ntime was certain
Miriam could take care of herself. Sometimes he remarked to her that she
needn't always talk "shop" to him: there were times when he was mortally
tired of shop--of hers. Moreover, he frankly admitted that he was tired
of his own, so that the restriction was not brutal. When she replied,
staring, "Why, I thought you considered it as such a beautiful,
interesting art!" he had no rejoinder more philosophic than "Well, I do;
but there are moments when I'm quite sick of it all the same," At other
times he put it: "Oh yes, the results, the finished thing, the dish
perfectly seasoned and served: not the mess of preparation--at least not
always--not the experiments that spoil the material."

"I supposed you to feel just these questions of study, of the artistic
education, as you've called it to me, so fascinating," the girl
persisted. She was sometimes so flatly lucid.

"Well, after all, I'm not an actor myself," he could but impatiently
sigh.

"You might be one if you were serious," she would imperturbably say. To
this her friend replied that Mr. Gabriel Nash ought to hear this; which
made her promise with a certain grimness that she would settle _him_ and
his theories some day. Not to seem too inconsistent--for it was cruel to
bewilder her when he had taken her up to enlighten--Peter repeated over
that for a man like himself the interest of the whole thing depended on
its being considered in a large, liberal way and with an intelligence
that lifted it out of the question of the little tricks of the trade,
gave it beauty and elevation. But she hereupon let him know that Madame
Carre held there were no _little_ tricks, that everything had its
importance as a means to a great end, and that if you were not willing
to try to _approfondir_ the reason why, in a given situation, you should
scratch your nose with your left hand rather than with your right, you
were not worthy to tread any stage that respected itself.

"That's very well, but if I must go into details read me a little
Shelley," groaned the young man in the spirit of a high _raffine_.

"You're worse than Madame Carre; you don't know what to invent; between
you you'll kill me!" the girl declared. "I think there's a secret league
between you to spoil my voice, or at least to weaken my _souffle_,
before I get it. But _a la guerre comme a la guerre_! How can I read
Shelley, however, when I don't understand him?"

"That's just what I want to make you d