l
straight." Nick adverted in extreme silence to his poor little Biddy
and greatly hoped--he would have to see to it a little--that Peter
wouldn't "try" on _her_. He changed the subject and before Nash withdrew
took occasion to remark--the occasion was offered by some new allusion
of the visitor's to the sport he hoped to extract from seeing Nick carry
out everything to which he stood committed--that the comedy of the
matter would fall flat and the incident pass unnoticed.

But Nash lost no heart. "Oh, if you'll simply do your part I'll take
care of the rest."

"If you mean by doing my part minding my business and working like a
beaver I shall easily satisfy you," Nick replied.

"Ah, you reprobate, you'll become another Sir Joshua, a mere P.R.A.!"
his companion railed, getting up to go.

When he had gone Nick threw himself back on the cushions of the divan
and, with his hands locked above his head, sat a long time lost in
thought. He had sent his servant to bed; he was unmolested. He gazed
before him into the gloom produced by the unheeded burning-out of the
last candle. The vague outer light came in through the tall studio
window and the painted images, ranged about, looked confused in the
dusk. If his mother had seen him she might have thought he was staring
at his father's ghost.

XXXVI

The night Peter Sherringham walked away from Balaklava Place with
Gabriel Nash the talk of the two men directed itself, as was natural at
the time, to the question of Miriam's future fame and the pace, as Nash
called it, at which she would go. Critical spirits as they both were,
and one of them as dissimulative in passion as the other was paradoxical
in the absence of it, they yet took her career for granted as completely
as the simple-minded, a pair of hot spectators in the pit, might have
done, and exchanged observations on the assumption that the only
uncertain element would be the pace. This was a proof of general
subjugation. Peter wished not to show, yet wished to know, and in the
restlessness of his anxiety was ready even to risk exposure, great as
the sacrifice might be of the imperturbable, urbane scepticism most
appropriate to a secretary of embassy. He couldn't rid himself of the
sense that Nash had got up earlier than he, had had opportunities of
contact in days already distant, the days of Mrs. Rooth's hungry foreign
rambles. Something of authority and privilege stuck to him from this,
and it made Sherrin