“I play chess, draughts, and _nain jaune_. I don’t care much for cards, but sometimes I play Chinese bezique, because it is very long, and passes the time. I am a very bad player, and I hate to lose--it enrages me. This is ridiculous and silly, I know, but there it is! I can’t bear to be beaten!” “What do you think of American scenery?” “I don’t like it. Everything is so big--too big in fact--nothing but mountains with tops that you can’t see; steppes that stretch away to the horizon, immense trees and plants, and skies that look ten times as high as ours. All these things have a supernatural effect, and when I come back Paris looks like a dear little trinket in a miniature case.” [Illustration: In _La Dame de Chalant_.] “And the public?” “I can’t call them anything but delightful! They adore me! In the principal American cities, every one of a certain class understands French, and as the prices are, of course, very high, the audience is largely composed of this class. In some places I have regular first-night audiences, who note the smallest effects and shades of diction.” “What about those who don’t understand French?” “They buy books containing the French text with the translation opposite. This has a curious effect; everybody turns over at the same time, and it sounds like a shower of rain a second long.” All these details, and the manner in which they were told, were very amusing. I could have gone on asking questions all night, but as it was becoming late I hastened to put my most inquisitive queries. “How much baggage do you take?” “About eighty trunks.” “Eighty?” She laughed at my astonishment. “Yes,” she added, “there are at least forty-five cases of theatrical costumes. We take nearly two hundred and fifty pairs of shoes, and they fill one entire trunk. There is one for linen, one for flowers, and one for perfumery, and others for my dresses, hats, etc. I really don’t know how my maid manages to find what she wants!” [Illustration: As Pauline Blanchard.] [Illustration: Mme. Sarah Bernhardt and the painter Clairin.] “Would it be indiscreet to ask what payment you are to receive?” “Not at all; there is no mystery about it. I get £120 for every performance, plus one-third of the receipts, which makes on the average a total of £240. Oh! I was forgetting: I am allowed £40 a week for hotel expenses.”