"And why shall I honour you so much more?"
"Because I'm a better article and you'll feel that."
"You've the superiority of modesty--I see."
"I'm better than a young mountebank--I've vanity enough to say that."
She turned on him with a flush in her cheek and a splendid dramatic face. "How you hate us! Yes, at bottom, below your little cold taste, you _hate_ us!" she repeated.
He coloured too, met her eyes, looked into them a minute, seemed to accept the imputation and then said quickly: "Give it up: come away with me."
"You brought me here, you insisted it should be only you, and now you must stay," she declared with a head-shake and a high manner. "You should know what you want, dear Mr. Sherringham."
"I do--I know now. Come away before you see her."
"She's success, this wonderful Voisin, she's triumph, she's full accomplishment: the hard, brilliant realisation of what I want to avert for you." Miriam looked at him in silence, the cold light still in her face, and he repeated: "Give it up--give it up."
Her eyes softened after a little; she smiled and then said: "Yes, you're better than poor Dashwood."
"Give it up and we'll live for ourselves, in ourselves, in something that can have a sanctity."
"All the same you do hate us," the girl went on.
"I don't want to be conceited, but I mean that I'm sufficiently fine and complicated to tempt you. I'm an expensive modern watch with a wonderful escapement--therefore you'll smash me if you can."
"Never--never!" she said as she got up. "You tell me the hour too well." She quitted her companion and stood looking at Gérôme's fine portrait of the pale Rachel invested with the antique attributes of tragedy. The rise of the curtain had drawn away most of the company. Peter, from his bench, watched his friend a little, turning his eyes from her to the vivid image of the dead actress and thinking how little she suffered by the juxtaposition. Presently he came over and joined her again and she resumed: "I wonder if that's what your cousin had in his mind."
"What was his name? Mr. Dormer; that first day at Madame Carré's. He offered to paint my portrait."
"I doubt if he has ever seen it. I daresay I was."
"Well, when we go to London he must do it," said Miriam.