Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 2.djvu/157

Rh (Nick hadn't), who had done some of it. It had been awfully chopped down, to a mere bone, with the meat all gone; but that was what people in London seemed to like. They were very innocent, like little dogs amusing themselves with a bone. At any rate, she had made something, she had made a figure of the woman (a dreadful idiot, really, especially in what Dashwood had muddled her into); and Miriam added, in the complacency of her young expansion: "Oh, give me fifty words, any time, and the ghost of a situation, and I'll set you up a figure. Besides, I mustn't abuse poor Yolande—she has saved us," she said.

"Yolande?"

"Our ridiculous play. That's the name of the impossible woman. She has put bread into our mouths and she's a loaf on the shelf for the future. The rights are mine."

"You're lucky to have them," said Nick, a little vaguely, troubled about his sitter's nose, which was somehow Jewish without the convex arch.

"Indeed I am. He gave them to me. Wasn't it charming?"

"He gave them—Mr. Dashwood?"

"Dear me, no; where should poor Dashwood have got them? He hasn't a penny in the world. Besides, if he had got them he would have kept them. I mean your blessed cousin."

"I see—they're a present from Peter."

"Like many other things. Isn't he a dear? If it hadn't been for him the shelf would have remained bare. He bought the play for this country and America for four hundred pounds, and on the chance: fancy! There was no rush for it, and how could he tell? And then he gracefully handed