"I scarcely can tell. He"s very clever."
"He does paint decently, then?"
"I daresay."
Miriam looked once more at Gerome"s picture. "Fancy his going into the House of Commons! And your sister put him there?"
"She worked, she canva.s.sed."
"Ah you"re a queer family!" she sighed, turning round at the sound of a step.
"We"re lost--here"s Mademoiselle Voisin," said Sherringham.
This celebrity presented herself smiling and addressing Miriam. "I acted for _you_ to-night--I did my best."
"What a pleasure to speak to you, to thank you!" the girl murmured admiringly. She was startled and dazzled.
"I couldn"t come to you before, but now I"ve got a rest--for half an hour," the actress went on. Gracious and pa.s.sive, as if a little spent, she let Sherringham, without looking at him, take her hand and raise it to his lips. "I"m sorry I make you lose the others--they"re so good in this act," she added.
"We"ve seen them before and there"s nothing so good as you," Miriam promptly returned.
"I like my part," said Mademoiselle Voisin gently, smiling still at our young lady with clear, charming eyes. "One"s always better in that case."
"She"s so bad sometimes, you know!" Peter jested to Miriam; leading the actress thus to glance at him, kindly and vaguely, in a short silence which you couldn"t call on her part embarra.s.sment, but which was still less affectation.
"And it"s so interesting to be here--so interesting!" Miriam protested.
"Ah you like our old house? Yes, we"re very proud of it." And Mademoiselle Voisin smiled again at Sherringham all good-humouredly, but as if to say: "Well, here I am, and what do you want of me? Don"t ask me to invent it myself, but if you"ll tell me I"ll do it." Miriam admired the note of discreet interrogation in her voice--the slight suggestion of surprise at their "old house" being liked. This performer was an astonishment from her seeming still more perfect on a nearer view--which was not, the girl had an idea, what performers usually did. This was very encouraging to her--it widened the programme of a young lady about to embrace the scenic career. To have so much to show before the footlights and yet to have so much left when you came off--that was really wonderful. Mademoiselle Voisin"s eyes, as one looked into them, were still more agreeable than the distant spectator would have supposed; and there was in her appearance an extreme finish which instantly suggested to Miriam that she herself, in comparison, was big and rough and coa.r.s.e.
"You"re lovely to-night--you"re particularly lovely," Sherringham said very frankly, translating Miriam"s own impression and at the same time giving her an ill.u.s.tration of the way that, in Paris at least, gentlemen expressed themselves to the stars of the drama. She thought she knew her companion very well and had been witness of the degree to which, in such general conditions, his familiarity could increase; but his address to the slim, distinguished, harmonious woman before them had a different quality, the note of a special usage. If Miriam had had an apprehension that such directness might be taken as excessive it was removed by the manner in which Mademoiselle Voisin returned:
"Oh one"s always well enough when one"s made up; one"s always exactly the same." That served as an example of the good taste with which a star of the drama could receive homage that was wanting in originality.
Miriam determined on the spot that this should be the way _she_ would ever receive it. The grace of her new acquaintance was the greater as the becoming bloom to which she alluded as artificial was the result of a science so consummate that it had none of the grossness of a mask. The perception of all this was exciting to our young aspirant, and her excitement relieved itself in the inquiry, which struck her as rude as soon as she had uttered it:
"You acted for "me"? How did you know? What am I to you?"
"Monsieur Sherringham has told me about you. He says we"re nothing beside you--that you"re to be the great star of the future. I"m proud that you"ve seen me."
"That of course is what I tell every one," Peter acknowledged a trifle awkwardly to Miriam.
"I can believe it when I see you. _Je vous ai bien observee_," the actress continued in her sweet conciliatory tone.
Miriam looked from one of her interlocutors to the other as if there were joy for her in this report of Sherringham"s remarks--joy accompanied and partly mitigated, however, by a quicker vision of what might have pa.s.sed between a secretary of emba.s.sy and a creature so exquisite as Mademoiselle Voisin. "Ah you"re wonderful people--a most interesting impression!" she yearningly sighed.
"I was looking for you; he had prepared me. We"re such old friends!"
said the actress in a tone courteously exempt from intention: upon which Sherringham, again taking her hand, raised it to his lips with a tenderness which her whole appearance seemed to bespeak for her, a sort of practical consideration and carefulness of touch, as if she were an object precious and frail, an instrument for producing rare sounds, to be handled, like a legendary violin, with a recognition of its value.
"Your dressing-room is so pretty--show her your dressing-room," he went on.
"Willingly, if she"ll come up. _Vous savez que c"est une montee."_
"It"s a shame to inflict it on _you_," Miriam objected.
"_Comment donc?_ If it will interest you in the least!" They exchanged civilities, almost caresses, trying which could have the nicest manner to the other. It was the actress"s manner that struck Miriam most; it denoted such a training, so much taste, expressed such a ripe conception of urbanity.
"No wonder she acts well when she has that tact--feels, perceives, is so remarkable, _mon Dieu, mon Dieu!"_ the girl said to herself as they followed their conductress into another corridor and up a wide, plain staircase. The staircase was s.p.a.cious and long and this part of the establishment sombre and still, with the gravity of a college or a convent. They reached another pa.s.sage lined with little doors, on each of which the name of a comedian was painted, and here the aspect became still more monastic, like that of a row of solitary cells. Mademoiselle Voisin led the way to her own door all obligingly and as if wishing to be hospitable; she dropped little subdued, friendly attempts at explanation on the way. At her threshold the monasticism stopped--Miriam found herself in a wonderfully upholstered nook, a nest of lamplight and delicate cretonne. Save for its pair of long gla.s.ses it might have been a tiny boudoir, with a water-colour drawing of value in each of its panels of stretched stuff, with its crackling fire and its charming order. It was intensely bright and extremely hot, singularly pretty and exempt from litter. Nothing lay about, but a small draped doorway led into an inner sanctuary. To Miriam it seemed royal; it immediately made the art of the comedian the most distinguished thing in the world. It was just such a place as they _should_ have for their intervals if they were expected to be great artists. It was a result of the same evolution as Mademoiselle Voisin herself--not that our young lady found this particular term at hand to express her idea. But her mind was flooded with an impression of style, of refinement, of the long continuity of a tradition. The actress said, _"Voila, c"est tout!"_ as if it were little enough and there were even something clumsy in her having brought them so far for nothing, and in their all sitting there waiting and looking at each other till it was time for her to change her dress. But to Miriam it was occupation enough to note what she did and said: these things and her whole person and carriage struck our young woman as exquisite in their adaptation to the particular occasion. She had had an idea that foreign actresses were rather of the _cabotin_ order, but her hostess suggested to her much more a princess than a _cabotine_. She would do things as she liked and do them straight off: Miriam couldn"t fancy her in the gropings and humiliations of rehearsal. Everything in her had been sifted and formed, her tone was perfect, her amiability complete, and she might have been the charming young wife of a secretary of state receiving a pair of strangers of distinction. The girl observed all her movements. And then, as Sherringham had said, she was particularly lovely. But she suddenly told this gentleman that she must put him _a la porte_--she wanted to change her dress. He retired and returned to the foyer, where Miriam was to rejoin him after remaining the few minutes more with Mademoiselle Voisin and coming down with her.
He waited for his companion, walking up and down and making up his mind; and when she presently came in he said to her:
"Please don"t go back for the rest of the play. Stay here." They now had the foyer virtually to themselves.
"I want to stay here. I like it better," She moved back to the chimney-piece, from above which the cold portrait of Rachel looked down, and as he accompanied her he went on:
"I meant what I said just now."
"What you said to Voisin?"
"No, no; to you. Give it up and live with _me."_
"Give it up?" She turned her stage face on him.
"Give it up and I"ll marry you to-morrow."
"This is a happy time to ask it!" she said with superior amus.e.m.e.nt. "And this is a good place!"
"Very good indeed, and that"s why I speak: it"s a place to make one choose--it puts it all before one."
"To make _you_ choose, you mean. I"m much obliged, but that"s not my choice," laughed Miriam.
"You shall be anything you like except this."
"Except what I most want to be? I _am_ much obliged."
"Don"t you care for me? Haven"t you any grat.i.tude?" Sherringham insisted.
"Grat.i.tude for kindly removing the blest cup from my lips? I want to be what _she_ is--I want it more than ever."
"Ah what she is--!" He took it impatiently.
"Do you mean I can"t? Well see if I can"t. Tell me more about her--tell me everything."
"Haven"t you seen for yourself and, knowing things as you do, can"t you judge?"
"She"s strange, she"s mysterious," Miriam allowed, looking at the fire.
"She showed us nothing--nothing of her real self."
"So much the better, all things considered."
"Are there all sorts of other things in her life? That"s what I believe," the girl went on, raising her eyes to him.