kind to
them, to say things that would help them to do themselves justice. The
probability in a given case was almost overwhelmingly in favour of their
having any other talent one could think of in a higher degree than the
dramatic; but he could rarely refrain from some care that the occasion
shouldn't be, even as against his conscience, too cruel. There were
occasions indeed that could scarce be too cruel to punish properly
certain examples of presumptuous ineptitude. He remembered what Mr. Nash
had said about this blighted maiden, and perceived that though she might
be inept she was now anything but presumptuous. Gabriel fell to talking
with Nick Dormer while Peter addressed himself to Mrs. Rooth. There was
no use as yet for any direct word to the girl, who was too scared even
to hear. Mrs. Rooth, with her shawl fluttering about her, 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'll find, after you fairly begin, that you'll do better with 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 words she spoke,
however, though uttered as if she had tapped a silver gong, 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 Carre
such a specimen as that----! The actress came in before he had finished
his phrase, and he observed the way the girl ruefully rose to the
encounter, hanging her head a little and looking out from under her
brows. There was no sentiment in her face--only a vacancy of awe and
anguish which had not even the merit of being fine of its kind, for it
spoke of no spring of reaction. Yet the head was good, he noted at the
same moment; it was strong and salient and made to tell at a distance.
Madame Carre scarcely heeded her at first, greeting her only in her
order among the others and pointing to seats, composing the circle with
smiles and gestures, as if they we