"You've rendered him a questionable service if you've no proof," Peter pronounced.
"My proof's only that I've seen her with him. She's charming, poor dear thing."
"But surely she isn't in love with every man she's charming to."
"I mean she's charming to me," Nash returned. "I see her that way. I see her interested—and what it does to her, with her, for her. But judge for yourself—the first time you get a chance."
"When shall I get a chance? Nick doesn't come near her."
"Oh he'll come, he'll come; his picture isn't finished."
"You mean he'll be the box-keeper, then?"
"My dear fellow, I shall never allow it," said Gabriel Nash. "It would be idiotic and quite unnecessary. He's beautifully arranged—in quite a different line. Fancy his taking that sort of job on his hands! Besides, she'd never expect it; she's not such a goose. They're very good friends—it will go on that way. She's an excellent person for him to know; she'll give him lots of ideas of the plastic kind. He would have been up there before this, but it has taken him time to play his delightful trick on his constituents. That of course is pure amusement; but when once his effect has been well produced he'll get back to business, and his business will be a very different matter from Miriam's. Imagine him writing her advertisements, living on her money, adding up her profits, having rows and recriminations with her agent, carrying her shawl, spending his days in her rouge-pot. The right man for that, if she must have one, will turn up. 'Pour le mariage, non.' She isn't wholly an idiot; she really, for a woman, quite sees things as they are."
As Peter had not crossed the street and left Gabriel planted he now suffered the extremity of irritation. But descrying in the dim vista of the Edgware Road a vague and vigilant hansom he waved his stick with eagerness and with the abrupt declaration that, feeling tired, he must drive the rest of his way. He offered Nash, as he entered the vehicle, no seat, but this coldness was not reflected in the lucidity with which that master of every subject went on to affirm that there was of course a danger—the danger that in given circumstances Miriam would leave the stage.
"Leave it, you mean, for some man?"