"And doesn't she feel excluded?" Miriam asked.
"Excluded from what? She has the fullest life."
"The fullest?"
"An intense artistic life. The cleverest men in Paris talk over her work with her; the principal authors of plays discuss with her subjects and characters and questions of treatment. She lives in the world of art."
"Ah the world of art—how I envy her! And you offer me Dashwood!"
Sherringham rose in his emotion. "I 'offer' you—?"
Miriam burst out laughing. "You look so droll! You offer me yourself, then, instead of all these things."
"My dear child, I also am a very clever man," he said, trying to sink his consciousness of having for a moment stood gaping.
"You are—you are; I delight in you. No ladies at all—no femmes comme il faut?" she began again.
"Ah what do they matter? Your business is the artistic life!" he broke out with inconsequence, irritated, moreover, at hearing her sound that trivial note again.