present. You're totally different from the woman I painted—you're wonderful."
"The Comic Muse!" laughed Miriam. "Well, you must wait till our first nights are over—I'm sur les dents till then. There's everything to do, and I have to do it all. That fellow's good for nothing—for nothing but domestic life," and she glanced at Basil Dashwood. "He hasn't an idea—not one that you'd willingly tell of him, though he's rather useful for the stables. We've got stables now—or we try to look as if we had: Dashwood's ideas are de cette force. In ten days I shall have more time."
"The Comic Muse? Never, never," Sherringham protested. "You're not to go smirking through the age and down to posterity—I'd rather see you as Medusa crowned with serpents. That's what you look like when you look best."
"That's consoling—when I've just bought a new bonnet! I forgot to tell you just now that when you're an ambassador you may propose anything you like," Miriam went on. "But excuse me if I make that condition. Seriously speaking, come to me glittering with orders and I shall probably succumb. I can't resist stars and garters. Only you must, as you say, have them all. I don't like to hear Mr. Dormer talk the slang of the studio—like that phrase just now: it is a fall to a lower state. However, when one is low one must crawl, and I'm crawling down to the Strand. Dashwood, see if mamma's ready. If she isn't I decline to wait; you must bring her in a hansom. I'll take Mr. Dormer in the brougham; I want to talk with Mr. Dormer; he must drive with me to the theatre. His situation is full of interest." Miriam led the way out of
