"Oh, Peter's likes!" sighed Nick, at his easel, beginning to work.
"I mean her acting the same part for a year."
"I'm sure I don't know; he has never written me a word."
"Nor me either," Biddy returned.
There was another short silence, during which Nick brushed at a panel. It was terminated by his presently saying: "There's one thing, certainly, Peter would like—that is simply to be here to-night. It's a great night—another great night—for the dishevelled one. She's to act Juliet for the first time."
"Ah, how I should like to see her!" the girl cried.
Nick glanced at her; she sat watching him. "She has sent me a stall; I wish she had sent me two. I should have been delighted to take you."
"Don't you think you could get another?" asked Biddy.
"They must be in tremendous demand. But who knows, after all?" Nick added, at the same moment, looking round. "Here's a chance—here's a quite extraordinary chance!"
His servant had opened the door and was ushering in a lady whose identity was indeed justly indicated in those words. "Miss Rooth!" the man announced; but he was caught up by a gentleman who came next and who exclaimed, laughing and with a gesture gracefully corrective: "No, no—no longer Miss Rooth!"
Miriam entered the place with her charming familiar grandeur, as she might have appeared, as she appeared every night, early in her first act, at the back of the stage, by the immemorial central door, presenting herself to the house,
