"Oh dear, yes."
"That would be better--if it wasn't worse."
"Nothing could be better," Nick declared. "It's the best thing that can
happen to me."
"Well," his friend continued, "you must let me very respectfully
approach this lady. You must let me bring her round."
"Bring her round to what?"
"To everything. Talk her over."
"Talk her under!" Nick laughed--but making his joke a little as to gain
time. He remembered the effect this adviser had produced on Julia--an
effect that scantly ministered to the idea of another meeting. Julia had
had no occasion to allude again to Nick's imperturbable friend; he had
passed out of her life at once and for ever; but there flickered up a
quick memory of the contempt he had led her to express, together with a
sense of how odd she would think it her intended should have thrown over
two pleasant visits to cultivate such company.
"Over to a proper pride in what you may do," Nash returned--"what you
may do above all if she'll help you."
"I scarcely see how she can help me," said Nick with an air of thinking.
"She's extremely handsome as I remember her. You could do great things
with _her_."
"Ah, there's the rub," Nick went on. "I wanted her to sit for me this
week, but she wouldn't hear of it."
"_Elle a bien tort_. You should attack some fine strong type. Is Mrs.
Dallow in London?" Nash inquired.
"For what do you take her? She's paying visits."
"Then I've a model for you."
"Then _you_ have--?" Nick stared. "What has that to do with Mrs.
Dallow's being away?"
"Doesn't it give you more time?"
"Oh the time flies!" sighed Nick with a spontaneity that made his
companion again laugh out--a demonstration in which for a moment he
himself rather ruefully joined.
"Does she like you to paint?" that personage asked with one of his
candid intonations.
"So she says."
"Well, do something fine to show her."
"I'd rather show it to you," Nick confessed.
"My dear fellow, I see it from here--if you do your duty. Do you
remember the Tragic Muse?" Nash added for explanation.
"The Tragic Muse?"
"That girl in Paris, whom we heard at the old actress's and afterwards
met at the charming entertainment given by your cousin--isn't he?--the
secretary of embassy."
"Oh Peter's girl! Of course I remember her."
"Don't call her Peter's; call her rather mine," Nash said with easy
rectification. "I invented her. I introduced her. I revealed her."
"I thought you on the contrary ridiculed and repudiated her."
"As a fine, handsome young woman surely not--I seem to myself to have
been all the while rendering her services. I said I disliked tea-party
ranters, and so I do; but if my estimate of her powers was below the
mark she has more than punished me."
"What has she done?" Nick asked.
"She has become interesting, as I suppose you know."
"How should I know?"
"Well, you must see her, you must paint her," Nash returned. "She tells
me something was said about it that day at Madame Carre's."
"Oh I remember--said by Peter."
"Then it will please Mr. Sherringham--you'll be glad to do that. I
suppose you know all he has done for Miriam?" Gabriel pursued.
"Not a bit, I know nothing about Peter's affairs," Nick said, "unless it
be in general that he goes in for mountebanks and mimes and that it
occurs to me I've heard one of my sisters mention--the rumour had come
to her--that he has been backing Miss Rooth."
"Miss Rooth delights to talk of his kindness; she's charming when she
speaks of it. It's to his good offices that she owes her appearance
here."
"Here?" Nick's interest rose. "Is she in London?"
"_D'ou tombez-vous_? I thought you people read the papers."
"What should I read, when I sit--sometimes--through the stuff they put
into them?"
"Of course I see that--that your engagement at your own variety-show,
with its interminable 'turns,' keeps you from going to the others. Learn
then," said Gabriel Nash, "that you've a great competitor and that
you're distinctly not, much as you may suppose it, _the_ rising
comedian. The Tragic Muse is the great modern personage. Haven't you
heard people speak of her, haven't you been taken to see her?"
Nick bethought himself. "I daresay I've heard of her, but with a good
many other things on my mind I had forgotten it."
"Certainly I can imagine what has been on your mind. She remembers you
at any rate; she repays neglect with sympathy. She wants," said Nash,
"to come and see you."
"'See' me?" It was all for Nick now a wonder.
"To be seen by you--it comes to the same thing. She's really worth
seeing; you must let me bring her; you'll find her very suggestive. That
idea that you should paint her--she appears to consider it a sort of
bargain."
"A bargain?" Our young man entered, as he believed, into the humour of
the thing. "What will she give me?"
"A splendid model. She _is_ splendid."
"Oh then bring her," said Nick.