"Dear no, I won"t say that. I think the Theatre Francais a greater inst.i.tution than the House of Commons."
"I agree with you there!" laughed Sherringham; "all the more that I don"t consider the dramatic art a low one. It seems to me on the contrary to include all the others."
"Yes--that"s a view. I think it"s the view of my friends."
"Of your friends?"
"Two ladies--old acquaintances--whom I met in Paris a week ago and whom I"ve just been spending an hour with in this place."
"You should have seen them; they struck me very much," Biddy said to her cousin.
"I should like to see them if they really have anything to say to the theatre."
"It can easily be managed. Do you believe in the theatre?" asked Gabriel Nash.
"Pa.s.sionately," Sherringham confessed. "Don"t you?"
Before Nash had had time to answer Biddy had interposed with a sigh.
"How I wish I could go--but in Paris I can"t!"
"I"ll take you, Biddy--I vow I"ll take you."
"But the plays, Peter," the girl objected. "Mamma says they"re worse than the pictures."
"Oh, we"ll arrange that: they shall do one at the Francais on purpose for a delightful little yearning English girl."
"Can you make them?"
"I can make them do anything I choose."
"Ah then it"s the theatre that believes in _you_," said Mr. Nash.
"It would be ungrateful if it didn"t after all I"ve done for it!"
Sherringham gaily opined.
Lady Agnes had withdrawn herself from between him and her other guest and, to signify that she at least had finished eating, had gone to sit by her son, whom she held, with some importunity, in conversation. But hearing the theatre talked of she threw across an impersonal challenge to the paradoxical young man. "Pray should you think it better for a gentleman to be an actor?"
"Better than being a politician? Ah, comedian for comedian, isn"t the actor more honest?"
Lady Agnes turned to her son and brought forth with spirit: "Think of your great father, Nicholas!"
"He was an honest man," said Nicholas. "That"s perhaps why he couldn"t stand it."
Peter Sherringham judged the colloquy to have taken an uncomfortable twist, though not wholly, as it seemed to him, by the act of Nick"s queer comrade. To draw it back to safer ground he said to this personage: "May I ask if the ladies you just spoke of are English--Mrs.
and Miss Rooth: isn"t that the rather odd name?"
"The very same. Only the daughter, according to her kind, desires to be known by some _nom de guerre_ before she has even been able to enlist."
"And what does she call herself?" Bridget Dormer asked.
"Maud Vavasour, or Edith Temple, or Gladys Vane--some rubbish of that sort."
"What then is her own name?"
"Miriam--Miriam Rooth. It would do very well and would give her the benefit of the prepossessing fact that--to the best of my belief at least--she"s more than half a Jewess."
"It is as good as Rachel Felix," Sherringham said.
"The name"s as good, but not the talent. The girl"s splendidly stupid."
"And more than half a Jewess? Don"t you believe it!" Sherringham laughed.
"Don"t believe she"s a Jewess?" Biddy asked, still more interested in Miriam Rooth.
"No, no--that she"s stupid, really. If she is she"ll be the first."
"Ah you may judge for yourself," Nash rejoined, "if you"ll come to-morrow afternoon to Madame Carre, Rue de Constantinople, _a l"entresol_."
"Madame Carre? Why, I"ve already a note from her--I found it this morning on my return to Paris--asking me to look in at five o"clock and listen to a _jeune Anglaise_."
"That"s my arrangement--I obtained the favour. The ladies want an opinion, and dear old Carre has consented to see them and to give one.
Maud Vavasour will recite, and the venerable artist will pa.s.s judgement."
Sherringham remembered he had his note in his pocket and took it out to look it over. "She wishes to make her a little audience--she says she"ll do better with that--and she asks me because I"m English. I shall make a point of going."
"And bring Dormer if you can: the audience will be better. Will you come, Dormer?" Mr. Nash continued, appealing to his friend--"will you come with me to hear an English amateur recite and an old French actress pitch into her?"
Nick looked round from his talk with his mother and Grace. "I"ll go anywhere with you so that, as I"ve told you, I mayn"t lose sight of you--may keep hold of you."
"Poor Mr. Nash, why is he so useful?" Lady Agnes took a cold freedom to inquire.
"He steadies me, mother."
"Oh I wish you"d take _me_, Peter," Biddy broke out wistfully to her cousin.
"To spend an hour with an old French actress? Do _you_ want to go upon the stage?" the young man asked.
"No, but I want to see something--to know something."
"Madame Carre"s wonderful in her way, but she"s hardly company for a little English girl."
"I"m not little, I"m only too big; and _she_ goes, the person you speak of."
"For a professional purpose and with her good mother," smiled Mr. Nash.
"I think Lady Agnes would hardly venture----!"
"Oh I"ve seen her good mother!" said Biddy as if she had her impression of what the worth of that protection might be.
"Yes, but you haven"t heard her. It"s then that you measure her."