Gushmore--Miriam didn't know if Nick had heard of him (Nick hadn't) who had done some of it. It had been awfully chopped down, to a mere bone, with the meat all gone; but that was what people in London seemed to like. They were very innocent--thousands of little dogs amusing themselves with a bone. At any rate she had made something, she had made a figure, of the woman--a dreadful stick, with what Dashwood had muddled her into; and Miriam added in the complacency of her young expansion: "Oh give me fifty words any time and the ghost of a situation, and I'll set you up somebody. Besides, I mustn't abuse poor Yolande--she has saved us," she said. "'Yolande'--?" "Our ridiculous play. That's the name of the impossible woman. She has put bread into our mouths and she's a loaf on the shelf for the future. The rights are mine." "You're lucky to have them," said Nick a little vaguely, troubled about his sitter's nose, which was somehow Jewish without the convex arch. "Indeed I am. He gave them to me. Wasn't it charming?" "'He' gave them--Mr. Dashwood?" "Dear me, no--where should poor Dashwood have got them? He hasn't a penny in the world. Besides, if he had got them he'd have kept them. I mean your blessed cousin." "I see--they're a present from Peter." "Like many other things. Isn't he a dear? If it hadn't been for him the shelf would have remained bare. He bought the play for this country and America for four hundred pounds, and on the chance: fancy! There was no rush for it, and how could he tell? And then he gracefully pressed it on me. So I've my little capital. Isn't he a duck? You've nice cousins." Nick assented to the proposition, only inserting an amendment to the effect that surely Peter had nice cousins too, and making, as he went on with his work, a tacit, preoccupied reflexion or two; such as that it must be pleasant to render little services like that to youth, beauty and genius--he rather wondered how Peter could afford them--and that, "duck" as he was, Miss Rooth's benefactor was rather taken for granted. _Sic vos non vobis_ softly sounded in his brain. This community of interests, or at least of relations, quickened the flight of time, so that he was still fresh when the sitting came to an end. It was settled Miriam should come back on the morrow, to enable her artist to make the most of the few days of the parliamentary recess; and just before she left him she asked: "Then you _will_ come to-night?" "Without fail. I hate to lose an hour of you." "Then I'll place you. It will be my affair." "You're very kind"--he quite rose to it. "Isn't it a simple matter for me to take a stall? This week I suppose they're to be had." "I'll send you a box," said Miriam. "You shall do it well. There are plenty now." "Why should I be lost, all alone, in the grandeur of a box?" "Can't you bring your friend?" "My friend?" "The lady you're engaged to." "Unfortunately she's out of town."