Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 3.djvu/60

52 goes in more for the beautiful?" Nick asked. "You're never so beautiful as when you pitch into it."

"Oh, I'm an inferior creature, of an inferior sex, and I have to earn my bread as I can. I'd give it all up in a moment, my odious trade—for an inducement."

"And pray what do you mean by an inducement?" Nick demanded.

"My dear fellow, she means you—if you'll give her a permanent engagement to sit for you!" exclaimed Gabriel Nash. "What crude questions you ask!"

"I like the way she talks," Basil Dashwood broke in, "when I gave up the most brilliant prospects, of very much the same kind as Mr. Dormer's, expressly to go on the stage."

"You're an inferior creature too," said Miriam.

"Miss Rooth is very hard to satisfy," Sherringham observed. "A man of distinction, slightly bald, in evening dress, with orders, in the corner of her loge—she has such a personage ready made to her hand and she doesn't so much as look at him. Am I not an inducement? Have I not offered you a permanent engagement?"

"Your orders—where are your orders?" Miriam inquired with a sweet smile, getting up.

"I shall be a minister next year and an ambassador before you know it. Then I shall stick on everything that can be had."

"And they call us mountebanks!" cried the girl. "I've been so glad to see you again—do you want another sitting?" she went on, to Nick, as if to take leave of him.

"As many as you'll give me—I shall be grateful for all," Nick answered. "I should like to do you as you are at