The Tragic Muse

VI.

[Continued.]

MRS. DALLOW leaned back against the lighted glass of the café, comfortable and beguiled, watching the passers, the opposite shops, the movement of the square in front of them. She talked about London, about the news written to her in her absence, about Cannes and the people she had seen there, about her poor sister-in-law and her numerous progeny, and two or three droll things that had happened at Versailles. She discoursed considerably about herself, mentioning certain things she meant to do on her return to town, her plans for the rest of the season. Her carriage came and stood there, and Nick asked if he should send it away; to which she said, “No, let it stand a bit.” She let it stand along time, and then she told him to dismiss it; they would walk home. She took his arm and they went along the boulevard, on the right hand side, to the Rue de la Paix, saying little to each other during the transit: and then they passed into the hotel and up to her rooms. All she had said on the way was that she was very tired of Paris. There was a shaded lamp in her salon, but the windows were open, and the light of the street, with its undisturbing murmur, as if everything ran on indiarubber, came up through the interstices of the balcony and made a vague glow and a flitting of shadows on the ceiling. Her maid appeared, busying herself a moment; and when she had gone out Julia said suddenly to her companion, “ Should you mind telling me what’s the matter with you ? ”

“ The matter with me ? ”

“ Don’t you want to stand ? ”

“ I ’ll do anything to oblige you.”

“ Why should you oblige me?”

“ Why, is n’t that the way people treat you ? ” asked Nick.

“ They treat me best when they are a little serious.”

“My dear Julia, it seems to me I’m serious enough. Surely it is n’t an occasion to be so very solemn, the idea of going down into a stodgy little country town and talking a lot of rot.”

“ Why do you call it 'rot ’ ? ”

“ Because I can think of no other name that, on the whole, describes it so well. You know the sort of thing. Come ! you’ve listened to enough of it, first and last. One blushes for it when one sees it in print, in the local papers. The local papers — ah, the thought of them makes me want to stay in Paris.”

“ If you don’t speak well, it’s your own fault: you know how to, perfectly. And you usually do.”

“ I always do, and that’s what I’m ashamed of. I ve got the cursed humbugging trick of it. I can turn it on, a fine flood of it, at the shortest notice. The better it is the worse it is, the kind is so inferior. It has nothing to do with the truth or the search for it; nothing to do with intelligence, or candor, or honor. It’s an appeal to everything that, for one’s self, one despises,” the young man went on — “to stupidity, to ignorance, to density, to the love of names and phrases, the love of hollow, idiotic words, of shutting the eyes tight and making a noise. Do men who respect each other, or themselves, talk to each other that way ? They know they would deserve kicking if they were to attempt it. A man would blush to say to himself, in the darkness of the night, the things he stands up on a platform, in the garish light of day, to stuff into the ears of a multitude whose intelligence he pretends that he esteems.” Nick Dormer stood at one of the windows, with his hands in his pockets. He had been looking out, but as his words followed each other faster he turned toward Mrs. Dallow, who had dropped upon a sofa, with her face to the window. She had given her jacket and gloves to her maid, but had kept on her bonnet; and she leaned forward a little as she sat, with her hands clasped together in her lap and her eyes upon her companion. The lamp, in a corner, was so thickly veiled that the room was in tempered obscurity, lighted almost equally from the street, from the brilliant shop-fronts opposite. “ Therefore, why be sapient and solemn about it, like an editorial in a newspaper ? ” Nick added, with a smile.

She continued to look at him for a moment after he had spoken ; then she said, “ If you don’t want to stand, you have only to say so. You need n’t give your reasons.”

“ It’s too kind of you to let me off that! And then I’m a tremendous fellow for reasons ; that’s my strong point, don’t you know ? I 've a lot more besides those I 've mentioned, done up and ready for delivery. The odd thing is that they don’t always govern my behavior. I rather think I do want to stand.”

“ Then what you said just now was a speech,” Mrs. Dallow rejoined.

“ A speech ? ”

“ The ' rot,’ the humbug of the hustings.”

“ No, those great truths remain, and a good many others. But an inner voice tells me I’m in for it. And it will be much more graceful to embrace this opportunity, accepting your coöperation, than to wait for some other and forfeit that advantage.”

“ I shall be very glad to help you, anywhere,” said Mrs. Dallow.

“ Thanks, awfully,” murmured the young man, still standing there with his hands in his pockets. “ You would do it best in your own place, and I have no right to deny myself such a help.”

Julia smiled at him for an instant. “I don’t do it badly.”

“ Ah, you ’re so political ! ”

“ Of course I am ; it’s the only decent thing to be. But I can only help you if you 'll help yourself. I can do a good deal, but I can’t do everything. If you ’ll work, I ’ll work with you ; but if you are going into it with your hands in your pockets, I 'll have nothing to do with you.” Nick instantly changed the position of these members and sank into a seat, with his elbows on his knees. " You ’re very clever, but you must really take a little trouble. Things don’t drop into people’s mouths.”

“ I ’ll try — I ’ll try. I have a great incentive,” Nick said.

“ Of course you have.”

“ My mother, my poor mother.” Mrs. Dallow made a slight exclamation, and he went on : " And of course, always, my father, dear man. My mother’s even more political than you.”

“ I dare say she is, and quite right! ” said Mrs. Dallow.

“ And she can’t tell me a bit more than you can what she thinks, what she believes, what she desires.”

“ Excuse me, I can tell you perfectly. There ’s one thing I always desire —to keep out a Tory.”

“ I see ; that’s a great philosophy.”

“ It will do very well. And I desire the good of the country. I’m not ashamed of that.”

“And can you give me an idea of what it is — the good of the country ? ”

“ I know perfectly what it is n’t. It is n’t what the Tories want to do.”

“ What do they want to do?”

“ Oh, it would take me long to tell you. All sorts of trash.”

“It would take you long, and it would take them longer! All they want to do is to prevent us from doing. On our side, we want to prevent them from preventing us. That’s about as clearly as we see it. So, on one side and the other, it ’s a beautiful, lucid, inspiring programme.”

“I don’t believe in you,” Mrs. Dallow replied to this, leaning back on her sofa.

“ I hope not, Julia, indeed! ” He paused a moment, still with his face toward her and his elbows on his knees ; then he pursued : “ You are a very accomplished woman and a very zealous one ; but you have n’t an idea, you know — to call an idea. What you mainly want is to be at the head of a political salon ; to Start one, to keep it up, to make it a success.”

“ Much you know me ! ” Julia exclaimed ; but he could see, through the dimness, that she had colored a little.

“ You ’ll have it, in time, but I won’t come to it,” Nick went on.

“ You can’t come less than you do.”

“ When I say you 'll have it, I mean you’ve already got it. That’s why I don’t come.”

“I don’t think you know what you mean,” said Mrs. Dallow. “ I have an idea that’s as good as any of yours, any of those you have treated me to this evening, it seems to me — the simple idea that one ought to do something for one’s country.”

“ Something, yes, but not anything, and then on two very particular conditions : one being that the country wants it, and the other that she is n’t a fool for wanting it — because countries are sometimes fools. However, there is one thing one can always do for them, which is not to be afraid.”

“ Afraid of what ? ”

Nick Dormer hesitated a moment, laughing; then he said. " I 'll tell you another time. It’s very well to talk so glibly of standing,” he added ; “ but it is n’t absolutely foreign to the question that I have n’t got any money.”

“What did you do before?” asked Mrs. Dallow.

“ The first time, my father paid.”

“ And the other time ? ”

“ Oh, Mr. Carteret.”

“ Your expenses won’t be at all large ; on the contrary,” said Julia.

“ They sha’n’t be ; I shall look out sharp for that. I shall have the great Tomlins.”

“ Of course; but, you know, I want you to do it well.” She paused an instant, and then: “ Of course you can send the bill to me.”

“ Thanks, awfully; you ’re tremendously kind. I should n’t think of that.” Nick Dormer got up as he said these words, and walked to the window again, his companion’s eyes resting upon him as he stood for a moment with his back to her. “ I shall manage it somehow,” he went on.

“ Mr. Carteret will be delighted,” said Julia.

“ I dare say, but I hate taking people’s money.”

“ That’s nonsense, when it’s for the country. Is n’t it for them ? ”

“When they get it back! ” Nick replied, turning round and looking for his hat. “It’s startlingly late; you must be tired.” Mrs. Dallow made no response to this, and he pursued his quest, successful only when he reached a duskier corner of the room, to which the hat had been relegated by his cousin’s maid. “ Mr. Carteret will expect so much, if he pays. And so would you.”

“ Yes, I ’m bound to say I should! ” And Mrs. Dallow emphasized this assertion by the way she rose erect. “If you ’re only going in to lose it, you had better stay out.”

“ How can I lose it, with you ? ” the young man asked, smiling. She uttered a word, impatiently but indistinguishably, and he continued : “ And even if I do, it will have been immense fun.”

“It is immense fun,” said Julia. “ But the best fun is to win. If you don’t — ”

“ If I don’t ? ” he repeated, as she hesitated.

“ I 'll never speak to you again.”

“ How much you expect, even when you don’t pay ! ”

Mrs. Dallow’s rejoinder was a justification of this remark, embodying as it did the fact that if they should receive on the morrow certain information on which she believed herself entitled to count, information tending to show that the Tories meant to fight the seat hard, not to lose it again, she should look to him to be in the field as early as herself. Sunday was a lost day ; she should leave Paris on Monday.

“ Oh, they ’ll fight it hard ; they ’ll put up Trevanion,” said Nick, smoothing his hat. “ They ’ll all come down — all that can get away. And Trevanion has a very handsome wife.”

“ She is not so handsome as your cousin,” Mrs. Dallow hazarded.

“ Oh dear, no — a cousin sooner than a wife, any day ! ” Nick laughed as soon as he had said this, as if the speech had an awkward side ; but the reparation, perhaps, scarcely mended it, the exaggerated mock-meekness with which he added, “ I ’ll do any blessed thing you tell me.”

“ Come here to-morrow, then, as early as ten.” She turned round, moving to the door with him; but before they reached it she demanded, abruptly, “ Pray, is n’t a gentleman to do anything, to be anything ? ”

“ To be anything ? ”

“ If he does n’t aspire to serve the state.”

“ To make his political fortune, do you mean? Oh, bless me, yes, there are other things.”

“ What other things, that can compare with that ? ”

“ Well, I, for instance, I 'm very fond of the arts.”

“ Of the arts ? ”

“ Did you never hear of them ? I’m awfully fond of painting.”

At this Mrs. Dallow stopped short, and her fine gray eyes had for a moment the air of being set further forward in her head. “Don’t be odious! Good-night,” she said, turning away and leaving him to go.

VII.

Peter Sherringham, the next day, reminded Nick that he had promised to be present with him at Madame Carré’s interview with the ladies introduced to her by Gabriel Nash ; and in the afternoon, in accordance with this arrangement, the two men took their way to the Rue de Constantinople. They found Mr. Nash and his friends in the small beflounced drawing-room of the old actress, who, as they learned, had sent in a request for ten minutes’ grace, having been detained at a lesson — a rehearsal of a comédie de salon, to be given, for a charity, by a fine lady, at which she had consented to be present as an adviser. Mrs. Rooth sat on a black satin sofa, with her daughter beside her, and Gabriel Nash wandered about the room, looking at the votive offerings which converted the little paneled box, decorated in sallow white and gold, into a theatrical museum: the presents, the portraits, the wreaths, the diadems, the letters, framed and glazed, the trophies and tributes and relics collected by Madame Carré during half a century of renown. The profusion of this testimony was hardly more striking than the confession of something missed, something hushed, which seemed to rise from it all and make it melancholy, like a reference to clappings which, in the nature of things, could now only be present as a silence; so that if the place was full of history, it was the form without the fact, or at the most a redundancy of the one to a pinch of the other — the history of a mask, of a squeak, a record of movements in the air.

Some of the objects exhibited by the distinguished artist, her early portraits, in lithograph or miniature, represented the costume and embodied the manner of a period so remote that Nick Dormer, as he glanced at them, felt a quickened curiosity to look at the woman who reconciled being alive to-day with having been alive so long ago. Peter Sherringham already knew how she managed this miracle, but every visit he paid to her added to his amused, charmed sense that it was a miracle, that his extraordinary old friend had seen things that he should never, never see. Those were just the things he wanted to see most, and her duration, her survival, cheated him agreeably and helped him a little to guess them. His appreciation of the actor’s art was so systematic that it had an antiquarian side, and at the risk of representing him as attached to a futility it must be said that he had, as yet, hardly known a keener regret for anything than for the loss of that antecedent world, and, in particular, for his having come too late for the great comédienne, the light of the French stage in the early years of the century, of whose example and instruction Madame Carré had had the inestimable benefit. She had often described to him her rare predecessor, straight from whose hands she had received her most celebrated parts, and of whom her own manner was often a religious imitation ; but her descriptions troubled him more than they consoled, only confirming his theory, to which so much of his observation had already ministered, that the actor’s art, in general, is going down and down, descending a slope with abysses of vulgarity at its foot, after having reached its perfection, more than fifty years ago, in the talent of the lady in question. He would have liked to dwell for an hour beneath the meridian.

Gabriel Nash introduced the newcomers to his companions; but the younger of the two ladies gave no sign of lending herself to this transaction. The girl was very white ; she huddled there, silent and rigid, frightened to death, staring, expressionless. If Bridget Dormer had seen her at this moment, she might have felt avenged for the discomfiture she had suffered the day before, at the Salon, under the challenging eyes of Maud Vavasour. It was plain at the present hour, that Miss Rooth would have run away, had she not felt that the persons present would prevent her escape. Her aspect made Nick Dormer feel as if the little temple of art in which they were collected had been the waiting-room of a dentist. Sherringham had seen a great many nervous girls, trembling before the same ordeal, and he liked to be kind to them, to say things that would help them to do themselves justice. The probability, in a given case, was almost overwhelmingly in favor of their having any other talent one could think of in a higher degree than the dramatic ; but he could rarely forbear to interpose, even as against his conscience, to keep the occasion from being too cruel. There were occasions indeed that could scarcely be too cruel to punish properly certain examples of presumptuous ineptitude. He remembered what Mr. Nash had said about this poor creature, and perceived that though she might be inept she was now anything but presumptuous. Gabriel fell to talking with Nick Dormer, and Peter addressed himself to Mrs. Rooth. There was no use, as yet, in saying anything to the girl ; she was too seared even to hear. Mrs. Rooth, with her shawl off her back, nestled against her daughter, putting out her hand to take one of Miriam ’s, soothingly. She had pretty, silly, near-sighted eyes, a long, thin nose and an upper lip which projected over the under as an ornamental cornice rests on its support. " So much depends — really everything! " she said in answer to some sociable observation of Sherringham’s. “It’s either this,” and she rolled her eyes expressively about the room, “ or it’s — I don’t know what! ”

“ Perhaps we 're too many,” Peter hazarded, to her daughter. “ But really, you 11 find, after you fairly begin, that you ’ll do better for four or five.”

Before she answered she turned her head and lifted her fine eyes. The next instant he saw they were full of tears. The word she spoke, however, though uttered in a deep, serious tone, had not the note of sensibility : “ Oh, I don’t care for you! ” He laughed, at this, declared it was very well said, and that if she could give Madame Carré such a specimen as that— The actress came in before he had finished his phrase, and he observed the way the girl slowly got up to meet her, hanging her head a little and looking at her from under her brows. There was no expression in her face — only a kind of vacancy of terror, which had not even the merit of being fine of its kind, for it seemed stupid and superstitious. Yet the head was good, he perceived at the same moment; it was strong and salient and made to tell at a distance. Madame Carré scarcely noticed her at first, greeting her only in her order, with the others, and pointing to seats, composing the circle with smiles and gestures, as if they were all before the prompter’s box. The old actress presented herself to a casual glance as a red-faced woman in a wig, with beady eyes, a hooked nose and pretty hands ; but Nick Dormer, who had a perception of physiognomy, speedily observed that these free characteristics included a great deal of delicate detail — an eyebrow, a nostril, a flitting of expressions, as if a multitude of little facial wires were pulled from within. This accomplished artist had in particular a mouth which was visibly a rare instrument, a pair of lips whose curves and fine corners spoke of a lifetime of “ points ” unerringly made and verses exquisitely spoken, helping to explain the purity of the sound that issued from them. Her whole countenance had the look of long service — of a thing infinitely worn and used, drawn and stretched to excess, with its elasticity overdone and its springs relaxed, yet religiously preserved and kept in repair, like an old valuable time-piece, which might have quivered and rumbled, but could be trusted to strike the hour. At the first words she spoke Gabriel Nash exclaimed, endearingly, “Ah, la voix de Célimène! ” Célimène, who wore a big red flower on the summit of her crisp wig, had a very grand air, a toss of the head and sundry little majesties of manner ; in addition to which she was strange, almost grotesque, and to some people would have been even terrifying, capable of reappearing, with her hard eyes, as a queer vision in the darkness. She excused herself for having made the company wait, and mouthed and mimicked, in the drollest way, with intonations as fine as a flute, the performance and the pretensions of the belles dames to whom she had just been endeavoring to communicate a few of the rudiments. “ Mais celles-là, c’est une plaisanterie,” she went on, to Mrs. Rooth ; “ whereas you and your daughter, chère madame — I am sure that you are quite another matter.”

The girl had got rid of her tears, and was gazing at her, and Mrs. Rooth leaned forward and said, insinuatingly, “ She knows four languages.”

Madame Carré gave one of her histrionic stares, throwing back her head. “ That’s three too many. The thing is to do something with one of them.”

“ We are very much in earnest,” continued Mrs. Rooth, who spoke excellent French.

“ I 'm glad to hear it — il n’y a que ça. La tête est bien — the head is very good,” she said, looking at the girl. “ But let us see, my dear child, what you 've got in it!” The young lady was still powerless to speak ; she opened her lips, but nothing came. With the failure of this effort she turned her deep, sombre eyes upon the three men. “ Un beau regard — it carries well,” Madame Carré hinted. But even as she spoke Miss Rooth’s fine gaze was suffused again, and the next moment she had begun to weep. Nick Dormer sprung up ; he felt embarrassed and intrusive — there was such an indelicacy in sitting there to watch a poor girl’s struggle with timidity. There was a momentary confusion ; Mrs. Rooth’s tears began also to flow; Gabriel Nash began to laugh, addressing, however, at the same time, the friendliest, most familiar encouragement to his companions, and Peter Sherringham offered to retire with Nick on the spot, if their presence was oppressive to the young lady. But the agitation was over in a minute ; Madame Carré motioned Mrs. Rooth out of her seat, and took her place beside the girl, and Gabriel Nash explained judiciously to the other men that she would be worse if they were to go away. Her mother begged them to remain, “ so that there should be some English ; ” she spoke as if the old actress were an army of Frenchwomen. The girl was quickly better, and Madame Carré, on the sofa beside her, held her hand and emitted a perfect music of reassurance. “ The nerves, the nerves

— they are half of our trade. Have as many as you like, if you’ve got something else too. Voyons — do you know anything ? ”

“ I know some pieces.”

“ Some pieces of the répertoire ? ”

Miriam Rooth stared, as if she did n’t understand. “ I know some poetry.”

“ English, French, Italian, German,” said her mother.

Madame Carré gave Mrs. Rooth a look which expressed irritation at the recurrence of this announcement. " Does she wish to act in all those tongues ? I don’t know any polyglot parts.”

“ It is only to show you how she has been educated.”

“ Ah, chère madame, there is no education that matters ! I mean save the right one. Your daughter must have a language, like me, like ces messieurs.”

“ You see if I can speak French,” said the girl, smiling at her hostess. She appeared now almost to have collected herself.

“ You speak it in perfection.”

“ And English just as well,” said Miss Rooth.

“ You ought n’t to be an actress ; you ought to be a governess.”

“ Oh, don’t tell us that: it’s to escape from that! ” pleaded Mrs. Rooth.

“ I 'm very sure your daughter will escape from that,” Peter Sherringham remarked, benevolently.

“Oh, if you could help her!” the lady exclaimed, pathetically.

“ She is richly endowed with the qualities that strike the eye.” said Peter.

“ You are most kind, sir! ” Mrs. Rooth declared, gathering up her shawl.

“ She knows Célimène ; I have heard her do Célimène,” Gabriel Nash said to Madame Carré.

“ And she knows Juliet, and Lady Macbeth, and Cleopatra,” added Mrs. Rooth.

“Voyons, my dear child, do you wish to work for the French stage or for the English ? ” the old actress demanded.

“ Ours would have sore need of you. Miss Rooth, " Sherringham gallantly interposed.

“ Could you speak to any one in London — could you introduce her ? ” her mother eagerly asked.

“ Dear madam, I must hear her first, and hear what Madame Carré says.”

“ She has a voice of rare beauty, and I understand voices,” said Mrs. Rooth.

“Ah, then, if she has intelligence, she has every gift.”

“ She has a most poetic mind,” the old lady went on.

“ I should like to paint her portrait; she ’s made for that,” Nick Dormer ventured to observe to Mrs. Rooth ; partly because he was struck with the girl’s capacity as a model, partly to mitigate the crudity of inexpressive spectatorship.

“ So all the artists say. I have had three or four heads of her, if you would like to see them : she has been done in several styles. If you were to do her I am sure it would make her celebrated.

“ And me too,” said Nick, laughing.

“ It would indeed, a member of Parliament ! ” Nash declared.

“ Ah, I have the honor — ? ” murmured Mrs. Rooth, looking gratified and mystified.

Nick explained that she had no honor at all, and meanwhile Madame Carré had been questioning the girl. " Chère madame, I can do nothing with your daughter ; she knows too much ! ” she broke out. " It ’s a pity, because I like to catch them wild.”

“Oh, she’s wild enough, if that’s all ! And that ’s the very point, the question of where to try,” Mrs. Rooth went on. " Into what do I launch her — upon what stormy sea ? I 've thought of it so anxiously.”

“ Try here — try the French public: they 're the most serious,” said Gabriel Nash.

“ Ah, no, try the English : there ’s such an opening ! ” Sherringham exclaimed, in quick opposition.

“ Ah, it is n’t the public, dear gentlemen. It ’s the other people — it’s the life — it’s the moral atmosphere.”

“ Je ne connais qu’une scène — la nôire,” Madame Carré remarked. “ I have been informed there is no other.”

“ And very correctly,” said Gabriel Nash. " The theatre in our countries is puerile and barbarous.”

“ There is something to be done for it, and perhaps mademoiselle is the person to do it,”Sherringham suggested, contentiously.

“ Ah, but, en attendant, what can it do for her? ” Madame Carré asked.

“ Well, anything that I can help it to do.”said Peter Sherringham, who was more and more struck with the girl’s rich type. Miriam Rooth sat in silence, while this discussion went on, looking from one speaker to the other with a suspended, literal air.

“ Ah, if your part is marked out, I congratulate you, mademoiselle ! ” said the old actress, underlining the words as she had often underlined such words on the stage. She smiled with large permissiveness on the young aspirant, who appeared not to understand her. Her tone penetrated, however, to certain depths in the mother’s nature, adding another stir to agitated waters,

“ I feel the responsibility of what she shall find in the life, the standards, of the theatre,” Mrs. Rooth explained. " Where is the best tone — where are the highest standards ? that ’s what I ask,” the good lady continued, with a persistent candor which elicited a peal of unceremonious but sociable laughter from Gabriel Nash.

“The best tone — (qu’est-ce-que-c’est que ça ? ” Madame Carré demanded, in the finest manner of modern comedy.

“ We are very, very respectable,” Mrs. Rooth went on, smiling and achieving lightness, too. " What I want to do is to place my daughter where the conduct — and the picture of conduct, in which she should take part — would n’t be absolutely dreadful. Now, chère madame, how about all that; how about the conduct in the French theatre — the things she should see, the things she should hear ? ”

“ I don’t think I know what you are talking about. They are the things she may see and hear everywhere ; only they are better done, they are better said. The only conduct that concerns an actress, it seems to me, is her own, and the only way for her to behave herself is not to be a stick. I know no other conduct.”

“ But there are characters, there are situations, which I don’t think I should like to see her undertake.”

“ There are many, no doubt, which she would do well to leave alone! " laughed the Frenchwoman.

“I shouldn’t like to see her represent a very bad woman — a really bad one,” Mrs. Rooth serenely pursued.

“ Ah, in England, then, and in your theatre, every one is good ? Your plays must be ingenious ! ”

“ We have n’t any plays,” said Gabriel Nash.

“ People wll write them for Miss Rooth — it will be a new era,” Peter Sherringham rejoined, with wanton, or at any rate combative optimism.

“ Will you, sir — will you do something ? A sketch of some truly noble heroine ? ” the old lady asked, engagingly.

“ Oh, I know what you do with our pieces — to show your superior virtue ! ” Madame Carré broke in, before he had time to reply that he wrote nothing but diplomatic memoranda. “ Bad women ? Je n’ai joué que ça, madame. ' Really ’ bad ? I tried to make them real! ”

“ I can say L’Aventurière,” Miriam interrupted, in a cold voice which seemed to hint at a want of participation in the maternal solicitudes.

“ Confer on us the pleasure of hearing you, then. Madame Carré will give you the réplique,” said Peter Sherringham.

“ Certainly, my child; I can say it without the book,” Madame Carré responded. " Put yourself there — move that chair a little away.” She patted her young visitor, encouraging her to rise, and settled with her the scene they should take, while the three men sprang up to arrange a place for the performance. Miriam left her seat, and looked vaguely round her; then, having taken off her hat and given it to her mother, she stood on the designated spot, with her eyes on the ground. Abruptly, however, instead of beginning the scene, Madame Carré turned to the elder lady, with an air which showed that a rejoinder to this visitor’s remarks of a moment before had been gathering force in her breast.

“ You mix things up, chère madame, and I have it on my heart to tell you so. I believe it’s rather the case with you other English, and I have never been able to learn that either your morality or your talent is the gainer by it. To be too respectable to go where things are done best is, in my opinion, to be very vicious indeed; and to do them badly in order to preserve your virtue is to fall into a grossness more shocking than any other. To do them well is virtue enough, and not to make a mess of it the only respectability. That’s hard enough to merit Paradise. Everything else is base humbug! Voilà, chère madame, the answer I have for your scruples!

It’s admirable — admirable ; and I am glad my friend Dormer here has had the great advantage of hearing you utter it ! ” Gabriel Nash exclaimed, looking at Nick.

Nick thought it, in effect, a speech denoting an intelligence of the question, but he rather resented the idea that Nash should assume that it would strike him as a revelation ; and to show his familiarity with the line of thought it indicated, as well as to play his part appreciatively in the little circle, he remarked to Mrs. Rooth, as if they might take many things for granted, “ In other words, your daughter must find her safeguard in the artistic conscience.” But he had no sooner spoken than he was struck with the oddity of their discussing so publicly, and under the poor girl’s nose, the conditions which Miss Rooth might find the best for the preservation of her personal fame. However, the anomaly was light and unoppressive — the echoes of a public discussion of delicate questions seemed to linger so familiarly in the egotistical little room. Moreover, the heroine of the occasion evidently, now, was losing her embarrassment ; she was the priestess on the tripod, awaiting the afflatus and thinking only of that. Her bared head, of which she had changed the position, holding it erect, while her arms hung at her sides, was admirable ; and her eyes gazed straight out of the window, at the houses on the opposite side of the Rue de Constantinople.

Mrs. Rooth had listened to Madame Carré with startled, respectful attention, but Nick, observing her, was very sure that she had not understood her hostess’s little lesson. Yet this did not prevent her from exclaiming, in answer to him, “ Oh, a fine artistic life — what indeed is more beautiful ? ”

Peter Sherringham had said nothing; he was watching Miriam and her attitude. She wore a black dress, which fell in straight folds; her face, under her level brows, was pale and regular, with a strange, strong, tragic beauty. “ I don’t know what ’s in her,” he said to himself; “nothing, it would seem, from her persistent vacancy. But such a face as that, such a head, is a fortune ! ” Madame Carré made her commence, giving her the first line of the speech of Clorinde: “ Vous ne me fuyez pas, mon enfant, aujourd’hui.” But still the girl hesitated, and for an instant she appeared to make a vain, convulsive effort. In this effort she frowned portentously ; her low forehead overhung her eyes ; the eyes themselves, in shadow, stared, splendid and cold, and her hands clinched themselves at her sides. She looked austere and terrible, and during this moment she was an incarnation the vividness of which drew from Sherringham a stifled cry. " Elle est bien belle — ah, ça ! ” murmured the old actress; and in the pause which still preceded the issue of sound from the girl’s lips Peter turned to his kinsman, and said in a low tone, —

“ You must paint her just like that.”

“ Like that ? ”

“ As the Tragic Muse.”

She began to speak : a long, strong, colorless voice came quavering from her young throat. She delivered the lines of Clorinde, in the fine interview with Célie, in the third act of the play, with a rude monotony, and then, gaining confidence, with an effort at modulation which was not altogether successful, and which, evidently, she felt not to be so. Madame Carré sent back the ball without raising her hand, repeating the speeches of Célie, which her memory possessed from their having so often been addressed to her, and uttering the verses with soft, communicative art. So they went on through the scene, and when it was over it had not precisely been a triumph for Miriam Rooth. Sherringham forbore to look at Gabriel Nash, and Madame Carré said, “ I think you have a voice, ma fille, somewhere or other. We must try and put our hand on it.” Then she asked her what instruction she had had, and the girl, lifting her eyebrows, looked at her mother, while her mother prompted her.

“ Mrs. Delamere, in London ; she was once an ornament of the English stage. She gives lessons just to a very few; it ’s a great favor. Such a very nice person ! But above all. Signor Ruggieri — I think he taught us most.” Mrs. Rooth explained that this gentleman was an Italian tragedian, in Rome, who instructed Miriam in the proper manner of pronouncing his language, and also in the art of declaiming and gesticulating.

“ Gesticulating, I 'll warrant ! ” said their hostess. " Mrs. Delamere is doubtless an epitome of all the virtues, but I never heard of her. You travel too much.” Madame Carré went on : “that’s very amusing, but the way to study is to stay at home, to shut yourself up and play your scales.” Mrs. Rooth complained that they had no home to stay at ; in rejoinder to which the old actress exclaimed, “ Oh, you English, you are d’une légèreté à faire rougir. If you have n’t a home, you must make one. In our profession it ’s the first requisite.”

“ But where ?" That’s what I ask ! ” said Mrs. Rooth.

“Why not here ? ” Sherringham inquired.

“ Oh, here!” And the good lady shook her head, with a world of suggestions.

“ Come and live in London, and then I shall be able to paint your daughter,” Nick Dormer interposed.

“ Is that all that it will take, my dear fellow ?” asked Gabriel Nash.

“ Ah, London — it’s full of memories,”Mrs. Rooth went on. “ My father had a great house there — we always came up. But all that’s over.”

“ Study here, and go to London to appear, said Peter Sherringham, feeling frivolous even as he spoke.

“ To appear in French ? ”

“ No, in the language of Shakespeare.”

“ But we can’t study that here.”

“ M. Sherringham means that he will give you lessons,” Madame Carré explained. “ Let me not fail to say it — he’s an excellent critic.”

“ How do you know that — you who are perfect ?" asked Sherringham : an inquiry to which the answer was forestalled by the girl’s rousing herself to make it public that she could recite the Nights of Alfred de Musset.

“Diable ! ” said the actress, “ that’s more than I can ! But by all means give us a specimen.”

The girl again placed herself in position and rolled out a fragment of one of the splendid conversations of Musset’s poet with his muse — rolled it loudly and proudly, distributing it into very broad masses indeed. Madame Carré watched her at first, but after a few moments she shut her eyes, though the best part of the business was to look. Sherringham had supposed Miriam was abashed by the flatness of her first performance, but now he perceived that she could not have been conscious of this ; she was, much rather, exhilarated and emboldened. She made, as he mentally phrased it, a hash of the divine verses, which, in spite of certain sonorities and cadences, an evident effort to imitate a celebrated actress, a comrade of Madame Carré, whom she had heard declaim them, she produced as if she had but a dim idea of their meaning. When she had finished, Madame Carré passed no judgment; she only said, “ Perhaps you had better say something English.” She suggested some little piece of verse — some fable, if there were fables in English. She appeared but scantily surprised to hear that there were not — it was a language of which she expected so little. Mrs. Rooth said, “ She knows her Tennyson by heart. I think he is more beautiful than La Fontaine;” and after some deliberation and delay Miriam broke into The Lotos-Eaters, from which she passed directly, almost breathlessly, to Edward Gray. Sherringham had by this time heard her make four different attempts, and the only generalization which could be very present to him was that she uttered these various compositions in exactly the same tone — a solemn, droning, dragging measure, adopted with an intention of pathos, a crude idea of “ style.” It was funereal, and at the same time it was rough and childish. Sherringham thought her English performance less futile than her French, but he could see that Madame Carré listened to it with even less pleasure. In the way the girl wailed forth some of her Tcnnysonian lines he detected a possibility of a thrill. But the further she went, the more violently she acted on the nerves of Mr. Gabriel Nash: that also he could discover, from the way this gentleman ended by slipping discreetly to the window, and leaning there, with his head out and his back to the exhibition. He had the art of mute expression ; his attitude said, as clearly as possible, " No, no, you can’t call me either ill-mannered or ill-natured. I 'm the showman of the occasion, moreover, and I avert myself, leaving you to judge. If there ’s a thing in life I hate, it ’s this idiotic new fashion of the drawing-room recitation, and the insufferable creatures who practice it, who prevent conversation, and whom, as they are beneath it, you can’t punish by criticism. Therefore what I am is only too magnanimous — bringing these benighted women here, paying with my person, stifling my just repugnance.”

At the same time that Sherringham pronounced privately that the manner in which Miss Rooth had acquitted herself offered no element of interest, he remained conscious that something surmounted and survived her failure, something that would perhaps be worth taking hold of. It was the element of outline and attitude, the way she stood, the way she turned her eyes, her head, and moved her limbs. These things held the attention ; they had a natural felicity and, in spite of their suggesting too much the school-girl in the tableauvivant, a sort of grandeur. Her face, moreover, grew as he watched it; something delicate dawned in it, a dim promise of variety and a touching plea for patience, as if it were conscious of being able to show in time more expressions than the simple and striking gloom which, as yet, had mainly graced it. In short, the plastic quality of her person was the only definite sign of a vocation. He almost hated to have to recognize this ; he had seen that quality so often when it meant nothing at all that he had come at last to regard it as almost a guarantee of incompetence. He knew Madame Carré valued it, by itself, so little that she counted it out in measuring an histrionic nature; when it was not accompanied with other properties which helped and completed it, she was near considering it as a positive hindrance to success—success of the only kind that she esteemed. Far oftener than he, she had sat in judgment on young women for whom hair and eyebrows and a disposition for the statuesque would have worked the miracle of attenuating their stupidity if the miracle were workable. But that particular miracle never was. The qualities she deemed most interesting were not the gifts, but the conquests —the effects the actor had worked hard for, had wrested by unwearying study. Sherringham remembered to have had, in the early part of their acquaintance, a friendly dispute with her on this subject; he having been moved at that time to defend the cause of the gifts. She had gone so far as to say that a serious comedian ought to be ashamed of them—ashamed of resting his case on them ; and when Sherringham had cited Mademoiselle Rachel as a great artist whose natural endowment was rich and who had owed her highest triumphs to it, she had declared that Rachel was the very instance that proved her point — a talent embodying one or two primary aids, a voice and an eye, but essentially formed by work, unremitting and ferocious work. “ I don’t care a straw for your handsome girls,” she said; “but bring me one who is ready to drudge the tenth part of the way Rachel drudged, and I 'll forgive her her beauty. Of course, notez bien, Rachel was n’t bête : that’s a gift, if you like ! ”

Mrs. Rooth, who was evidently very proud of the figure her daughter had made, appealed to Madame Carré, rashly and serenely, for a verdict; but fortunately this lady’s voluble bonne came rattling in at the same moment with the tea-tray. The old actress busied herself in dispensing this refreshment, an hospitable attention to her English visitors, and under cover of the diversion thus obtained, while the others talked together, Sherringham said to his hostess, “ Well, is there anything in her ? ”

“ Nothing that I can see. She ’s loud and coarse.”

“ She ’s very much afraid ; you must allow for that.”

“ Afraid of me, immensely, but not a bit afraid of her authors — nor of you ! " added Madame Carré, smiling.

“Are n’t you prejudiced by what Mr. Nash has told you? ”

“ Why prejudiced ? He only told me she was very handsome.”

“ And don’t you think she is ? ”

“ Admirable. But I ’m not a photographer nor a dressmaker. I can’t do anything with that.”

“ The head is very noble,” said Peter Sherringham. “ And the voice, when she spoke English, had some sweet tones.”

“Ah, your English—possibly! All I can say is that I listened to her conscientiously, and I did n’t perceive in what she did a single nuance, a single inflection or intention. But not one. mon eher. I don’t think she’s intelligent.”

“ But don’t they often seem stupid at first ? ”

“ Say always ! ”

“ Then don’t some succeed — even when they are handsome.”

“ When they are handsome they always succeed — in one way or another.”

“ You don’t understand us English,” said Peter Sherringham.

Madame Carré drank her tea ; then she replied, “ Marry her, my son, and give her diamonds. Make her an ambassadress ; she will look very well.”

“ She interests you so little that you don’t care to do anything for her? ”

“ To do anything ? ”

“ To give her a few lessons.”

The old actress looked at him a moment ; after which, rising from her place near the table on which the tea had been served, she said to Miriam Rooth, “My dear child. I give my voice for the scène anglaise. You did the English things best.”

“ Did I do them well ? ” asked the girl.

“ You have a great deal to learn : but you have force. The principal things sont encore à dégager, but they will come. You must work.”

“ I think she has ideas.” said Mrs. Rooth.

“ She gets them from you,”Madame Carré replied.

“ I must say, if it ’s to be our theatre I’m relieved. I think it’s safer,” the good lady continued.

“Ours is dangerous, no doubt.”

“You mean you are more severe,” said the girl.

“ Your mother is right,” the actress smiled ; “ you have ideas.”

“But what shall we do then—how shall we proceed?” Mrs. Rooth inquired.

She made this appeal, plaintively and vaguely, to the three gentlemen ; but they had collected, a few steps off, and were talking together, so that it failed to reach them.

“ Work — work — work ! ” exclaimed the actress.

“ In English I can play Shakespeare. I want to play Shakespeare,” Miriam remarked.

“ That ’s fortunate, as, in English, you have n’t any one else to play.”

“ But he ’s so great — and he’s so pure ! ” said Mrs. Rooth.

“ That also seems very fortunate fur you,” Madame Carré phrased.

“ You think me actually pretty bad, don’t you ? ” the girl demanded, with her serious face.

“ Mon Dieu, que nous dirai-je ? Of course you are rough ; but so was I, at your age. And if you find your voice, it may carry you far. Besides, what does it matter what I think ? How can I judge for your English public ? ”

“ How shall I find my voice ? ” asked Miriam Rooth.

“ By trying. Il n’ y a que ça. Work like a horse, night and day. Besides, M. Sherringham, as he says, will help you.”

Sherringham, hearing his name, turned round, and the girl appealed to him. “ Will you help me, really ? ”

“To find her voice,” Madame Carré interposed.

The voice, when it’s worth anything, comes from the heart; so I suppose that’s where to look for it.” Gabriel Nash suggested.

“ Much you know : you have n’t got any ! " Miriam retorted, with the first scintillation of gayety she had shown on this occasion.

“Any voice, my child?” Mr. Nash inquired.

“ Any heart, or any manners !”

Peter Sherringham made the. secret reflection that he liked her better when she was lugubrious ; for the note of pertness was not totally absent from her mode of emitting these few words. He was irritated, moreover, for in the brief conference he had just had with the young lady’s introducer he had had to face the necessity of saying something optimistic about her, which was not particularly easy. Mr. Nash had said with his bland smile, “ And what impression does my young friend make ? ” to which it appeared to Sherringham that an uncomfortable consistency compelled him to reply that there was evidently a good deal in her. He was far from being sure of that; at the same time, the young lady, both with the exaggerated “ points ” of her person and the poverty of her instinct of expression, constituted a kind of challenge — presented herself to him as a subject for inquiry, a problem, a piece of work, an explorable country. She was too bad to jump at, and yet she was too individual to overlook, especially when she rested her tragic eyes on him with the appeal of her deep “ Really ? ” This appeal sounded as if it were in a certain way to his honor, giving him a chance to brave verisimilitude, to brave ridicule even, a little, in order to show, in a special case, what he had always maintained in general, that the direction of a young person’s studies for the stage may be an interest of as high an order as any other artistic consideration.

“ Mr. Nash has rendered us the great service of introducing us to Madame Carré, and I 'm sure we ’re immensely indebted to him,” Mrs. Rooth said to her daughter, with an air affectionately corrective.

“ But what good does that do us ? ” the girl asked, smiling at the actress and gently laying her finger-tips upon her hand. “ Madame Carré listens to me with adorable patience, and then sends me about my business — in the prettiest way in the world.”

“ Mademoiselle, you are not so rough; the tone of that is very juste. A la bonne heure ; work — work ! ” the actress exclaimed. “ There was an inflection there, or very nearly. Practice it till you’ve got it.”

“ Come and practice it to me, if your mother will be so kind as to bring you,” said Peter Sherringham.

“Do you give lessons — do you understand?” Miriam asked.

“ I ’m an old play-goer, and I have an unbounded belief in my own judgment.”

“ ' Old.’ sir, is too much to say,” Mrs. Rooth remonstrated. “ My daughter knows your high position, but she is very direct. You will always find her so. Perhaps you ’ll say there are less honorable faults. We 'll come to see you with pleasure. Oh, I’ve been at the embassy, when I was her age. Therefore why should n’t she go to-day? That was in Lord Davenant’s time.”

“ A few people are coming to tea with me to-morrow. Perhaps you ’ll come then, at five o’clock.”

“It will remind me of the dear old times,” said Mrs. Rooth.

“ Thank you; I 'll try and do better to-morrow,” Miriam remarked, very sweetly.

“ You do better every minute ! ” Sherringham exclaimed, looking at Madame Carté in emphasis of this declaration.

“ She is finding her voice,” the actress responded.

“She is finding a friend!” Mrs. Rooth amended.

“ And don’t forget, when you come to London, my hope that you ’ll come and see me,” Nick Dormer said to the girl. “ To try and paint you — that would do me good ! ”

“ She is finding even two,” said Madame Carré.

“ It’s to make up for one I’ve lost! ” And Miriam looked with very good stage-scorn at Gabriel Nash. “ It’s he that thinks I’m bad.”

“You say that to make me drive you home ; you know it will,” Nash returned.

“ We ’ll all take you home; why not ? ” Sherringham asked.

Madame Carré looked at the handsome girl, handsomer than ever at this moment, and at the three young men who had taken their hats and stood ready to accompany her. A deeper expression came for an instant into her hard, bright eyes, while she sighed, “ Ah, la jeunesse! you’d always have that, my child, if you were the greatest goose on earth ! ”

VIII.

At Peter Sherringham’s, the next day, Miriam Rooth had so evidently come with the expectation of “ saying” something that it was impossible the second secretary should forbear to invite her, little as the exhibition at Madame Carré’s could have contributed to render the invitation prompt. His curiosity had been more appeased than stimulated, but he felt none the less that he had “taken up” the dark-browed girl and her reminiscential mother, and must face the immediate consequences of the act. This responsibility weighed upon him during the twenty-four hours that followed the ultimate dispersal of the little party at the door of the Hôtel de la Mayenne.

On quitting Madame Carré’s the two ladies had gracefully declined Mr. Nash’s offered cab, and had taken their way homeward on foot, with the gentlemen in attendance. The streets of Paris at that hour were bright and episodical, and Sherringham trod them good-humoredly enough, and not too fast, leaning a little to talk to the young lady as he went. Their pace was regulated by her mother’s, who walked in advance, on the arm of Gabriel Nash (Nick Dormer was on her other side), in refined deprecation. Her sloping back was before them, exempt from retentive stiffness in spite of her rigid principles, with the little drama of her lost and recovered shawl perpetually going on.

Sherringham said nothing to the girl about her performance or her powers; their talk was only of her manner of life with her mother — their travels, their pensions, their economies, their want of a home, the many cities she knew well, the foreign tongues and the wide view of the world she had acquired. He guessed easily enough the dolorous type of exile of the two ladies, wanderers in search of Continental cheapness, inured to queer contacts and compromises, “ remarkably well connected ” in England, but going out for their meals. The girl was but indirectly communicative, not, apparently, from any intention of concealment, but from the habit of associating with people whom she did n’t honor with her confidence. She was fragmentary and abrupt, and not in the least shy, subdued to dread of Madame Carré as she had been for the time. She gave Sherringham a reason for this fear, and he thought her reason innocently pretentious. “ She admired a great artist more than anything in the world ; and in the presence of art, of great art, her heart beat so fast.” Her manners were not perfect, and the friction of a varied experience had rather roughened than smoothed her. She said nothing that showed that she was clever, though he guessed that this was the intention of two or three of her remarks; but he parted from her with the suspicion that she was, according to the contemporary French phrase, a “ nature.”

The Hôtel de la Mayenne was in a small, unrenovated street, in which the cobble-stones of old Paris still flourished, lying between the Avenue de l’Opéra and the Place de la Bourse. Sherringham had occasionally passed through this dim by-way, but he had never noticed the tall, stale maison meublée, whose aspect, that of a third-rate provincial inn, was an illustration of Mrs. Rooth’s shrunken standard.

“We would ask you to come up, but it’s quite at the top, and we haven’t a sitting-room,” the poor lady bravely explained. “We had to receive Mr. Nash at a café.”

Nick Dormer declared that he liked cafés, and Miriam, looking at his cousin, dropped, with a flash of passion, the demand, “ Do you wonder that I should want to do something, so that we can stop living like pigs ? ”

Sherringham recognized eventually, the next day, that though it might be rather painful to listen to her it was better to make her recite than to let her do nothing, so effectually did the presence of his sister and that of Lady Agnes, and even of Grace and Biddy, appear, by a sort of tacit opposition, to deprive hers, ornamental as it was, of a reason. He had only to see them all together to perceive that she could n’t pass for having come to “ meet ” them — even her mother’s insinuating gentility failed to put the occasion on that footing — and that she must therefore be assumed to have been brought to show them something. She was not subdued, not colorless enough to sit there for nothing, or even for conversation (the sort of conversation that was likely to come off), so that it was inevitable to treat, her position as connected with the principal place on the carpet, with silence and attention and the pulling together of chairs. Even when so established it struck him at first as precarious, in the light of the inexpressive faces of the other ladies, sitting in couples and rows on sofas (there were several in addition to Julia and the Dormers; mainly the wives, with their husbands, of Sherringham’s fellow - secretaries), scarcely one of whom he felt that he might count upon to say something gushing when the girl should have finished.

Miss Rooth gave a representation of Juliet drinking her potion, according to the system, as her mother explained, of the famous Signor Ruggieri — a scene of high, fierce sound, of many cries and contortions ; she shook her hair (which proved magnificent) half down before the performance was over. Then she declaimed several short poems by Victor Hugo, selected, among many hundred, by Mrs. Rooth, as the good lady was careful to make known. After this she jumped to the American lyre, regaling the company with specimens, both familiar and fresh, of Longfellow, Lowell, Whittier. Holmes, and of two or three poetesses revealed to Sherringham on this occasion. She flowed so copiously, keeping the floor and rejoicing visibly in her opportunity, that Sherringham was mainly occupied with wondering how he could make her leave off. He was surprised at the extent of her repertory, which, in view of the circumstance that she could never have received much encouragement — it must have come mainly from her mother, and he did n’t believe in Signor Ruggieri — denoted a very stiff ambition and a kind of illuminated perseverance. It was her mother who checked her at last, and he found himself suspecting that Gabriel Nash had intimated to her that interference was necessary. For himself, he was chiefly glad that Madame Carré was not there. It was present to him that she would have deemed the exhibition, with its badness, its assurance, and the absence of criticism, almost indecent.

His only new impression of the girl was that of this same high assurance — her coolness, her complacency, her eagerness to go on. She had been deadly afraid of the old actress, but she was not a bit afraid of a cluster of femmes du monde, of Julia, of Lady Agnes, of the smart women of the embassy. It was positively these personages who were rather frightened ; there was certainly a moment when even Julia was scared, for the first time that he had ever seen her. The space was too small; the cries, the rushes of the disheveled girl, were too near. Lady Agnes, much of the time, wore the countenance she might have worn at the theatre during a play in which pistols were fired ; and indeed the manner of the young reciter had become more spasmodic, more explosive. It appeared, however, that the company in general thought her very clever and successful; which showed, to Sherringham’s sense, how little they understood the matter. Poor Biddy was immensely struck, and grew flushed and absorbed in proportion as Miriam, at her best moments, became pale and fatal. It was she who spoke to her first, after it was agreed that they had better not fatigue her any more ; she advanced a few steps, happening to be near her, murmuring, “ Oh, thank you, thank you so much. I never saw anything so beautiful, so grand.”

She looked very red and very pretty as she said this. Peter Sherringham liked her enough to notice and to like her better when she looked prettier than usual. As he turned away he heard Miriam answer, with rather an ungracious irrelevance, " I have seen you before, two days ago, at the Salon, with Mr. Dormer. Yes, I know he’s your brother. I have made his acquaintance since. He wants to paint my portrait. Do you think he 'll do it well ? ” He was afraid Miriam was a little of a brute, and also somewhat grossly vain. This impression would perhaps have been confirmed if a part of the rest of the short conversation of the two girls had reached his ear. Biddy ventured to remark that she herself had studied modeling a little, and that, she could understand how any artist would think Miss Rooth a splendid subject. If, indeed. she could attempt her head, that would be a chance to do something.

“ Thank you,” said Miriam, with a laugh. “ I think I had rather not passer par toute la, famille ! ” Then she added, “If your brother’s an artist, I don’t understand how he’s in Parliament.”

“ Oh, he is n’t in Parliament now ; we only hope he will be.”

Oh, I see.”

“ And he is n’t an artist, either,”Biddy felt herself conscientiously bound to subjoin.

“Then he is n’t anything,”said Miss Rooth.

“ Well — he ’s immensely clever.”

“ Oh, I see.” Miss Rooth again replied. “ Mr. Nash has puffed him up so.”

“ I don’t know Mr. Nash,” said Biddy, guilty of a little dryness, and also of a little misrepresentation, and feeling rather snubbed.

“ Well, you need n’t wish to.”

Biddy stood with her a moment longer, still looking at her and not knowing what to say next, but not finding her any less handsome because she had such odd manners. Biddy had an ingenious little mind, which always tried as much as possible to keep different things separate. It was pervaded now by the observation, made with a certain relief, that if the girl spoke to her with such unexpected familiarity of Nick she said nothing at all about Peter. Two gentlemen came up, two of Peter’s friends, and made speeches to Miss Rooth of the kind, Biddy supposed, that people learned to make in Paris. It was also doubtless in Paris, the girl privately reasoned, that they learned to listen to them as this striking performer listened. She received their advances very differently from the way she had received Biddy’s. Sherringham noticed his young kinswoman turn away, still blushing, to go and sit near her mother again, leaving Miriam engaged with the two men. It appeared to have come over Biddy that for a moment she had been strangely spontaneous and bold, and had paid a little of the penalty. The seat next her mother was occupied by Mrs. Rooth, toward whom Lady Agnes’s head had inclined itself with a preoccupied air of benevolence. He had an idea that Mrs. Rooth was telling her about the NevilleNugents of Castle Nugent, and that Lady Agnes was thinking it odd she never had heard of them. He said to himself that Biddy was generous. She had urged Julia to come, in order that they might see how bad the strange young woman would be ; but now that she turned out so dazzling she forgot this calculation, and rejoiced in what she innocently supposed to be her triumph. She kept away from Julia, however ; she did n’t even look at her to invite her also to confess that, in vulgar parlance, they had been sold. He himself spoke to his sister, who was leaning back, in rather a detached way, in the corner of a sofa, saying something which led her to remark in reply, “ Ah, I dare say it’s extremely fine, but I don’t care for tragedy treading on one’s toes. She ought to be behind a fence.”

“ My poor Julia, it is n’t extremely fine; it is n’t fine at all,” Sherringham rejoined, with some irritation.

“ Excuse me. I thought that was why you invited us.”

“ I thought she was different,” Sherringham said.

“ Ah, if you don’t care for her, so much the better. It has always seemed to me that you make too much of those people.”

“ Oh, I do care for her in a way, too. She ‘s interesting.” His sister gave him a momentary mystified glance, and he added, " And she ‘s shocking ! ” He felt stupidly annoyed, and he was ashamed of his annoyance, for he could have assigned no reason for it. It did n’t make it less, for the moment, to see Gabriel Nash approach Mrs. Dallow, introduced by Nick Dormer. He gave place to the two young men with a certain alacrity, for he had a sense of being put in the wrong, in respect to the heroine of the occasion, by Nash’s very presence. He remembered that it had been a part of their bargain, as it were, that he should present that gentleman to his sister. He was not sorry to be relieved of the office by Nick, and he even, tacitly and ironically, wished his cousin’s friend joy of a colloquy with Mrs. Dallow. Sherringham’s life was spent with people ; he was used to people; and both as a host and as a guest he carried them, in general, lightly. He could observe, especially in the former capacity, without uneasiness, take the temperature without anxiety. But at present his company oppressed him; he felt himself nervous, which was the thing in the world that he had always held to be least an honor to a gentleman embarked in diplomacy. He was vexed with the levity in himself which had made him call them together on so poor a pretext, and yet he was vexed with the stupidity in them which made them think, as they evidently did, that the pretext was sufficient. He inwardly groaned at the precipitancy with which he had saddled himself with the Tragic Muse (a tragic muse who was noisy and pert), and yet he wished his visitors would go away and leave him alone with her.

Nick Dormer said to Mrs. Dallow that he wanted her to know an old friend of his, one of the cleverest men he knew; and he added the hope that she would be gentle and encouraging with him ; he was so timid and so easily disconcerted.

Gabriel Nash dropped into a chair by the arm of Julia’s sofa, Nick Dormer went away, and Mrs. Dallow turned her glance upon her new acquaintance without a perceptible change of position. Then she emitted, with rapidity, the remark, “ It’s very awkward when people are told one is clever.”

“It’s awkward if one isn’t,” said Mr. Nash, smiling.

“ Yes, but so few people are — enough to be talked about.”

Is n’t that just the reason why such a matter, such an exception, ought to be mentioned to them ? ” asked Gabriel Nash. “ They might n’t find it out for themselves. Of course, however, as you say, there ought to be a certainty; then they are surer to know it. Dormer ’s a dear fellow, but he ’s rash and superficial.”

Mrs. Dallow at this turned her glance a second time upon her interlocutor ; but during the rest of the conversation she rarely repeated the movement. If she liked Nick Dormer extremely (and it may without further delay be communicated to the reader that she did). her liking was of a kind that opposed no difficulty whatever to her not liking (in case of such a complication) a person attached or otherwise belonging to him. It was not in her nature to extend tolerances to others for the sake of an individual she loved : the tolerance was usually consumed in the loving ; there was nothing left over. If the affection that isolates and simplifies its object may be distinguished from the affection that seeks communications and contacts for it, Julia Dallow’s belonged wholly to the former class. She was not so much jealous as rigidly direct. She desired no experience for the familiar and yet partly mysterious kinsman in whom she took an interest that she would not have desired for herself; and, indeed, the cause of her interest in him was partly the vision of his helping her to the particular emotion that she did desire — the emotion of great affairs and of public action. To have such ambitions for him appeared to her the greatest honor she could do him ; her conscience was in it as well as her inclination, and her scheme, in her conception, was noble enough to varnish over any disdain she might feel for forces drawing him another way. She had a prejudice, in general, against his connections, a suspicion of them, and a supply of unwrought contempt ready for them. It was a singular circumstance that she was skeptical even when, knowing her as well as he did, he thought them worth recommending to her; the recommendation, indeed, inveterately confirmed the suspicion.

This was a law from which Gabriel Nash was condemned to suffer, if suffering could on any occasion be predicated of Gabriel Nash. His pretension was, in truth, that he had eliminated it from his life, though probably he would have admitted that if an infusion of it remained, the touch of a woman would make him feel the twinge. In dining with her brother and with the Dormers, two evenings before, Mrs. Dallow had been moved to exclaim that Peter and Nick knew the most extraordinary people. As regards Peter, the attitudinizing girl and her mother now pointed that moral with sufficient vividness; so that there was little arrogance in taking a similar quality for granted in the conceited man at her elbow, who sat there as if he would be capable, from one moment to another, of leaning over the arm of her sofa. She had not the slightest wish to talk with him about himself, and was afraid, for an instant, that he was on the point of passing from the chapter of his cleverness to that of his timidity. It was a false alarm, however, for instead of this he said something about the pleasures of the monologue, as the distraction that had just been offered was called by the French. He intimated that in his opinion these pleasures were mainly for the performers. They had all, at any rate, given Miss Rooth a charming afternoon ; that, of course, was what Mrs. Dallow’s kind brother had mainly intended in arranging the little party. (Mrs. Dallow hated to hear him call her brother “ kind ; ” the term seemed offensively patronizing.) But he himself, he related, was now constantly employed in the same beneficence, listening, two thirds of his time, to the intonations (if she could be said to have intonations) of Miss Rooth. She had doubtless observed it herself, how the great current of the age, the adoration of the mime, was almost too strong for any individual ; how it swept one along and hurled one against the rocks. As she made no response to this proposition Gabriel Nash asked her if she had not been struck with the main sign of the time, the preponderance of the mountebank, the glory and renown, the personal favor, that he enjoyed. Had n’t she noticed what an immense part of the public attention he held, in London at least? For in Paris society was not so pervaded with him, and the women of the profession, in particular, were not in every drawing-room.

“ I don’t know what you mean,” Mrs. Dallow said. " I know nothing of any such people.”

“ Are n’t they under your feet wherever you turn — their performances, their portraits, their speeches, their autobiographies, their names, their manners, their ugly mugs, as the people say, and their idiotic pretensions ? ”

“ I dare say it depends on the places one goes to. If they’re everywhere” — and Mrs. Dallow paused a moment — “ I don’t go everywhere.”

“I don’t go anywhere, but they mount on my back, at home, like the Old Man of the Sea. Just observe a little when you return to London,” Nash continued, with friendly instructiveness. Mrs. Dallow got up at this — she did n’t like receiving directions ; but no other corner of the room appeared to offer her any particular reason for crossing to it ; she never did such a thing without a great inducement. So she remained standing there, as if she were quitting the place in a moment, which indeed she now determined to do ; and her interlocutor, rising also, lingered beside her, unencouraged but unperturbed. He went on to remark that Mr. Sherringham was quite right to offer Miss Rooth an afternoon’s sport; she deserved it as a fine, brave, amiable girl. She was highly educated, knew a dozen languages, was of illustrious lineage, and was immensely particular.

“Immensely particular ? " Mrs. Dallow repeated.

“ Perhaps I should say that her mother is, on her behalf. Particular about the sort of people they meet— the tone, the standard. They, I am bound to say, are like you : they don’t go everywhere. That spirit is meritorious : it should be recognized and rewarded.”

Mrs. Dallow said nothing for a moment ; she looked vaguely round the room, but not at Miriam Rooth. Nevertheless she presently dropped, in allusion to her, the words, " She’s dreadfully vulgar.”

“ Ah, don’t say that to my friend Dormer ! ” Gabriel Nash exclaimed.

“ Are you and he such great friends ? ” Mrs. Dallow asked, looking at him.

” Great enough to make me hope we shall be greater.”

Again, for a moment, she said nothing ; then she went on —

“ Why should n’t I say to him that she’s vulgar ? ”

“ Because he admires her so much ; he wants to paint her.”

“ To paint her ? ”

“ To paint her portrait.”

“ Oh, I see. I dare say she 'd do for that.”

Gabriel Nash laughed gayly. " If that’s your opinion of her, you are not very complimentary to the art he aspires to practice.”

“ He aspires to practice? ” Mrs. Dallow repeated.

“ Have n’t you talked with him about it ? Ah, you must keep him up to it ! ”

Julia Dallow was conscious, for a moment, of looking uncomfortable ; but it relieved her to demand of her neighbor, in a certain tone, " Are you an artist ? ”

“ I try to be,” Nash replied, smiling ; “but I work in such a difficult material.”

He spoke this with such a clever suggestion of unexpected reference that, in spite of herself, Mrs. Dallow said after him —

“ Difficult material ? ”

“ I work in life ! ”

Henry James.