Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 2.djvu/168

160 Julia had sprung into the carriage while he was still speaking and had flashed out to the coachman a "Home!" which of itself set the vehicle in motion. The carriage went a few yards, but while Gabriel, with a magnificent bow, turned away, Nick Dormer, with his hand on the edge of the hood, moved with it.

"You don't like it, but I'll explain," he said, laughing and in a low tone.

"Explain what?" Mrs. Dallow asked, still very pale and grave, but showing nothing in her voice. She was thinking of the servants. She could think of them even then.

"Oh, it's all right. I'll come in at five," Nick returned, gallantly jocular, while the carriage rolled away.

Gabriel had gone into the studio and Nick found him standing in admiration before Miriam, who had resumed the position in which she was sitting.

"Lord, she's good to-day! Isn't she good to-day?" Nash broke out, seizing Nick by the arm to give him a certain view. Miriam looked indeed still handsomer than before, and she had taken up her attitude again with a splendid sphinx-like air of being capable of keeping it forever. Nick said nothing, but he went back to work with a tingle of confusion, which proved in fact, when he resumed his palette, to be a sharp and, after a moment, a delightful stimulus. Miriam spoke never a word, but she was doubly grand, and for more than an hour, till Nick, exhausted, declared he must stop, the industrious silence was broken only by the desultory discourse of Gabriel Nash.