Rosa Campbell Praed

“ As for Beatrice herself, she lived in her part. She was no longer Beatrice Brett; she was the Duchess of Malfi. She was not the young American actress about to make an ambitious venture which should raise her to giddy heights of success, or send her tottering down to join the crowd of failures. She was not the Beatrice who lay on the sofa in her little study, and looked out on the trees in Regent's Park. She was not the Beatrice who paced the boards of the Dionysion, or waited at the wings for her cue, or stood patiently under the hands of designer and dressmaker. ”

“ Once she paid a visit to Monte Carlo, and she described the galerie behind the rows of players invisible to everybody but herself. These people were the spirits of suicides mostly; and some had their throats gaping, and some had part of their faces and heads blown away, and were bespattered with blood, and some had the marks of strangulation, and others were only greedy and excited with the passion for play. They hang on the croupier's call as eager and as fascinated as the living themselves, and would stretch out their hands gloatingly over the gold. ”

“ Still he noticed that there were two subjects which were always obtruding themselves in her conversation—so-called occultism and Maddox Challis. "He is the only person in the world that I am afraid of," she said once, "and I am afraid of him because he knows me too well. Don't misunderstand me," she added laughing, as Lendon looked at her, perplexed as to her meaning; "I don't want to convey in a roundabout fashion that I am a secret murderess, and that I have a mysterious crime on my conscience of which Maddox Challis only possesses the key. ”

“ Lendon. I know that there are hundreds of millions of more estimable persons; but I am not uninteresting, even to myself. I shouldn't like to give up my own identity. With all my faults and follies, and God knows they are numerous enough to wreck a dozen lives, I find myself bon camarade. We have gone through a good deal together, this Agnes Adrian and I; we should not like to part company. Mr. Lendon," she added suddenly, not waiting for him to reply; "why do we always get upon horrors? ”

“ Well, who would play at Monte Carlo if they could see what that little old lady saw? Maddox Challis is like that. He sees within and without, but he is not simple and unsophisticated like the little old lady. He knows the power he possesses, and he says nothing. ”

“ He never plays those pranks without a sufficient motive; but he cannot bear any allusion to that story, and will answer no questions about it. The man to whom he appeared was a changed person from that day. He had been a materialist before; now he has entered the Roman Catholic Church, and joins mortification of the flesh to the highest mysticism."
"Are you a Catholic?" asked Lendon, abruptly.
"No. Frankly, I am nothing. I own no God but nature, and I want nothing higher." There was a short silence, during which Countess Adrian examined a sketch lying on an easel near her. ”

“ No one would hire me as a servant. There was nothing but to be a barmaid or an actress. Well, luckily for me, an old man who had been in love with me died and left me a fortune, and so I was spared the necessity of earning my bread. ”

“ In his own mind, and even hitherto in speaking of her to Beatrice, he had maintained that she was a wronged and maligned woman. But a man may entertain all these sentiments about a certain woman and yet be unwilling that she should exercise an unaccountable influence over the one woman dearest to him. ”

“ Theatrical people are famous for superstitions, and the fact was commented upon direfully that the stage cat—that friendly familiar, without which it is supposed that no theatre can be lucky—had died during the first week of the rehearsals. ”

“ They have a terrible power, those eyes; and I always avoid that old lady. The odd thing is that she is quite simple and unsophisticated, and doesn't seem in the least to realise what a terror she might be to some people, and what a help to others. ”

“ Perhaps they might be good spirits who prompt you to good actions and sweet and gracious thoughts, or they might be very evil ones—and then she would turn very pale and shudder, and go away from you as soon as she could without actual rudeness. ”

“ They would whisper in the ear of some player, and the payer seemed to be obeying the invisible prompters, who would often laugh with the most execrable grimaces when the stake was raked in, as though they were glad of the ill-fortune, and they would stoop and whisper again and again, till the player, goaded to desperation, doubled and doubled, and lost and lost. ”

“ He bides his time. He only looks at you, and pays courtly compliments, and lets you know by his eyes that he knows. I dare say that, while he is smoking cigarettes, at this present moment, in the courtyard of his house at Damascus, he is perfectly well aware that you and I are talking about him here."
Lendon felt an odd reluctance to tell Beatrice of that conversation with Countess Adrian which had reference to herself, and of Countess Adrian's promise that she would not again experimentalize, as she had done, upon the memorable occasion at Mrs. ”