d the expression
of contempt, very free and absolutely irreverent.

"What a splendid scolding!" the new visitor exclaimed when, on the
entrance of the Pope's legate, her companion closed the book on the
scene. Peter pressed his lips to Madame Carre's finger-tips; the old
actress got up and held out her arms to Miriam. The girl never took her
eyes off Sherringham while she passed into that lady's embrace and
remained there. They were full of their usual sombre fire, and it was
always the case that they expressed too much anything they could express
at all; but they were not defiant nor even triumphant now--they were
only deeply explicative. They seemed to say, "That's the sort of thing
I meant; that's what I had in mind when I asked you to try to do
something for me." Madame Carre folded her pupil to her bosom, holding
her there as the old marquise in a _comedie de moeurs_ might in the last
scene have held her god-daughter the _ingenue_.

"Have you got me an engagement?"--the young woman then appealed eagerly
to her friend. "Yes, he has done something splendid for me," she went on
to Madame Carre, resting her hand caressingly on one of the actress's
while the old woman discoursed with Mr. Dashwood, who was telling her in
very pretty French that he was tremendously excited about Miss Rooth.
Madame Carre looked at him as if she wondered how he appeared when he
was calm and how, as a dramatic artist, he expressed that condition.

"Yes, yes, something splendid, for a beginning," Peter answered
radiantly, recklessly; feeling now only that he would say anything and
do anything to please her. He spent on the spot, in imagination, his
last penny.

"It's such a pity you couldn't follow it; you'd have liked it so much
better," Mr. Dashwood observed to their hostess.

"Couldn't follow it? Do you take me for _une sotte_?" the celebrated
artist cried. "I suspect I followed it _de plus pres que vous,
monsieur_!"

"Ah you see the language is so awfully fine," Basil Dashwood replied,
looking at his shoes.

"The language? Why she rails like a fish-wife. Is that what you call
language? Ours is another business."

"If you understood, if you understood, you'd see all the greatness of
it," Miriam declared. And then in another tone: "Such delicious
expressions!"

"_On dit que c'est tres-fort_. But who can tell if you really say it?"
Madame Carre demanded.

"Ah, _par exemple_, I can!" Sherringham answered.

"Oh you--you're a Fre