Miriam burst out laughing. "You look so droll! You offer me yourself,
then, instead of all these things."
"My dear child, I also am a very clever man," he said, trying to sink
his consciousness of having for a moment stood gaping.
"You are--you are; I delight in you. No ladies at all--no _femmes comme
il faut?"_ she began again.
"Ah what do _they_ matter? Your business is the artistic life!" he broke
out with inconsequence, irritated, moreover, at hearing her sound that
trivial note again.
"You're a dear--your charming good sense comes back to you! What do you
want of me, then?"
"I want you for myself--not for others; and now, in time, before
anything's done."
"Why, then, did you bring me here? Everything's done--I feel it
to-night."
"I know the way you should look at it--if you do look at it at all,"
Sherringham conceded.
"That's so easy! I thought you liked the stage so," Miriam artfully
added.
"Don't you want me to be a great swell?"
"And don't you want _me_ to be?"
"You _will_ be--you'll share my glory."
"So will you share mine."
"The husband of an actress? Yes, I see myself that!" Peter cried with a
frank ring of disgust.
"It's a silly position, no doubt. But if you're too good for it why talk
about it? Don't you think I'm important?" she demanded. Her companion
met her eyes and she suddenly said in a different tone: "Ah why should
we quarrel when you've been so kind, so generous? Can't we always be
friends--the truest friends?"
Her voice sank to the sweetest cadence and her eyes were grateful and
good as they rested on him. She sometimes said things with such
perfection that they seemed dishonest, but in this case he was stirred
to an expressive response. Just as he was making it, however, he was
moved to utter other words: "Take care, here's Dashwood!" Mrs. Rooth's
tried attendant was in the doorway. He had come back to say that they
really must relieve him.