must of course come immediately to my place
in London."

"Perfidious wretch, you're capable of having talent--which of course
will spoil everything!" Gabriel wailed.

"No, I'm too old and was too early perverted. It's too late to go
through the mill."

"You make _me_ young! Don't miss your election at your peril. Think of
the edification."

"The edification--?"

"Of your throwing it all up the next moment."

"That would be pleasant for Mr. Carteret," Nick brooded.

"Mr. Carteret--?"

"A dear old family friend who'll wish to pay my agent's bill."

"Serve him right for such depraved tastes."

"You do me good," said Nick as he rose and turned away.

"Don't call me useless then."

"Ah but not in the way you mean. It's only if I don't get in that I
shall perhaps console myself with the brush," Nick returned with
humorous, edifying elegance while they retraced their steps.

"For the sake of all the muses then don't stand. For you _will_ get in."

"Very likely. At any rate I've promised."

"You've promised Mrs. Dallow?"

"It's her place--she'll _put_ me in," Nick said.

"Baleful woman! But I'll pull you out!" cried Gabriel Nash.

X

For several days Peter Sherringham had business in hand which left him
neither time nor freedom of mind to occupy himself actively with the
ladies of the Hotel de la Garonne. There were moments when they brushed
across his memory, but their passage was rapid and not lighted with
complacent attention; for he shrank from bringing to the proof the
question of whether Miriam would be an interest or only a bore. She had
left him after their second meeting with a quickened sympathy, but in
the course of a few hours that flame had burned dim. Like most other men
he was a mixture of impulse and reflexion, but was peculiar in this,
that thinking things over almost always made him think less
conveniently. He found illusions necessary, so that in order to keep an
adequate number going he often forbade himself any excess of that
exercise. Mrs. Rooth and her daughter were there and could certainly be
trusted to make themselves felt. He was conscious of their anxiety and
their calculations as of a frequent oppression, and knew that whatever
results might ensue he should have to do the costly thing for them. An
idea of tenacity, of worrying feminine duration, associated itself with
their presence; he would have assented with a silent nod to the
proposition--enunciated by Gabriel N