Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 3.djvu/203

Rh to accept, that in short Peter Sherringham's sister had taken upon herself to see that Biddy should remain free until the day of the fugitive's inevitable return. Once or twice indeed Nick wondered whether Mrs. Dallow herself was visited, in a larger sense, by the thought of retracing her steps—whether she wished to draw out her young friend's opinion as to how she might do so gracefully. During the few days she was in town Nick had seen her twice, in Great Stanhope Street, but not alone. She had said to him on one of these occasions, in her odd, explosive way: "I should have thought you'd have gone away somewhere—it must be such a bore." Of course she firmly believed he was staying for Miriam, which he really was not; and probably she had written this false impression off to Peter, who still more probably would prefer to regard it as just. Nick was staying for Miriam only in the sense that he should be very glad of the money he might receive for the portrait he was engaged in painting. That money would be a great convenience to him, in spite of the obstructive ground Miriam had taken in pretending (she had blown half a gale about it) that he had had no right to dispose of such a production without her consent. His answer to this was simply that the purchaser was so little of a stranger that it didn't go, as it were, out of the family, out of hers. It didn't matter that Miriam should protest that if Mr. Sherringham had formerly been no stranger he was now utterly one, so that there could be nothing less soothing to him than to see her hated image on his wall. He would back out of the bargain, and Nick would be left with his work on his hands. Nick jeered at this shallow theory and, when she came to sit, the question