and vigilant hansom he waved his stick with
eagerness and with the abrupt declaration that, feeling tired, he must
drive the rest of his way. He offered Nash, as he entered the vehicle,
no seat, but this coldness was not reflected in the lucidity with which
that master of every subject went on to affirm that there was of course
a danger--the danger that in given circumstances Miriam would leave the
stage.

"Leave it, you mean, for some man?"

"For the man we're talking about."

"For Nick Dormer?" Peter asked from his place in the cab, his paleness
lighted by its lamps.

"If he should make it a condition. But why should he? why should he make
_any_ conditions? He's not an ass either. You see it would be a
bore"--Nash kept it up while the hansom waited--"because if she were to
do anything of that sort she'd make him pay for the sacrifice."

"Oh yes, she'd make him pay for the sacrifice," Peter blindly concurred.

"And then when he had paid she'd go back to her footlights," Gabriel
developed from the curbstone as his companion closed the apron of the
cab.

"I see--she'd go back--good-night," Peter returned. "_Please_ go on!" he
cried to the driver through the hole in the roof. And while the vehicle
rolled away he growled to himself: "Of course she would--and quite
right!"

XXXVII

"Judge for yourself when you get a chance," Nash had said to him; and as
it turned out he was able to judge two days later, for he found his
cousin in Balaklava Place on the Tuesday following his walk with their
insufferable friend. He had not only stayed away from the theatre on the
Monday evening--he regarded this as an achievement of some
importance--but had not been near Miriam during the day. He had meant to
absent himself from her company on Tuesday as well; a determination
confirmed by the fact that the afternoon turned to rain. But when at ten
minutes to five o'clock he jumped into a hansom and directed his course
to Saint John's Wood it was precisely upon the weather that he shifted
the responsibility of his behaviour.

Miriam had dined when he reached the villa, but she was lying down,
unduly fatigued, before going to the theatre. Mrs. Rooth was, however,
in the drawing-room with three gentlemen, in two of whom the fourth
visitor was not startled to recognise Basil Dashwood and Gabriel Nash.
Dashwood appeared to have become Miriam's brother-in-arms and a second
child--a fonder one--to Mrs. Rooth; it had reached Pete