Then, when she sees him almost reconquered, and her rival weeping beside her, she takes the poison phial from her breast, drinks it, and dies in the arms of the man for whose sake she has sacrificed beauty, character, and life itself.
A great actress could hardly have wished for a better opportunity.

The scene was so obviously beyond Miss Bretherton's resources that even the enthusiastic house, Kendal fancied, cooled down during the progress of it.

There were signs of restlessness, there was even a little talking in some of the back rows, and at no time during the scene was there any of that breathless absorption in what was passing on the stage which the dramatic material itself amply deserved.
'I don't think this will last very long,' said Kendal in Wallace's ear.
'There is something tragic in a popularity like this; it rests on something unsound, and one feels that disaster is not far off.

The whole thing impresses me most painfully.

She has some capacity, of course; if only the conditions had been different--if she had been born within a hundred miles of the Paris Conservatoire, if her youth had been passed in a society of more intellectual weight,--but, as it is, this very applause is ominous, for the beauty must go sooner or later, and there is nothing else.' 'You remember Desforets in this same theatre last year in _Adrienne Lecouvreur_ ?' said Wallace.