"Look at the runs of Stephen Phillips’s plays!" "Yes.... I only reckon to know America." "Look at what Pilgrim’s made out of Shakespeare." "I thought you were talking about poetry," said Edward Henry too hastily. "And isn’t Shakespeare poetry?" Carlo Trent challenged. "Well, I suppose if you put it in that way, he _is_!" Edward Henry cautiously admitted, humbled. He was under the disadvantage of never having seen or read "Shakespeare." His sure instinct had always warned him against being drawn into "Shakespeare." "And has Miss Euclid ever done anything finer than Constance?" "I don’t know," Edward Henry pleaded. "Why--Miss Euclid in ’King John’--" "I never saw ’King John,’" said Edward Henry. "_Do you mean to say,_" expostulated Carlo Trent in italics, "_that you never saw Rose Euclid as Constance?_" And Edward Henry, shaking his abashed head, perceived that his life had been wasted. Carlo, for a few moments, grew reflective and softer. "It’s one of my earliest and most precious boyish memories," he murmured, as he examined the ceiling. "It must have been in eighteen--" Rose Euclid abandoned the ice with which she had just been served, and by a single gesture drew Carlo’s attention away from the ceiling and towards the fact that it would be clumsy on his part to indulge further in the chronology of her career. She began to blush again. Mr. Marrier, now back at the table after a successful expedition, beamed over his ice: "It was your ’Constance’ that led to your friendship with the Countess of Chell, wasn’t it, Ra-ose? You know," he turned to Edward Henry, "Miss Euclid and the countess are virry intimate." "Yes, I know," said Edward Henry. Rose Euclid continued to blush. Her agitated hand scratched the back of the chair behind her. "Even Sir John Pilgrim admits I can act Shakespeare," she said in a thick, mournful voice, looking at the cloth as she pronounced the august name of the head of the dramatic profession. "It may surprise you to know, Mr. Machin, that about a month ago, after he’d quarrelled with Selina Gregory, Sir John asked me if I’d care to star with him on his Shakespearean tour round the world next spring, and I said I would if he’d include Carlo’s poetical play, ’The Orient Pearl,’ and he wouldn’t! No, he wouldn’t! And now he’s got little Cora Pryde! She isn’t twenty-two, and she’s going to play Juliet! Can you imagine such a thing? As if a mere girl could play Juliet!" Carlo observed the mature actress with deep satisfaction, proud of her, and proud also of himself. "I wouldn’t go with Pilgrim now," exclaimed Rose passionately, "not if he went down on his knees tome!" "And nothing on earth would induce me to let him have ’The Orient Pearl’!" Carlo Trent asseverated with equal passion. "He’s lost that forever," he added grimly. "It won’t be he who’ll collar the profits out of that! It’ll just be ourselves!" "Not if he went down on his knees to me!" Rose was repeating to herself with fervency.