seen an evening paper. Trying it
late, on the chance, he had been told by Nick's servant that Nick would
sleep there that night, and he had come in to wait, he was so eager to
congratulate him. Nick submitted with a good grace to his society--he
was tired enough to go to bed, but was restless too--in spite of noting
now, oddly enough, that Nash's congratulations could add little to his
fortitude. He had felt a good deal, before, as if he were in this
philosopher's hands; but since making his final choice he had begun to
strike himself as all in his own. Gabriel might have been the angel of
that name, but no angel could assist him much henceforth.

Nash indeed was as true as ever to his genius while he lolled on a divan
and emitted a series of reflexions that were even more ingenious than
opportune. Nick walked up and down the room, and it might have been
supposed from his manner that he was impatient for his friend to
withdraw. This idea would have been contradicted, however, by the fact
that subsequently, after the latter had quitted him, he continued to
perambulate. He had grown used to Gabriel and must now have been
possessed of all he had to say. That was one's penalty with persons
whose main gift was for talk, however inspiring; talk engendered a sense
of sameness much sooner than action. The things a man did were
necessarily more different from each other than the things he said, even
if he went in for surprising you. Nick felt Nash could never surprise
him any more save by mere plain perpetration.

He talked of his host's future, talked of Miriam Rooth and of Peter
Sherringham, whom he had seen at that young woman's and whom he
described as in a predicament delightful to behold. Nick put a question
about Peter's predicament and learned, rather to his disappointment,
that it consisted only of the fact that he was in love with Miriam. He
appealed to his visitor to do better than this, and Nash then added the
touch that Sherringham wouldn't be able to have her. "Oh they've ideas!"
he said when Nick asked him why.

"What ideas? So has he, I suppose."

"Yes, but they're not the same."

"Well, they'll nevertheless arrange something," Nick opined.

"You'll have to help them a bit. She's in love with another man," Nash
went on.

"Do you mean with you?"

"Oh, I'm never another man--I'm always more the wrong one than the man
himself. It's you she's after." And on his friend's asking him what he
meant by this Nash