The Path of a Star

, badly in want of repair, and bearing, sunk in one of them, a marble slab announcing "Residence with Board," she perceived the squalid attempt the place made at respectability, the servants in dirt

erself so unable to perceive its merits that it was almost a relief to see nothing of Miss Howe either; Hilda had gone to rehearsal, to the "dance-house" the servant said, eyeing the unusual landau. Alicia rolled back into streets with Christian names, distressed by an uncertainty as to whether her visit had been a disappointment or an escape. By the next day, however, she was well pulled together in favour of the former conclusion-sh

ed to conceal, unless it was her impression that Miss Howe's dress was cut a trifle too low in the neck, that she was almost too effective in that cream and yellow to be quite right. Alicia remembered afterwards to smile at it, that her first ten minutes of intercourse with Hilda Howe were dominated by a lively desire to set Celine at her-with such a foundation to work upon what could Celine not have done? She remembered her surprise, too, at the ordinary things Hilda said in that rich voice, even in the tempered drawing-room tones of which resided a hint of the seats

k of her head, her defences withdrawn, her eyes free and cont

id Alicia, "for the poss

in the meantime he and everybody else had forgotten about it. All but Salter. Salter re-created it on the original lines,

re. It's only Moselle." She felt quite direct and simple too in uttering her postulate. Her eyes had a fri

might easily have mistaken it to be insincere. It was part of her that she could swim in any current, and it was plea

y trade." Her voice softened the brusqueness of this; the way she said it gave it a

ure of them with your own body-your face and hands and voice-compare our plas

nd among the wineglasses. "No, I don't want any; please don't bother me!" to t

in their unimaginable stupidity, with failing to appreciate our lines, especially when they are Shakespeare's-with being unliterary. You might-good Heavens!-as well accuse a painter of not being a musician! Our business lies be

of Calcutta small talk. "But why do you say you are lightly esteemed? Surely

end. But I don't know why I say we are lightly esteemed, or why I dogmatise about it at all. I've done nothing-I've no right. In ten years perhaps-no, five-I'

ave succeeded-you

't legitimate drama," and Hilda smiled again in a way that coloured her unspoken reminiscence, to Alicia's eyes, in rose and

riticism contrasting in the queerest way with her hat. "Real ecclesiastical tyranny with pu

ess-she did not wait for a reply. With a courageous air which became her cha

dreads the chained slavery of London"-she hesitated before the audacity of adding, "the sordid hundred nigh

t I AM sure. I expect things of myself. I hold a kind of mortgage on my success; when I foreclose it will come, bringing the long, steady, grasping chase of money and fame, eyes fixed, never a day to live in, only to accomplish, every moment straddled with calculation, an end to all the byways where one finds the colour of the sun. The successful London actress, my dear-what existence has she? A straight flight across the Atlantic i

be some moments of s

gin to make you see the joys of a strolling player-they aren't much understood even in the profession-but there are so many, honestly, that London being at the top of the hill, I'm not panting up. My way of goin

licia asked. "Don't they make you sit

do in bursts of hilarity; she laughed freely, and as much as she wanted to, and it was as clear as possible that tights presented themselves quite preposterous

ey ARE atrocities," she said. "On their merits they ought to be cast out of even the suburbs of art and literature. But they help to make the atmosphere that gives us power to work, and if they d

Shall we smoke here," said Miss Li

-you really mustn't. Suppose it should mike you ill?" If Hilda felt any tinge o

her chin with delicate assertiveness

people. Honestly, have y

pprehension that it sounded amateurish to have counted them. "I t

Highness's neck. I suppose it is, but now and then I prefer to dispe

u are! Then we

her cigarette and watched A

now, and a kind of look of anxious mamma. And it gets into her eyes and chokes her, poor dear; but blow her, if she won

ia, putting her cigarette down to finish, as an aftertho

ht. After you with t

ar me, mine has gone out. Do you suppose anyt

d second finger for a glance at the gold letters at the end, leaned back and sent slow, luxurious spirals through her nostrils. It was rather, Ali

d enjoyably, from the delicate cloud in the air. Alicia flushed ever so little under it, but took it without wincing. She had less than

lmness; and there was an instant of silence, during wh

last year," said Alicia. She felt

Lindsay is very impressiona

side of them. Her whole face sounded a retreat, and her eyes we

unexpectedly, through the lightest loam, upon a hard surface. She looked attentivel

't rouse Calcutta. It is sunk in its torpid liver, and imagines itself superior. It's really funny, you kno

n was neutral, but, in spite of he

the queerest places. Yesterday he made me go with him to Wellesley Sq

sta

She stood poised on a coolie's basket in the midst of a rabble of all colours, like a fallen angel-I mean a dropped one. Light seemed to com

said, with a light smile. Her int

nly one doesn't stop and look; o

full of the unwillingness of Miss

finger-bowl, and waited. The pause grew so sti

it was I who introd

duced

r Three; she had come after my soul. I think she was disappointed," Hilda we

agine why you should regret it. He

I say so?" They were simple, amiable words, and their pertinence was very far from insistent; but Alicia's crude blush-everything else about her was so

ard at that moment, is embarrassing to consider. The card saved her the necessity. She looked at it blankly for an instant, and then exclaimed,

rable sense that the s

ongs to me." She pushed the finger-bowl across, and Alicia's discouraged remnant went into it. "Don't ask me to

?" he called from b

of the thin, high academic note, the prim finish of the inflectio

lerical gait, and it amused her to think that he

m to exclaim, "Whom have we here?" with upraised hands, but she had to acknowledge her flash of surprise at his self-possession. She noted, too, his grave bow when Alicia mentioned them to each other, that there was the habit of deference in it, yet that it waved her courteously, so to speak, out of his life. It was all as interesting as the materialisation of a quaint tradition, and she decided not, after all, to begin a trivial comedy for herself and Alicia, by asking the Reverend Stephen Arnold whether he objected to tobacco. She had an instant's circling choice of the person she would represent to this priest in the little intermingling half-hour of

said, and the negative, very readable in Arnold's silent bow,

r. Stanhope's Company. If you lived in Chowringhee you couldn't help knowing all about me, the letters are so large." The bounty of h

pertinent to the situation. Hilda felt herself-it was an odd sensation-too sunny upon the nooked, retiring current that flowed in him. He might have turned to the cool accustomed shadow that Alicia made, but she was aware that he did not, that he was struggling through her strangeness and his shyness for something to say to her. He stirred his coffee, and once or t

h, but his eyes strayed speculatively to the other end of the table, where, howeve

k's compulsory retirement into the world four times a year." She spoke with a kind

ponded, with his repressed smile. "You would get any numb

y and be given in marriage, and to go to all the variety entertainments. Think of the austere bliss of the return to the cloisters! All joy lies in a succes

or token of disapproval in Arnold's face. What she might have observed there, if she had been keen enough in vision, was a sligh

inger-ends; she buttoned it with the palm thrown up and outwa

!" Alici

dress the stage for the first act before six o'clock. And, after p

onstrous. Is the

ayers, odds and ends of people, mostly from the Antipodes. Don't confound our manners and customs

pers say it is to be The Offence

mateur. We couldn't possibly put it on without Mr. Bradley. He takes the part of"-Hild

t it?" Arnold asked; "Leslie Patullo's play? I knew him at Oxford.

tuations are really almost novel, in spite of all your centuries of preaching." She sent a disarming smile wit

week?" cri

tte de Giselle-Frank Golding'

as done with The Offence of Galile

a box, and there will be heaps o

qui

e Yardleys are coming

e to reward one. I think I shall be

ions of his Order than it usually did. He was fluent and direct; he allowed it to appear that he read more than his prayers; that his glance at the world ha

ys! It