"So I supposed: that's why I took the liberty of asking such a question." "It's no liberty, but Mr. Sherringham doesn't appear to be able to tell you," said Miriam. "Well, you know, it's a very curious world, all those theatrical people over there," Peter conceded. "Ah don't say anything against them when I'm one of them," Basil Dashwood laughed. "I might plead the absence of information," Peter returned, "as Miss Rooth has neglected to make us acquainted." Miriam vaguely smiled. "I know you both so little." But she presented them with a great stately air to each other, and the two men shook hands while Madame Carre observed them. "_Tiens_! you gentlemen meet here for the first time? You do right to become friends--that's the best thing. Live together in peace and mutual confidence. _C'est de beaucoup le plus sage_." "Certainly, for yoke-fellows," said Sherringham. He began the next moment to repeat to his new acquaintance some of the things he had been told in London; but their hostess stopped him off, waving the talk away with charming overdone stage horror and the young hands of the heroines of Marivaux. "Ah wait till you go--for that! Do you suppose I care for news of your mountebanks' booths?" XX As many people know, there are not, in the famous Theatre Francais, more than a dozen good seats accessible to ladies.[*] The stalls are forbidden them, the boxes are a quarter of a mile from the stage and the balcony is a delusion save for a few chairs at either end of its vast horseshoe. But there are two excellent _baignoires d'avant-scene_, which indeed are by no means always to be had. It was, however, into one of them that, immediately after his return to Paris, Sherringham ushered Mrs. Rooth and her daughter, with the further escort of Basil Dashwood. He had chosen the evening of the reappearance of the celebrated Mademoiselle Voisin--she had been enjoying a _conge_ of three months--an actress whom Miriam had seen several times before and for whose method she professed a high though somewhat critical esteem. It was only for the return of this charming performer that Peter had been waiting to respond to Miriam's most ardent wish--that of spending an hour in the _foyer des artistes_ of the great theatre. She was the person whom he knew best in the house of Moliere; he could count on her to do them the honours some night when she was in the "bill," and to make the occasion sociable. Miriam had been impatient for it--she was so convinced that her eyes would be opened in the holy of holies; but wishing as particularly as he did to participate in her impression he had made her promise she wouldn't taste of this experience without him--not let Madame Carre, for instance, take her in his absence. There were questions the girl wished to put to Mademoiselle Voisin--questions which, having admired her from the balcony, she felt she was exactly the person to answer. She was more "in it" now, after all, than Madame