Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 2.djvu/155

 XII.

was success, Nick felt, that had made Miriam finer—the full possession of her talent and the sense of the recognition of it. There was an intimation in her presence (if he had given his mind to it) that for him too the same cause would produce the same effect—that is would show him that there is nothing like being launched in the practice of an art to learn what it may do for one. Nick felt clumsy beside a person who manifestly now had such an extraordinary familiarity with the point of view. He remembered too the inferiority that had been in his visitor—something clumsy and shabby, of quite another quality from her actual smartness, as London people would call it, her well-appointedness and her evident command of more than one manner. Handsome as she had been the year before, she had suggested provincial lodgings, bread-and-butter, heavy tragedy and tears; and if then she was an ill-dressed girl with thick hair who wanted to be an actress, she was already in a few weeks an actress who could act even at not acting. She showed what a light hand she could have, forbore to startle and looked as well for unprofessional life as Julia: which was only the perfection of her professional character.

This function came out much in her talk, for there were