"Ah you're a queer family!" she sighed, turning round at the sound of a step. "We're lost--here's Mademoiselle Voisin," said Sherringham. This celebrity presented herself smiling and addressing Miriam. "I acted for _you_ to-night--I did my best." "What a pleasure to speak to you, to thank you!" the girl murmured admiringly. She was startled and dazzled. "I couldn't come to you before, but now I've got a rest--for half an hour," the actress went on. Gracious and passive, as if a little spent, she let Sherringham, without looking at him, take her hand and raise it to his lips. "I'm sorry I make you lose the others--they're so good in this act," she added. "We've seen them before and there's nothing so good as you," Miriam promptly returned. "I like my part," said Mademoiselle Voisin gently, smiling still at our young lady with clear, charming eyes. "One's always better in that case." "She's so bad sometimes, you know!" Peter jested to Miriam; leading the actress thus to glance at him, kindly and vaguely, in a short silence which you couldn't call on her part embarrassment, but which was still less affectation. "And it's so interesting to be here--so interesting!" Miriam protested. "Ah you like our old house? Yes, we're very proud of it." And Mademoiselle Voisin smiled again at Sherringham all good-humouredly, but as if to say: "Well, here I am, and what do you want of me? Don't ask me to invent it myself, but if you'll tell me I'll do it." Miriam admired the note of discreet interrogation in her voice--the slight suggestion of surprise at their "old house" being liked. This performer was an astonishment from her seeming still more perfect on a nearer view--which was not, the girl had an idea, what performers usually did. This was very encouraging to her--it widened the programme of a young lady about to embrace the scenic career. To have so much to show before the footlights and yet to have so much left when you came off--that was really wonderful. Mademoiselle Voisin's eyes, as one looked into them, were still more agreeable than the distant spectator would have supposed; and there was in her appearance an extreme finish which instantly suggested to Miriam that she herself, in comparison, was big and rough and coarse. "You're lovely to-night--you're particularly lovely," Sherringham said very frankly, translating Miriam's own impression and at the same time giving her an illustration of the way that, in Paris at least, gentlemen expressed themselves to the stars of the drama. She thought she knew her companion very well and had been witness of the degree to which, in such general conditions, his familiarity could increase; but his address to the slim, distinguished, harmonious woman before them had a different quality, the note of a special usage. If Miriam had had an apprehension that such directness might be taken as excessive it was removed by the manner in which Mademoiselle Voisin returned: