er. A deeper expression came for an instant into her
hard, bright eyes. "_Ah la jeunesse_!" she sighed. "You'd always have
that, my child, if you were the greatest goose on earth!"

VIII

At Peter Sherringham's the next day Miriam had so evidently come with
the expectation of "saying" something that it was impossible such a
patron of the drama should forbear to invite her, little as the
exhibition at Madame Carre's could have contributed to render the
invitation prompt. His curiosity had been more appeased than stimulated,
but he felt none the less that he had "taken up" the dark-browed girl
and her reminiscential mother and must face the immediate consequences
of the act. This responsibility weighed upon him during the twenty-four
hours that followed the ultimate dispersal of the little party at the
door of the Hotel de la Garonne.

On quitting Madame Carre the two ladies had definitely declined Mr.
Nash's offered cab and had taken their way homeward on foot and with the
gentlemen in attendance. The streets of Paris at that hour were bright
and episodical, and Sherringham trod them good-humouredly enough and not
too fast, leaning a little to talk with Miriam as he went. Their pace
was regulated by her mother's, who advanced on the arm of Gabriel Nash
(Nick Dormer was on her other side) in refined deprecation. Her sloping
back was before them, exempt from retentive stillness in spite of her
rigid principles, with the little drama of her lost and recovered shawl
perpetually going on.

Sherringham said nothing to the girl about her performance or her
powers; their talk was only of her manner of life with her mother--their
travels, their _pensions_, their economies, their want of a home, the
many cities she knew well, the foreign tongues and the wide view of the
world she had acquired. He guessed easily enough the dolorous type of
exile of the two ladies, wanderers in search of Continental cheapness,
inured to queer contacts and compromises, "remarkably well connected" in
England, but going out for their meals. The girl was but indirectly
communicative; though seemingly less from any plan of secrecy than from
the habit of associating with people whom she didn't honour with her
confidence. She was fragmentary and abrupt, as well as not in the least
shy, subdued to dread of Madame Carre as she had been for the time. She
gave Sherringham a reason for this fear, and he thought her reason
innocently pretentious. "Sh