Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 3.djvu/66

58 speak to Nick of anything. He had traced the course of his river, as I say, and the real proof would be the way he should fly through the air. It was a case for action—for vigorous, unmistakable action. He had done very little since his arrival in London but moon round a fille de théâtre who was taken up partly, though she bluffed it off, with another man and partly with arranging new petticoats for a beastly old "poetic drama;" but this little waste of time should instantly be made up. He had given himself a certain rope and he had danced to the end of his rope, and now he would dance back. That was all right—so right that Sherringham could only express to himself how right it was by whistling gaily.

He whistled as he went to dine with a great personage, the day after his meeting with Nick in Balaklava Place; a great personage to whom he had originally paid his respects—it was high time—the day before that meeting, the Monday previous. The sense of omissions to repair, of a superior line to take, perhaps made him study with more intensity to please the personage, who gave him ten minutes and asked him five questions. A great many doors were successively opened before any palpitating pilgrim who was about to enter the presence of this distinguished man; but they were discreetly closed again behind Sherringham, and I must ask the reader to pause with me at the nearer end of the momentary vista. This particular pilgrim fortunately felt that he could count upon being recognized not only as a faithful if obscure official in the great hierarchy, but as a clever young man who happened to be connected by blood with people his lordship had intimately known. No doubt it was simply as the clever