Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 1.djvu/163

Rh "My dear young lady, he hasn't even got an engagement," replied the young man's unsympathizing brother-in-law.

"He hasn't been at it very long, but I'm sure he'll get on. He's immensely in earnest, and he's very good-looking. I just said that if he should come over to see us you might rather like to meet him. He might give you some tips, as my husband says."

"I don't care for his looks, but I should like his tips," said Miriam, smiling.

"And is he coming over to see you?" asked Sherringham, to whom, while this exchange of remarks, which he had not lost, was going on, Mrs. Rooth had, in lowered accents, addressed herself.

"Not if I can help it, I think!" Mr. Lovick declared, but so jocosely that it was not embarrassing.

"Oh, sir, I'm sure you're fond of him," Mrs. Rooth remonstrated, as the party passed together into the antechamber.

"No, really, I like some of the others—four or five of them; but I don't like Arty."

"We'll make it up to him, then; we'll like him," Miriam declared, gaily; and her voice rang in the staircase (Sherringham went a little way with them), with a charm which her host had not perceived in her sportive note the day before.