"You will when you make your farewell speech there--to announce that you chuck it up. And may I venture to ask who's to be your wife?" the visitor pursued. "Mrs. Dallow has kindly consented to accept that yoke. I think you saw her in Paris." "Ah yes: you spoke of her to me, and I remember asking you even then if you were in love with her." "I wasn't then," said Nick. Nash had a grave pause. "And are you now?" "Oh dear, yes." "That would be better--if it wasn't worse." "Nothing could be better," Nick declared. "It's the best thing that can happen to me." "Well," his friend continued, "you must let me very respectfully approach this lady. You must let me bring her round." "Bring her round to what?" "To everything. Talk her over." "Talk her under!" Nick laughed--but making his joke a little as to gain time. He remembered the effect this adviser had produced on Julia--an effect that scantly ministered to the idea of another meeting. Julia had had no occasion to allude again to Nick's imperturbable friend; he had passed out of her life at once and for ever; but there flickered up a quick memory of the contempt he had led her to express, together with a sense of how odd she would think it her intended should have thrown over two pleasant visits to cultivate such company. "Over to a proper pride in what you may do," Nash returned--"what you may do above all if she'll help you." "I scarcely see how she can help me," said Nick with an air of thinking. "She's extremely handsome as I remember her. You could do great things with _her_." "Ah, there's the rub," Nick went on. "I wanted her to sit for me this week, but she wouldn't hear of it." "_Elle a bien tort_. You should attack some fine strong type. Is Mrs. Dallow in London?" Nash inquired. "For what do you take her? She's paying visits." "Then I've a model for you." "Then _you_ have--?" Nick stared. "What has that to do with Mrs. Dallow's being away?" "Doesn't it give you more time?" "Oh the time flies!" sighed Nick with a spontaneity that made his companion again laugh out--a demonstration in which for a moment he himself rather ruefully joined. "Does she like you to paint?" that personage asked with one of his candid intonations. "So she says." "Well, do something fine to show her." "I'd rather show it to you," Nick confessed. "My dear fellow, I see it from here--if you do your duty. Do you remember the Tragic Muse?" Nash added for explanation. "The Tragic Muse?" "That girl in Paris, whom we heard at the old actress's and afterwards met at the charming entertainment given by your cousin--isn't he?--the secretary of embassy." "Oh Peter's girl! Of course I remember her." "Don't call her Peter's; call her rather mine," Nash said with easy rectification. "I invented her. I introduced her. I revealed her." "I thought you on the contrary ridiculed and repudiated her."