to the
amusement of his visit.

He found her at home, but as soon as he had expressed his conviction she
began: "Oh, your _jeune Anglaise_, I know a great deal more about her
than you! She has been back to see me twice; she doesn't go the longest
way round. She charges me like a grenadier and asks me to give
her--guess a little what!--private recitations all to herself. If she
doesn't succeed it won't be for want of knowing how to thump at doors.
The other day when I came in she was waiting for me; she had been there
two hours. My private recitations--have you an idea what people pay for
them?"

"Between artists, you know, there are easier conditions," Sherringham
laughed.

"How do I know if she's an artist? She won't open her mouth to me; what
she wants is to make me say things to _her_. She does make me--I don't
know how--and she sits there gaping at me with her big eyes. They look
like open pockets!"

"I daresay she'll profit by it," said Sherringham.

"I daresay _you_ will! Her face is stupid while she watches me, and when
she has tired me out she simply walks away. However, as she comes
back--!"

Madame Carre paused a moment, listened and then cried: "Didn't I tell
you?"

Sherringham heard a parley of voices in the little antechamber, and the
next moment the door was pushed open and Miriam Rooth bounded into the
room. She was flushed and breathless, without a smile, very direct.

"Will you hear me to-day? I know four things," she immediately broke
out. Then seeing Sherringham she added in the same brisk, earnest tone,
as if the matter were of the highest importance: "Oh how d'ye do? I'm
very glad you're here." She said nothing else to him than this, appealed
to him in no way, made no allusion to his having neglected her, but
addressed herself to Madame Carre as if he had not been there; making no
excuses and using no flattery; taking rather a tone of equal
authority--all as if the famous artist had an obvious duty toward her.
This was another variation Peter thought; it differed from each of the
attitudes in which he had previously seen her. It came over him suddenly
that so far from there being any question of her having the histrionic
nature she simply had it in such perfection that she was always acting;
that her existence was a series of parts assumed for the moment, each
changed for the next, before the perpetual mirror of some curiosity or
admiration or wonder--some spectatorship that she perceive