Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 3.djvu/222

214 her, but I should like to have a try at that type, some day, in a comedy of manners. But who will write me a comedy of manners? There it is! The trouble would be, no doubt, that I should push her à la charge."

Nick listened to these remarks in silence, saying to himself that if Miriam should have the bad taste (she seemed trembling on the brink of it) to make an allusion to what had passed between the lady in question and himself, he should dislike her utterly. It would show him she was a coarse creature after all. Her good genius interposed however, as against this hard penalty, and she quickly, for the moment at least, whisked away from the topic, demanding, àpropos of comrades and visitors, what had become of Gabriel Nash, whom she had not encountered for so many days.

"I think he's tired of me," said Nick; "he hasn't been near me, either. But, after all, it's natural—he has seen me through."

"Seen you through? Why, you've only just begun."

"Precisely, and at bottom he doesn't like to see me begin. He's afraid I'll do something."

"Do you mean he's jealous?"

"Not in the least, for from the moment one does anything one ceases to compete with him. It leaves him the field more clear. But that's just the discomfort, for him—he feels, as you said just now, kind of lonely; he feels rather abandoned and even, I think, a little betrayed. So far from being jealous he yearns for me and regrets me. The only thing he really takes seriously is to speculate and understand, to talk about the reasons and the essence of things: the people who do that are