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“They do not give as we foreign women,” she said. “They take. And so it is that they grow rich—in beauty—and are forever young.”

“But emotionally?” prompted the interviewer.

“I have said—they are forever young. Emotionally—they are children always.”

This statement was followed by indignant protest from American actresses and the sort of heated dramatic controversy that delighted the soul of Oswald Kane.

She received all reporters in her dressing-room at the theater. If any one save Kane knew where she lived, no one had ever crossed the sacred threshold.

“I live two lives quite a-part,” she said. “One in my home which is for me a-lone. And one in the theater which is for my dear public.”

Mr.Kane amplified this by stating that her hours at home were spent in study. Others intimated that her hours at home were given to some mysterious romance.

In spite of which she was not a hermit. Society, with ssss1 a capitalS, sought the privilege of entertaining her. Occasionally she accepted a dinner invitation—never on any day but Sunday, however—or permitted a tea to be given in her honor. She went nowhere during the week.