gham still more uncomfortable when he was most
conscious that, at the best, even the trained diplomatic mind would
never get a grasp of Miriam as a whole. She was constructed to revolve
like the terraqueous globe; some part or other of her was always out of
sight or in shadow.

Peter talked to conceal his feelings, and, like many a man practising
that indirectness, rather lost himself in the wood. They agreed that,
putting strange accidents aside, the girl would go further than any one
had gone in England within the memory of man; and that it was a pity, as
regards marking the comparison, that for so long no one had gone any
distance worth speaking of. They further agreed that it would naturally
seem absurd to any one who didn't know, their prophesying such big
things on such small evidence; and they agreed lastly that the absurdity
quite vanished as soon as the prophets knew as _they_ knew. Their
knowledge--they quite recognised this--was simply confidence raised to a
high point, the communication of their young friend's own confidence.
The conditions were enormously to make, but it was of the very essence
of Miriam's confidence that she would make them. The parts, the plays,
the theatres, the "support," the audiences, the critics, the money were
all to be found, but she cast a spell that prevented this from seeming a
serious hitch. One mightn't see from one day to the other what she would
do or how she would do it, but this wouldn't stay her steps--she would
none the less go on. She would have to construct her own road, as it
were, but at the worst there would only be delays in making it. These
delays would depend on the hardness of the stones she had to break.

As Peter had noted, you never knew where to "have" Gabriel Nash; a truth
exemplified in his unexpected delight at the prospect of Miriam's
drawing forth the modernness of the age. You might have thought he would
loathe that modernness; but he had a joyous, amused, amusing vision of
it--saw it as something huge and fantastically vulgar. Its vulgarity
would rise to the grand style, like that of a London railway station,
and the publicity achieved by their charming charge be as big as the
globe itself. All the machinery was ready, the platform laid; the
facilities, the wires and bells and trumpets, the roaring, deafening
newspaperism of the period--its most distinctive sign--were waiting for
her, their predestined mistress, to press her foot on the spring and set