Part 67 (1/2)
”I don't quite know how much you mean, but enough for all practical ends.”
”Marrying a fas.h.i.+onable actress is hardly a practical end.”
”Certainly not, but I'm not speaking from his point of view.” Nash was perfectly lucid. ”Moreover, I thought you just now said it would be such a good thing for her.”
”To marry Nick Dormer?”
”You said a good decent man, and he's one of the very decentest.”
”I wasn't thinking of the individual, but of the protection. It would fence her about, settle certain questions, or appear to; it would make things safe and comfortable for her and keep a lot of cads and blackguards away.”
”She ought to marry the prompter or the box-keeper,” said Nash. ”Then it would be all right. I think indeed they generally do, don't they?”
Peter felt for a moment a strong disposition to drop his friend on the spot, to cross to the other side of the street and walk away without him. But there was a different impulse which struggled with this one and after a minute overcame it, the impulse that led to his saying presently: ”Has she told you she's--a--she's in love with Nick?”
”No, no--that's not the way I know it.”
”Has Nick told you then?”
”On the contrary, I've told _him_.”
”You've rendered him a questionable service if you've no proof,” Peter p.r.o.nounced.
”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 const.i.tuents. That of course is pure amus.e.m.e.nt; 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 advertis.e.m.e.nts, 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 circ.u.mstances Miriam would leave the stage.
”Leave it, you mean, for some man?”
”For the man we're talking about.”
”For Nick Dormer?” Peter asked from his place in the cab, his paleness lighted by its lamps.
”If he should make it a condition. But why should he? why should he make _any_ conditions? He's not an a.s.s either. You see it would be a bore”--Nash kept it up while the hansom waited--”because if she were to do anything of that sort she'd make him pay for the sacrifice.”
”Oh yes, she'd make him pay for the sacrifice,” Peter blindly concurred.