"When I take him she has perfect peace," the girl said; "then she can stay at home and see the interviewers. She delights in that and I hate it, so our friend here is a great comfort. Of course a _femme de theatre_ is supposed to be able to go out alone, but there's a kind of 'smartness,' an added _chic_, in having some one. People think he's my 'companion '; I'm sure they fancy I pay him. I'd pay him, if he'd take it--and perhaps he will yet!--rather than give him up, for it doesn't matter that he's not a lady. He _is_ one in tact and sympathy, as you see. And base as he thinks the sort of thing I do he can't keep away from the theatre. When you're celebrated people will look at you who could never before find out for themselves why they should." "When you're celebrated you grow handsomer; at least that's what has happened to you, though you were pretty too of old," Gabriel placidly argued. "I go to the theatre to look at your head; it gives me the greatest pleasure. I take up anything of that sort as soon as I find it. One never knows how long it may last." "Are you attributing that uncertainty to my appearance?" Miriam beautifully asked. "Dear no, to my own pleasure, the first precious bloom of it," Nash went on. "Dormer at least, let me tell you in justice to him, hasn't waited till you were celebrated to want to see you again--he stands there open-eyed--for the simple reason that he hadn't the least idea of your renown. I had to announce it to him." "Haven't you seen me act?" Miriam put, without reproach, to her host. "I'll go to-night," he handsomely declared. "You have your terrible House, haven't you? What do they call it--the demands of public life?" Miriam continued: in answer to which Gabriel explained that he had the demands of private life as well, inasmuch as he was in love--he was on the point of being married. She listened to this with participation; then she said: "Ah then do bring your--what do they call her in English? I'm always afraid of saying something improper--your _future_. I'll send you a box, under the circumstances; you'll like that better." She added that if he were to paint her he would have to see her often on the stage, wouldn't he? to profit by the _optique de la scene_--what did they call _that_ in English?--studying her and fixing his impression. But before he had time to meet this proposition she asked him if it disgusted him to hear her speak like that, as if she were always posing and thinking about herself, living only to be looked at, thrusting forward her person. She already often got sick of doing so, but _a la guerre comme a la guerre_. "That's the fine artistic nature, you see--a sort of divine disgust breaking out in her," Nash expounded.