h gammon! And why, if I _were_ cruel, should it be of course?"

"Because you must destroy and torment and wear out--that's your nature.
But you can't help your type, can you?"

"My type?" she echoed.

"It's bad, perverse, dangerous. It's essentially insolent."

"And pray what's yours when you talk like that? Would you say such
things if you didn't know the depths of my good nature?"

"Your good nature all comes back to that," said Sherringham. "It's an
abyss of ruin--for others. You've no respect. I'm speaking of the
artistic character--in the direction and in the plentitude in which you
have it. It's unscrupulous, nervous, capricious, wanton."

"I don't know about respect. One can be good," Miriam mused and
reasoned.

"It doesn't matter so long as one's powerful," he returned. "We can't
have everything, and surely we ought to understand that we must pay for
things. A splendid organisation for a special end, like yours, is so
rare and rich and fine that we oughtn't to grudge it its conditions."

"What do you call its conditions?" Miriam asked as she turned and looked
at him.

"Oh the need to take its ease, to take up space, to make itself at home
in the world, to square its elbows and knock, others about. That's large
and free; it's the good nature you speak of. You must forage and ravage
and leave a track behind you; you must live upon the country you
traverse. And you give such delight that, after all, you're
welcome--you're infinitely welcome!"

"I don't know what you mean. I only care for the idea," the girl said.

"That's exactly what I pretend--and we must all help you to it. You use
us, you push us about, you break us up. We're your tables and chair, the
simple furniture of your life."

"Whom do you mean by 'we'?"

Peter gave an ironic laugh. "Oh don't be afraid--there will be plenty of
others!"

She made no return to this, but after a moment broke out again. "Poor
Dashwood immured with mamma--he's like a lame chair that one has put
into the corner."

"Don't break him up before he has served. I really believe something
will come out of him," her companion went on. "However, you'll break me
up first," he added, "and him probably never at all."

"And why shall I honour you so much more?"

"Because I'm a better article and you'll feel that."

"You've the superiority of modesty--I see."

"I'm better than a young mountebank--I've vanity enough to say that."

She turned on him with a flush in h