hut the door when she should become so.

Peter commended even to extravagance the liberality of such comradeship;
said that of course a woman didn't go into that profession to see how
little she could swallow. She was right to live with the others so long
as they were at all possible, and it was for her and only for her to
judge how long that might be. This was rather heroic on his part, for
his assumed detachment from the girl's personal life still left him a
margin for some forms of uneasiness. It would have made in his spirit a
great difference for the worse that the woman he loved, and for whom he
wished no baser lover than himself, should have embraced the prospect of
consorting only with the cheaper kind. It was all very well, but Fanny
Rover was simply a rank _cabotine_, and that sort of association was an
odd training for a young woman who was to have been good enough--he
couldn't forget that, but kept remembering it as if it might still have
a future use--to be his admired wife. Certainly he ought to have thought
of such things before he permitted himself to become so interested in a
theatrical nature. His heroism did him service, however, for the hour;
it helped him by the end of the week to feel quite broken in to Miriam's
little circle. What helped him most indeed was to reflect that she would
get tired of a good many of its members herself in time; for if it was
not that they were shocking--very few of them shone with that intense
light--they could yet be thoroughly trusted in the long run to bore
you.

There was a lovely Sunday in particular, spent by him almost all in
Balaklava Place--he arrived so early--when, in the afternoon, every sort
of odd person dropped in. Miriam held a reception in the little garden
and insisted on all the company's staying to supper. Her mother shed
tears to Peter, in the desecrated house, because they had accepted,
Miriam and she, an invitation--and in Cromwell Road too--for the
evening. Miriam had now decreed they shouldn't go--they would have so
much better fun with their good friends at home. She was sending off a
message--it was a terrible distance--by a cabman, and Peter had the
privilege of paying the messenger. Basil Dashwood, in another vehicle,
proceeded to an hotel known to him, a mile away, for supplementary
provisions, and came back with a cold ham and a dozen of champagne. It
was all very Bohemian and dishevelled and delightful, very supposedly
droll and enviable