"What a pity!" she richly wailed. "I should have liked to see that. One must see everything--to be able to do everything." And as he pressed for what in particular she had wished to see she replied: "The way a woman like that receives one of the old ones." Peter gave a groan at this, which was at the same time partly a laugh, and, turning away to drop on a bench, ejaculated: "You'll do--you'll do!" He sat there some minutes with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. His friend remained looking at the portrait of Rachel, after which she put to him: "Doesn't such a woman as that receive--receive every one?" "Every one who goes to see her, no doubt." "And who goes?" "Lots of men--clever men, eminent men." "Ah what a charming life! Then doesn't she go out?" "Not what we Philistines mean by that--not into society, never. She never enters a lady's drawing-room." "How strange, when one's as distinguished as that; except that she must escape a lot of stupidities and _corvees_. Then where does she learn such manners?" "She teaches manners, _a ses heures_: she doesn't need to learn them." "Oh she has given me ideas! But in London actresses go into society," Miriam continued. "Oh into ours, such as it is. In London _nous melons les genres_." "And shan't I go--I mean if I want?" "You'll have every facility to bore yourself. Don't doubt it." "And doesn't she feel excluded?" Miriam asked. "Excluded from what? She has the fullest life." "The fullest?" "An intense artistic life. The cleverest men in Paris talk over her work with her; the principal authors of plays discuss with her subjects and characters and questions of treatment. She lives in the world of art." "Ah the world of art--how I envy her! And you offer me Dashwood!" Sherringham rose in his emotion. "I 'offer' you--?" Miriam burst out laughing. "You look so droll! You offer me yourself, then, instead of all these things." "My dear child, I also am a very clever man," he said, trying to sink his consciousness of having for a moment stood gaping. "You are--you are; I delight in you. No ladies at all--no _femmes comme il faut?"_ she began again. "Ah what do _they_ matter? Your business is the artistic life!" he broke out with inconsequence, irritated, moreover, at hearing her sound that trivial note again. "You're a dear--your charming good sense comes back to you! What do you want of me, then?" "I want you for myself--not for others; and now, in time, before anything's done." "Why, then, did you bring me here? Everything's done--I feel it to-night." "I know the way you should look at it--if you do look at it at all," Sherringham conceded. "That's so easy! I thought you liked the stage so," Miriam artfully added. "Don't you want me to be a great swell?" "And don't you want _me_ to be?" "You _will_ be--you'll share my glory." "So will you share mine." "The husband of an actress? Yes, I see myself that!" Peter cried with a frank ring of disgust.