u mean my portrait? Oh I've got it, with your name and 'M.P.' in
the corner, and that's precisely why I'm content. 'M.P.' in the corner
of a picture is delightful, but I want to break the mould: I don't in
the least insist on your giving specimens to others. And the artistic
life, when you can lead another--if you've any alternative, however
modest--is a very poor business. It comes last in dignity--after
everything else. Ain't I up to my eyes in it and don't I truly know?"

"You talk like my broken-hearted mother," said Nick.

"Does she hate it so intensely?"

"She has the darkest ideas about it--the wildest theories. I can't
imagine where she gets them; partly I think from a general conviction
that the 'esthetic'--a horrible insidious foreign disease--is eating the
healthy core out of English life (dear old English life!) and partly
from the charming pictures in _Punch_ and the clever satirical articles,
pointing at mysterious depths of contamination, in the other weekly
papers. She believes there's a dreadful coterie of uncannily artful and
desperately refined people who wear a kind of loose faded uniform and
worship only beauty--which is a fearful thing; that Gabriel has
introduced me to it; that I now spend all my time in it, and that for
its sweet sake I've broken the most sacred vows. Poor Gabriel, who, so
far as I can make out, isn't in any sort of society, however bad!"

"But I'm uncannily artful," Nash objected, "and though I can't afford
the uniform--I believe you get it best somewhere in South Audley
Street--I do worship beauty. I really think it's me the weekly papers
mean."

"Oh I've read the articles--I know the sort!" said Basil Dashwood.

Miriam looked at him. "Go and see if the brougham's there--I ordered it
early."

Dashwood, without moving, consulted his watch. "It isn't time yet--I
know more about the brougham than you. I've made a ripping good
arrangement for her stable--it really costs her nothing," the young
actor continued confidentially to Peter, near whom he had placed
himself.

"Your mother's quite right to be broken-hearted," Miriam declared, "and
I can imagine exactly what she has been through. I should like to talk
with her--I should like to see her." Nick showed on this easy amusement,
reminding her she had talked to him while she sat for her portrait in
quite the opposite sense, most helpfully and inspiringly; and Nash
explained that she was studying the part of a political duch