He listened with patience to all this and then got up and said:
"Now I must go; I shall not see you again."
Something in his voice made me look at him.
"You aren't ill, are you?" I asked with apprehension.
To which he replied:
"I am going into the country."
I never saw him again and, when I heard of his death, I regretted
I had not seen him oftener.
CHAPTER VIII
THE BEAUTIFUL KATE VAUGHAN--COACHED BY COQUELIN IN MOLIERE--
ROSEBERY'S POPULARITY AND ELOQUENCE--CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN BON-VIVANT
AND BOULEVARDIER--BALFOUR'S MOT; HIS CHARM AND WIT; HIS TASTES AND
PREFERENCES; HIS RELIGIOUS SPECULATION
The next Prime Minister, whom I knew better than either Mr.
Gladstone or Lord Salisbury, was Lord Rosebery.
When I was a little girl, my mother took us to stay at Thomas's
Hotel, Berkeley Square, to have a course of dancing lessons from
the fashionable and famous M. d'Egville. These lessons put me in
high spirits, because my master told me I could always make a
living on the stage. His remarks were justified by a higher
authority ten years later: the beautiful Kate Vaughan of the
Gaiety Theatre.
I made her acquaintance in this way: I was a good amateur actress
and with the help of Miss Annie Schletter, a friend of mine who is
on the English stage now, I thought we might act Moliere's
Precieuses ridicules together for a charity matinee. Coquelin--the
finest actor of Moliere that ever lived--was performing in London
at the time and promised he would not only coach me in my part but
lend his whole company for our performance.
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