nk any one yet has
been quite so much struck with me as you."

"Not even Peter Sherringham?" her host jested while he stepped back to
judge of the effect of a line.

"Oh Mr. Sherringham's different. You're an artist."

"For pity's sake don't say that!" he cried. "And as regards _your_ art I
thought Peter knew more than any one."

"Ah you're severe," said Miriam.

"Severe--?"

"Because that's what the poor dear thinks. But he does know a lot--he
has been a providence to me."

"Then why hasn't he come over to see you act?"

She had a pause. "How do you know he hasn't come?"

"Because I take for granted he'd have called on me if he had."

"Does he like you very much?" the girl asked.

"I don't know. I like _him_."

"He's a gentleman--_pour cela_," she said.

"Oh yes, for that!" Nick went on absently, labouring hard.

"But he's afraid of me--afraid to see me."

"Doesn't he think you good enough?"

"On the contrary--he believes I shall carry him away and he's in a
terror of my doing it."

"He ought to like that," said Nick with conscious folly.

"That's what I mean when I say he's not an artist. However, he declares
he does like it, only it appears to be not the right thing for him. Oh
the right thing--he's ravenous for that. But it's not for me to blame
him, since I am too. He's coming some night, however. Then," she added
almost grimly, "he shall have a dose."

"Poor Peter!" Nick returned with a compassion none the less real because
it was mirthful: the girl's tone was so expressive of easy unscrupulous
power.

"He's such a curious mixture," she luxuriously went on; "sometimes I
quite lose patience with him. It isn't exactly trying to serve both God
and Mammon, but it's muddling up the stage and the world. The world be
hanged! The stage, or anything of that sort--I mean one's artistic
conscience, one's true faith--comes first."

"Brava, brava! you do me good," Nick murmured, still amused, beguiled,
and at work. "But it's very kind of you, when I was in this absurd state
of ignorance, to impute to me the honour of having been more struck with
you than any one else," he continued after a moment.

"Yes, I confess I don't quite see--when the shops were full of my
photographs."

"Oh I'm so poor--I don't go into shops," he explained.

"Are you very poor?"

"I live on alms."

"And don't they pay you--the government, the ministry?"

"Dear young lady, for what?--for shutting myself up with beauti