Everybody was kind to her, though many were alarmed by the intent force with which she set about her work. Very often she had no energy left for conversation, and would then take refuge in a book, a volume of Meredith, or Bernard Shaw, Schopenhauer or Browning, who had been the poet of her first discovery of the world of books. That frightened off the young men, who were at first greatly taken with her charm. They were subdued themselves as everybody was, from the business manager down, but her silence chilled and alarmed them.... Except those she bought herself, she never saw a book in the theatre. At first, full of Charles's fierce denunciation of Sir Henry Butcher, she detested the man, who seemed to her like some monster who absorbed all the vitality of the rest and used it to inflate his egoism. He never spoke to her for some weeks, and she avoided meeting him, did not wish to speak to him, felt, indeed, that she was perhaps using him a little unfairly in turning his theatre to her own ends, forcing herself to accept it in order to make things easier for Charles, to whom she used to go with a most vivid caricature of Sir Henry at rehearsals. Until he appeared there was a complete languor upon the stage. The actors and actresses still had upon them the mood of breakfast-in-bed; some looked as though they were living in the day before yesterday and had given up all hope of catching up with the rest of the world; some of the men talked sport; all the women chattered scandal; some read their letters, others the telegrams by which their correspondence was conducted. In none was the slightest indication of preparedness for work, for the thoughts of all were obviously miles away from the theatre.... Stagehands moved noisily about. They, at least, were conscious of earning their living. Messages were brought in from the stage-door. Back cloths were let down: the fire-proof curtain descended slowly, and remained shutting out the vast and gloomy spaces of the auditorium, also a melancholy gray-haired lady who was the widow of the author of the melodrama in rehearsal. Sir Henry appeared with a bald-headed Frenchman, with a red ribbon in his button-hole, his secretary, carrying a shorthand notebook, and a stout, thick-set Jew, who waited obsequiously for the great actor to take further notice of him. Sir Henry talked volubly and laughed uproariously. He was very happy and he beamed round the stage at his company. The ladies said,-- 'Good-morning, Sir Henry.' The gentlemen said,-- 'Morning.' Sir Henry gesticulating violently turned away and began in French to tell a humorous story to which the Frenchman said, '_Oui, oui_,' and the Jew said, '_Oui, oui_,' while Clara, who could speak French as fluently as English, understood not a word of it; but this morning she liked Sir Henry because he was so happy and because he was so full of vitality.