them all in motion. Gabriel brushed in a large, bright picture of her
progress through the time and round the world, round it and round it
again, from continent to continent and clime to clime; with populations
and deputations, reporters and photographers, placards and interviews
and banquets, steamers, railways, dollars, diamonds, speeches and
artistic ruin all jumbled into her train. Regardless of expense the
spectacle would be and thrilling, though somewhat monotonous, the
drama--a drama more bustling than any she would put on the stage and a
spectacle that would beat everything for scenery. In the end her divine
voice would crack, screaming to foreign ears and antipodal barbarians,
and her clever manner would lose all quality, simplified to a few
unmistakable knock-down dodges. Then she would be at the fine climax of
life and glory, still young and insatiate, but already coarse, hard, and
raddled, with nothing left to do and nothing left to do it with, the
remaining years all before her and the _raison d'etre_ all behind. It
would be splendid, dreadful, grotesque.

"Oh, she'll have some good years--they'll be worth having," Peter
insisted as they went. "Besides, you see her too much as a humbug and
too little as a real producer. She has ideas--great ones; she loves the
thing for itself. That may keep a woman serious."

"Her greatest idea must always be to show herself, and fortunately she
has a great quantity of that treasure to show. I think of her absolutely
as a real producer, but as a producer whose production is her own
person. No 'person,' even as fine a one as hers, will stand that for
more than an hour, so that humbuggery has very soon to lend a hand.
However," Nash continued, "if she's a fine humbug it will do as well, it
will perfectly suit the time. We can all be saved by vulgarity; that's
the solvent of all difficulties and the blessing of this delightful age.
One doesn't die of it--save in soul and sense: one dies only of minding
it. Therefore let no man despair--a new hope has dawned."

"She'll do her work like any other worker, with the advantage over many
that her talent's rare," Peter obliquely answered. "Compared with the
life of many women that's security and sanity of the highest order. Then
she can't help her beauty. You can't vulgarise that."

"Oh, can't you?" Gabriel cried.

"It will abide with her till the day of her death. It isn't a mere
superficial freshness. She's very noble."

"Y