Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 3.djvu/45

Rh that contains the precious savings of mankind. Miriam will doubtless have dropped a big gold piece. It will be found, in the general scramble, on the day the race goes bankrupt. And then, for herself, she will have had a great go at life."

"Oh, yes, she'll have got out of her hole; she won't have vegetated," said Sherringham. "That makes her touching to me; it adds to the many good reasons for which one may want to help her. She's tackling a big job, and tackling it by herself; throwing herself upon the world, in good faith, and dealing with it as she can; meeting alone, in her youth, her beauty and her generosity all the embarrassments of notoriety and all the difficulties of a profession of which, if one half is what's called brilliant, the other half is odious."

"She has great courage, but should you speak of her as solitary, with such a lot of us all round her?" Gabriel asked.

"She's a great thing for you and me, but we're a small thing for her."

"Well, a good many small things may make up a considerable one," Nash returned. "There must always be the man; he's the indispensable element in such a life, and he'll be the last thing she'll ever want for."

"What man are you talking about?" Sherringham asked, rather confusedly.

"The man of the hour, whoever he is. She'll inspire innumerable devotions."

"Of course she will, and they will be precisely a part of the insufferable side of her life."

"Insufferable to whom?" Nash inquired. "Don't forget that the insufferable side of her life will be just the side she'll