Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 1.djvu/152

144 "Oh, I see. I dare say she'd do for that."

Gabriel Nash laughed gaily. "If that's your opinion of her you are not very complimentary to the art he aspires to practise."

"He aspires to practise?" Mrs. Dallow repeated.

"Haven't you talked with him about it? Ah, you must keep him up to it!"

Julia Dallow was conscious, for a moment, of looking uncomfortable; but it relieved her to demand of her neighbour, in a certain tone, "Are you an artist?"

"I try to be," Nash replied, smiling; "but I work in such a difficult material."

He spoke this with such a clever suggestion of unexpected reference that, in spite of herself, Mrs. Dallow said after him—

"Difficult material?"

"I work in life!"

At this Mrs. Dallow turned away, leaving Nash the impression that she probably misunderstood his speech, thinking he meant that he drew from the living model, or some such platitude: as if there could have been any likelihood that he drew from the dead one. This, indeed, would not fully have explained the abruptness with which she dropped their conversation. Gabriel Nash, however, was used to sudden collapses, and even to sudden ruptures, on the part of his interlocutors, and no man had more the secret of remaining gracefully with his ideas on his hands. He saw Mrs. Dallow approach Nick Dormer, who was talking with one of the ladies of the Embassy, and apparently signify to him that she wished to speak to him.