if he were the
guest to recognise and the others didn't count. She broke out at once on
his having thrown up his seat, wished to know if the strange story told
her by Mr. Nash were true--that he had knocked all the hopes of his
party into pie.

Nick took it any way she liked and gave a pleasant picture of his
party's ruin, the critical condition of public affairs: he was as yet
clearly closed to contrition or shame. The pilgrim from Paris, before
Miriam's entrance, had not, in shaking hands with him, made even a
roundabout allusion to his odd "game"; he felt he must somehow show good
taste--so English people often feel--at the cost of good manners. But he
winced on seeing how his scruples had been wasted, and was struck with
the fine, jocose, direct turn of his kinsman's conversation with the
young actress. It was a part of her unexpectedness that she took the
heavy literal view of Nick's behaviour; declared frankly, though without
ill nature, that she had no patience with his mistake. She was horribly
disappointed--she had set her heart on his being a great statesman, one
of the rulers of the people and the glories of England. What was so
useful, what was so noble?--how it belittled everything else! She had
expected him to wear a cordon and a star some day--acquiring them with
the greatest promptitude--and then to come and see her in her _loge_: it
would look so particularly well. She talked after the manner of a lovely
Philistine, except perhaps when she expressed surprise at
hearing--hearing from Gabriel Nash--that in England gentlemen accoutred
with those emblems of their sovereign's esteem didn't so far forget
themselves as to stray into the dressing-rooms of actresses. She
admitted after a moment that they were quite right and the
dressing-rooms of actresses nasty places; but she was sorry, for that
was the sort of thing she had always figured in a corner--a
distinguished man, slightly bald, in evening dress, with orders,
admiring the smallness of a satin shoe and saying witty things. Nash was
convulsed with hilarity at this--such a vision of the British political
hero. Coming back from the glass and making that critic give her his
place on the sofa, she seated herself near Nick and continued to
express her regret at his perversity.

"They all say that--all the charming women, but I shouldn't have looked
for it from you," Nick replied. "I've given you such an example of what
I can do in another line."

"Do yo