and the general result was a very resplendent creature, of a type which has become too familiar to the eyes of English citizens and citizenesses in this latter half of the nineteenth century. Towards this lady Mr. de Mortemar’s manner exhibited a deference which was somewhat surprising, and not a little displeasing, to the editor of the _Areopagus_. “Good evening, sir,” said the provincial Roscius, on perceiving Laurence. “I am gratified to find you again a witness of our performance. You will have observed a wide difference of style between my Claude and my Stranger. Those two characters mark, if I may be permitted the expression, the opposite poles of my dramatic sphere. Claude, the lover, belongs to my torrid zone; Steinforth, the outraged husband, locked in the icy armour of his pride--snow-bound, as I may say, by the bitter drift of woe--is my polar region. I venture to hope that you were struck by the different phases of passion in my silent recognition of Mrs. Haller. My provincial critics have been good enough to assure me that the whole gamut of emotional feeling is run by me in that situation.” “I fear that I am scarcely qualified to form a judgment upon your acting, Mr. de Mortemar,” the editor replied, very coldly; “I was not very attentive to the performance this evening. I came to the theatre only to see Miss Al--Miss St. Albans--whose father is one of my earliest friends. I am sorry to find that she has reason to consider herself somewhat ill-used by your stage-manager in the matter of a certain caste of the _Hunchback_.” The attention of Miss Ida Courtenay had, until this moment, been occupied by some official documents stuck against a little board upon the mantelpiece; but on hearing these words pronounced in a very audible manner by Mr. Desmond, she turned abruptly, and glared at that gentleman with all the ferocity of which her fine eyes were capable. She lived among people with whom this kind of glare generally proved effective, and she expected to subjugate Mr. Desmond as easily as it was her wont to subjugate the weak-minded individuals with whom she consorted.