way--don't let him," Miriam
insisted to Biddy; with which, as Nick's portals now were gaping, she
drew her mother away.

Peter, at this, walked off briskly with Biddy, dropping as he did so:
"She's too fantastic!"

"Yes, but so tremendously good-looking. I shall ask Nick to take me
there," the girl said after a moment.

"Well, she'll do you no harm. They're all right, as she says. It's the
world of art--you were standing up so for art just now."

"Oh I wasn't thinking so much of that kind," she demurred.

"There's only one kind--it's all the same thing. If one sort's good the
other is."

Biddy walked along a moment. "Is she serious? Is she conscientious?"

"She has the makings of a great artist," Peter opined.

"I'm glad to hear you think a woman can be one."

"In that line there has never been any doubt about it."

"And only in that line?"

"I mean on the stage in general, dramatic or lyric. It's as the actress
that the woman produces the most complete and satisfactory artistic
results."

"And only as the actress?"

He weighed it. "Yes, there's another art in which she's not bad."

"Which one do you mean?" asked Biddy.

"That of being charming and good, that of being indispensable to man."

"Oh that isn't an art."

"Then you leave her only the stage. Take it if you like in the widest
sense."

Biddy appeared to reflect a moment, as to judge what sense this might
be. But she found none that was wide enough, for she cried the next
minute: "Do you mean to say there's nothing for a woman but to be an
actress?"

"Never in my life. I only say that that's the best thing for a woman to
be who finds herself irresistibly carried into the practice of the arts;
for there her capacity for them has most application and her incapacity
for them least. But at the same time I strongly recommend her not to be
an artist if she can possibly help it. It's a devil of a life."

"Oh I know; men want women not to be anything."

"It's a poor little refuge they try to take from the overwhelming
consciousness that you're in very fact everything."

"Everything?" And the girl gave a toss. "That's the kind of thing you
say to keep us quiet."

"Dear Biddy, you see how well we succeed!" laughed Peter.

To which she replied by asking irrelevantly: "Why is it so necessary for
you to go to the theatre to-night if Miss Rooth doesn't want you to?"

"My dear child, she does want me to. But that has nothing to do with
it."

"