'"No, we won't throw stones at her! She _is_ great, I know, but that other feeling is so strong in me. I care for my art; it seems to me grand, magnificent!--but I think I care still more for making people feel it is work a good woman can do, for holding my own in it, and asserting myself against the people who behave as if all actresses had done the things that Madame Desforêts has done. Don't think me narrow and jealous. I should hate you and the Stuarts to think that of me. You have all been so kind to me--such good, real friends! I shall never forget this day--Oh! look, there is the carriage standing up there. I wish it was the morning and not the evening, and that it might all come again! I hate the thought of London and that hot theatre to-morrow night. Oh, my primroses! What a wretch I am! I've lost them nearly all. Look, just that bunch over there, Mr. Kendal, before we leave the common." 'I sprang to get them for her, and brought back a quantity. She took them in her hand--how unlike other women she is after all, in spite of her hatred of Bohemia!--and, raising them to her lips, she waved a farewell through them to the great common lying behind us in the evening sun. "How beautiful! how beautiful! This English country is so kind, so friendly! It has gone to my heart. Good-night, you wonderful place!" 'She had conquered me altogether. It was done so warmly--with such a winning, spontaneous charm. I cannot say what pleasure I got out of those primroses lying in her soft ungloved hand all the way home. Henceforward, I feel she may make what judgments and draw what lines she pleases; she won't change me, and I have some hopes of modifying her; but I am not very likely to feel annoyance towards her again. She is like some frank, beautiful, high-spirited child playing a game she only half understands. I wish she understood it better. I should like to help her to understand it--but I won't quarrel with her, even in my thoughts, any more! * * * * * 'On looking over this letter it seems to me that if you were not you, and I were not I, you might with some plausibility accuse me of being--what?--in love with Miss Bretherton? But you know me too well. You know I am one of the old-fashioned people who believe in community of interests--in belonging to the same world. When I come coolly to think about it, I can hardly imagine two worlds, whether outwardly or inwardly, more wide apart than mine and Miss Bretherton's.' CHAPTER V