Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 2.djvu/143

Rh "Don't call her Peter's; call her rather mine," Nash said, with good-humoured dissuasiveness. "I invented her, I introduced her, I revealed her."

"I thought on the contrary you ridiculed and repudiated her."

"As an individual, 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?" asked Nick.

"She has become interesting, as I suppose you know."

"How should I know?"

"You must see her, you must paint her," said Nash.

"She tells me that something was said about it that day at Madame Carré'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?"

"Not a bit. I know nothing about Peter's affairs, unless it be in general that he goes in for mountebanks and mimes and that it occurs to me I have 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? Is she in London?" Nick inquired.

"D'où tombez-vous? I thought you people read the papers."

"What should I read, when I sit (sometimes!) through the stuff they put into them?"