The Tragic Muse (London & New York: Macmillan & Co., 1890)/Volume 1/Chapter 8
VIII.
At Peter Sherringham's, the next day, Miriam Rooth had so evidently come with the expectation of "saying" something that it was impossible such a patron of the drama should forbear to invite her, little as the exhibition at Madame Carré's could have contributed to render the invitation prompt. His curiosity had been more appeased than stimulated, but he felt none the less that he had "taken up" the dark-browed girl and her reminiscential mother and must face the immediate consequences of the act. This responsibility weighed upon him during the twenty-four hours that followed the ultimate dispersal of the little party at the door of the Hôtel de la Garonne.
On quitting Madame Carré's the two ladies had gracefully declined Mr. Nash's offered cab and had taken their way homeward on foot, with the gentlemen in attendance. The streets of Paris at that hour were bright and episodical, and Sherringham trod them good-humouredly enough, and not too fast, leaning a little to talk to the young lady as he went. Their pace was regulated by their mother's, who walked in advance, on the arm of Gabriel Nash (Nick Dormer was on her other side), in refined deprecation. Her sloping back was before them, exempt from retentive stiffness in spite of her rigid principles, with the little drama of her lost and recovered shawl perpetually going on.
Sherringham said nothing to the girl about her performance or her powers; their talk was only of her manner of life with her mother—their travels, their pensions, their economies, their want of a home, the many cities she knew well, the foreign tongues and the wide view of the world she had acquired. He guessed easily enough the dolorous type of exile of the two ladies, wanderers in search of Continental cheapness, inured to queer contacts and compromises, "remarkably well connected" in England, but going out for their meals. The girl was but indirectly communicative, not, apparently, from any intention of concealment, but from the habit of associating with people whom she didn't honour with her confidence. She was fragmentary and abrupt, as well as not in the least shy, subdued to dread of Madame Carré as she had been for the time. She gave Sherringham a reason for this fear, and he thought her reason innocently pretentious. "She admired a great artist more than anything in the world; and in the presence of art, of great art, her heart beat so fast." Her manners were not perfect, and the friction of a varied experience had rather roughened than smoothed her. She said nothing that showed that she was clever, though he guessed that this was the intention of two or three of her remarks; but he parted from her with the suspicion that she was, according to the contemporary French phrase, a "nature."
The Hôtel de la Garonne was in a small, unrenovated street, in which the cobble-stones of old Paris still flourished, lying between the Avenue de l'Opéra and the Place de la Bourse. Sherringham had occasionally passed through this dim by-way, but he had never noticed the tall, stale maison meublée, whose aspect, that of a third-rate provincial inn, was an illustration of Mrs. Booth's shrunken standard.
"We would ask you to come up, but it's quite at the top and we haven't a sitting-room," the poor lady bravely explained. "We had to receive Mr. Nash at a café."
Nick Dormer declared that he liked cafés, and Miriam, looking at his cousin, dropped with a flash of passion the demand: "Do you wonder that I should want to do something, so that we can stop living like pigs?"
Sherringham recognized eventually, the next day, that though it might be rather painful to listen to her it was better to make her recite than to let her do nothing, so effectually did the presence of his sister and that of Lady Agnes, and even of Grace and Biddy, appear, by a sort of tacit opposition, to deprive hers, ornamental as it was, of a reason. He had only to see them all together to perceive that she couldn't pass for having come to "meet" them—even her mother's insinuating gentility failed to put the occasion on that footing—and that she must therefore be assumed to have been brought to show them something. She was not subdued nor colourless enough to sit there for nothing, or even for conversation (the sort of conversation that was likely to come off), so that it was inevitable to treat her position as connected with the principal place on the carpet, with silence and attention and the pulling together of chairs. Even when so established it struck him at first as precarious, in the light or the darkness of the inexpressive faces of the other ladies, sitting in couples and rows on sofas (there were several in addition to Julia and the Dormers; mainly the wives, with their husbands, of Sherringham's fellow-secretaries), scarcely one of whom he felt that he might count upon to say something gushing when the girl should have finished.
Miss Rooth gave a representation of Juliet drinking her potion, according to the system, as her mother explained, of the famous Signor Ruggieri—a scene of high, fierce sound, of many cries and contortions: she shook her hair (which proved magnificent) half down before the performance was over. Then she declaimed several short poems by Victor Hugo, selected, among many hundred, by Mrs. Rooth, as the good lady was careful to make known. After this she jumped to the American lyre, regaling the company with specimens, both familiar and fresh, of Longfellow, Lowell, Whittier, Holmes, and of two or three poetesses revealed to Sherringham on this occasion. She flowed so copiously, keeping the floor and rejoicing visibly in her opportunity, that Sherringham was mainly occupied with wondering how he could make her leave off. He was surprised at the extent of her repertory, which, in view of the circumstance that she could never have received much encouragement—it must have come mainly from her mother, and he didn't believe in Signor Ruggieri—denoted a very stiff ambition and a kind of misplaced perseverance. It was her mother who checked her at last, and he found himself suspecting that Gabriel Nash had intimated to the old woman that interference was necessary. For himself he was chiefly glad that Madame Carré was not there. It was present to him that she would have deemed the exhibition, with its badness, its assurance, the absence of criticism, almost indecent.
His only new impression of the girl was that of this same high assurance—her coolness, her complacency, her eagerness to go on. She had been deadly afraid of the old actress, but she was not a bit afraid of a cluster of femmes du monde, of Julia, of Lady Agnes, of the smart women of the Embassy. It was positively these personages who were rather frightened; there was certainly a moment when even Julia was scared, for the first time that he had ever seen her. The space was too small; the cries, the rushes of the dishevelled girl were too near. Lady Agnes, much of the time, wore the countenance she might have worn at the theatre during a play in which pistols were fired; and indeed the manner of the young reciter had become more spasmodic, more explosive. It appeared, however, that the company in general thought her very clever and successful; which showed, to Sherringham's sense, how little they understood the matter. Poor Biddy was immensely struck, and grew flushed and absorbed as Miriam, at her best moments, became pale and fatal. It was she who spoke to her first, after it was agreed that they had better not fatigue her any more; she advanced a few steps, happening to be near her, murmuring: "Oh, thank you, thank you so much. I never saw anything so beautiful, so grand."
She looked very red and very pretty as she said this. Peter Sherringham liked her enough to notice and to like her better when she looked prettier than usual. As he turned away he heard Miriam answer, with rather an ungracious irrelevance: "I have seen you before, three days ago, at the Salon, with Mr. Dormer. Yes, I know he's your brother. I have made his acquaintance since. He wants to paint my portrait. Do you think he'll do it well?" He was afraid Miriam was something of a brute, and also somewhat grossly vain. This impression would perhaps have been confirmed if a part of the rest of the short conversation of the two girls had reached his ear. Biddy ventured to remark that she herself had studied modelling a little and that she could understand how any artist would think Miss Rooth a splendid subject. If, indeed, she could attempt her head, that would be a chance to do something.
"Thank you," said Miriam, with a laugh. "I think I had rather not passer par toute la famille!" Then she added: "If your brother's an artist, I don't understand how he's in Parliament."
"Oh, he isn't in Parliament now; we only hope he will be."
"Oh, I see."
"And he isn't an artist, either," Biddy felt herself conscientiously bound to subjoin.
"Then he isn't anything," said Miss Rooth.
"Well—he's immensely clever."
"Oh, I see," Miss Rooth again replied. "Mr. Nash has puffed him up so."
"I don't know Mr. Nash," said Biddy, guilty of a little dryness, and also of a little misrepresentation, and feeling rather snubbed.
"Well, you needn't wish to."
Biddy stood with her a moment longer, still looking at her and not knowing what to say next, but not finding her any less handsome because she had such odd manners. Biddy had an ingenious little mind, which always tried as much as possible to keep different things separate. It was pervaded now by the observation, made with a certain relief, that if the girl spoke to her with such unexpected familiarity of Nick she said nothing at all about Peter. Two gentlemen came up, two of Peter's friends, and made speeches to Miss Rooth of the kind, Biddy supposed, that people learned to make in Paris. It was also doubtless in Paris, the girl privately reasoned, that they learned to listen to them as this striking performer listened. She received their advances very differently from the way she had received Biddy's. Sherringham noticed his young kinswoman turn away, still blushing, to go and sit near her mother again, leaving Miriam engaged with the two men. It appeared to have come over Biddy that for a moment she had been strangely spontaneous and bold and had paid a little of the penalty. The seat next her mother was occupied by Mrs. Rooth, toward whom Lady Agnes's head had inclined itself with a preoccupied air of benevolence. He had an idea that Mrs. Rooth was telling her about the Neville-Nugents of Castle Nugent, and that Lady Agnes was thinking it odd she never had heard of them. He said to himself that Biddy was generous. She had urged Julia to come, in order that they might see how bad the strange young woman would be; but now that she turned out so dazzling she forgot this calculation and rejoiced in what she innocently supposed to be her triumph. She kept away from Julia, however; she didn't even look at her to invite her also to confess that, in vulgar parlance, they had been sold. He himself spoke to his sister, who was leaning back, in rather a detached way, in the corner of a sofa, saying something which led her to remark in reply: "Ah, I dare say it's extremely fine, but I don't care for tragedy when it treads on one's toes. She's like a cow who has kicked over the milking-pail. She ought to be tied up!"
"My poor Julia, it isn't extremely fine; it isn't fine at all," Sherringham rejoined, with some irritation.
"Excuse me. I thought that was why you invited us."
"I thought she was different," Sherringham said.
"Ah, if you don't care for her, so much the better. It has always seemed to me that you make too much of those people."
"Oh, I do care for her in a way, too. She's interesting." His sister gave him a momentary mystified glance, and he added, "And she's awful!" He felt stupidly annoyed, and he was ashamed of his annoyance, for he could have assigned no reason for it. It didn't make it less, for the moment, to see Gabriel Nash approach Mrs. Dallow, introduced by Nick Dormer. He gave place to the two young men with a certain alacrity, for he had a sense of being put in the wrong, in respect to the heroine of the occasion, by Nash's very presence. He remembered that it had been a part of their bargain, as it were, that he should present that gentleman to his sister. He was not sorry to be relieved of the office by Nick, and he even, tacitly and ironically, wished his cousin's friend joy of a colloquy with Mrs. Dallow. Sherringham's life was spent with people, he was used to people, and both as a host and as a guest he carried them, in general, lightly. He could observe, especially in the former capacity, without uneasiness, take the temperature without anxiety. But at present his company oppressed him; he felt himself nervous, which was the thing in the world that he had always held to be least an honour to a gentleman dedicated to diplomacy. He was vexed with the levity in himself which had made him call them together on so poor a pretext, and yet he was vexed with the stupidity in them which made them think, as they evidently did, that the pretext was sufficient. He inwardly groaned at the precipitancy with which he had saddled himself with the Tragic Muse (a tragic muse who was noisy and pert), and yet he wished his visitors would go away and leave him alone with her.
Nick Dormer said to Mrs. Dallow that he wanted her to know an old friend of his, one of the cleverest men he knew; and he added the hope that she would be gentle and encouraging with him: he was so timid and so easily disconcerted.
Gabriel Nash dropped into a chair by the arm of Julia's sofa, Nick Dormer went away, and Mrs. Dallow turned her glance upon her new acquaintance without a perceptible change of position. Then she emitted, with rapidity, the remark: "It's very awkward when people are told one is clever."
"It's awkward if one isn't," said Mr. Nash, smiling.
"Yes, but so few people are—enough to be talked about."
"Isn't that just the reason why such a matter, such an exception, ought to be mentioned to them?" asked Gabriel Nash. "They mightn't find it out for themselves. Of course, however, as you say, there ought to be a certainty; then they are surer to know it. Dormer's a dear fellow, but he's rash and superficial."
Mrs. Dallow, at this, turned her glance a second time upon her interlocutor; but during the rest of the conversation she rarely repeated the movement. If she liked Nick Dormer extremely (and it may without further delay be communicated to the reader that she did), her liking was of a kind that opposed no difficulty whatever to her not liking (in case of such a complication) a person attached or otherwise belonging to him. It was not in her nature to extend tolerances to others for the sake of an individual she loved: the tolerance was usually consumed in the loving; there was nothing left over. If the affection that isolates and simplifies its object may be distinguished from the affection that seeks communications and contacts for it, Julia Dallow's belonged wholly to the former class. She was not so much jealous as rigidly direct. She desired no experience for the familiar and yet partly mysterious kinsman in whom she took an interest that she would not have desired for herself; and, indeed, the cause of her interest in him was partly the vision of his helping her to the particular emotion that she did desire—the emotion of great affairs and of public action. To have such ambitions for him appeared to her the greatest honour she could do him; her conscience was in it as well as her inclination, and her scheme, in her conception, was noble enough to varnish over any disdain she might feel for forces drawing him another way. She had a prejudice, in general, against his connections, a suspicion of them and a supply of unwrought contempt ready for them. It was a singular circumstance that she was sceptical even when, knowing her as well as he did, he thought them worth recommending to her: the recommendation indeed inveterately confirmed the suspicion.
This was a law from which Gabriel Nash was condemned to suffer, if suffering could on any occasion be predicated of Gabriel Nash. His pretension was, in truth, that he had purged his life of such incongruities, though probably he would have admitted that if a sore spot remained the hand of a woman would be sure to touch it. In dining with her brother and with the Dormers, two evenings before, Mrs. Dallow had been moved to exclaim that Peter and Nick knew the most extraordinary people. As regards Peter the attitudinizing girl and her mother now pointed that moral with sufficient vividness; so that there was little arrogance in taking a similar quality for granted in the conceited man at her elbow, who sat there as if he would be capable, from one moment to another, of leaning over the arm of her sofa. She had not the slightest wish to talk with him about himself, and was afraid, for an instant, that he was on the point of passing from the chapter of his cleverness to that of his timidity. It was a false alarm, however, for instead of this he said something about the pleasures of the monologue, as the distraction that had just been offered was called by the French. He intimated that in his opinion these pleasures were mainly for the performers. They had all, at any rate, given Miss Rooth a charming afternoon; that, of course, was what Miss Dallow's kind brother had mainly intended in arranging the little party. (Mrs. Dallow hated to hear him call her brother "kind"; the term seemed offensively patronizing.) But he himself, he related, was now constantly employed in the same beneficence, listening, two-thirds of his time, to "intonations" and shrieks. She had doubtless observed it herself, how the great current of the age, the adoration of the mime, was almost too strong for any individual; how it swept one along and hurled one against the rocks. As she made no response to this proposition Gabriel Nash asked her if she had not been struck with the main sign of the time, the preponderance of the mountebank, the glory and renown, the personal favour, that he enjoyed. Hadn't she noticed what an immense part of the public attention he held, in London at least? For in Paris society was not so pervaded with him, and the women of the profession, in particular, were not in every drawing-room.
"I don't know what you mean," Mrs. Dallow said. "I know nothing of any such people."
"Aren't they under your feet wherever you turn—their performances, their portraits, their speeches, their autobiographies, their names, their manners, their ugly mugs, as the people say, and their idiotic pretensions?"
"I dare say it depends on the places one goes to. If they're everywhere"—and Mrs. Dallow paused a moment—"I don't go everywhere."
"I don't go anywhere, but they mount on my back, at home, like the Old Man of the Sea. Just observe a little when you return to London," Nash continued, with friendly instructiveness. Mrs. Dallow got up at this—she didn't like receiving directions; but no other corner of the room appeared to offer her any particular reason for crossing to it: she never did such a thing without a great inducement. So she remained standing there, as if she were quitting the place in a moment, which indeed she now determined to do; and her interlocutor, rising also, lingered beside her, unencouraged but unperturbed. He went on to remark that Mr. Sherringham was quite right to offer Miss Rooth an afternoon's sport; she deserved it as a fine, brave, amiable girl. She was highly educated, knew a dozen languages, was of illustrious lineage and was immensely particular.
"Immensely particular?" Mrs. Dallow repeated.
"Perhaps I should say that her mother is, on her behalf. Particular about the sort of people they meet—the tone, the standard. I'm bound to say they're like you: they don't go everywhere. That spirit is meritorious; it should be recognized and rewarded."
Mrs. Dallow said nothing for a moment; she looked vaguely round the room, but not at Miriam Rooth. Nevertheless she presently dropped, in allusion to her, the words: "She's dreadfully vulgar."
"Ah, don't say that to my friend Dormer!" Gabriel Nash exclaimed.
"Are you and he such great friends?" Mrs. Dallow asked, looking at him.
"Great enough to make me hope we shall be greater."
Again, for a moment, she said nothing; then she went on—"Why shouldn't I say to him that she's vulgar?"
"Because he admires her so much; he wants to paint her."
"To paint her?"
"To paint her portrait."
"Oh, I see. I dare say she'd do for that."
Gabriel Nash laughed gaily. "If that's your opinion of her you are not very complimentary to the art he aspires to practise."
"He aspires to practise?" Mrs. Dallow repeated.
"Haven't you talked with him about it? Ah, you must keep him up to it!"
Julia Dallow was conscious, for a moment, of looking uncomfortable; but it relieved her to demand of her neighbour, in a certain tone, "Are you an artist?"
"I try to be," Nash replied, smiling; "but I work in such a difficult material."
He spoke this with such a clever suggestion of unexpected reference that, in spite of herself, Mrs. Dallow said after him—
"Difficult material?"
"I work in life!"
At this Mrs. Dallow turned away, leaving Nash the impression that she probably misunderstood his speech, thinking he meant that he drew from the living model, or some such platitude: as if there could have been any likelihood that he drew from the dead one. This, indeed, would not fully have explained the abruptness with which she dropped their conversation. Gabriel Nash, however, was used to sudden collapses, and even to sudden ruptures, on the part of his interlocutors, and no man had more the secret of remaining gracefully with his ideas on his hands. He saw Mrs. Dallow approach Nick Dormer, who was talking with one of the ladies of the Embassy, and apparently signify to him that she wished to speak to him. He got up, they had a minute's conversation, and then he turned and took leave of his fellow-visitor. Mrs. Dallow said a word to her brother, Dormer joined her, and then they came together to the door. In this movement they had to pass near Nash, and it gave her an opportunity to nod good-bye to him, which he was by no means sure she would have done if Nick had not been with her. The young man stopped a moment; he said to Nash: "I should like to see you this evening, late; you must meet me somewhere."
"We'll take a walk—I should like that," Nash replied. "I shall smoke a cigar at the café on the corner of the Place de l'Opéra; you'll find me there." Gabriel prepared to compass his own departure, but before doing so he addressed himself to the duty of saying a few words of civility to Lady Agnes. This proved difficult, for on one side she was defended by the wall of the room and on the other rendered inaccessible by Miriam's mother, who clung to her with a quickly-rooted fidelity, showing no symptom of desistance. Gabriel compromised on her daughter Grace, who said to him.:
"You were talking with my cousin, Mrs. Dallow."
"To her rather than with her," Nash smiled.
"Ah, she's very charming," said Grace.
"She's very beautiful," Nash rejoined.
"And very clever," Miss Dormer continued.
"Very, very intelligent." His conversation with the young lady went little further than this, and he presently took leave of Peter Sherringham; remarking to him, as he shook hands, that he was very sorry for him. But he had courted his fate.
"What do you mean by my fate?" Sherringham asked.
"You've got them for life."
"Why for life, when I now lucidly and courageously recognize that she isn't good?"
"Ah, but she'll become so," said Gabriel Nash.
"Do you think that?" Sherringham inquired, with a candour which made his visitor laugh.
"You will—that's more to the purpose!" Gabriel exclaimed, as he went away.
Ten minutes later Lady Agnes substituted a general vague assent to all further particular ones and, with her daughters, withdrew from Mrs. Rooth and from the rest of the company. Peter had had very little talk with Biddy, but the girl kept her disappointment out of her pretty eyes and said to him:
"You told us she didn't know how—but she does!" There was no suggestion of disappointment in this.
Sherringham held her hand a moment. "Ah, it's you who know how, dear Biddy!" he answered; and he was conscious that if the occasion had been more private he would lawfully have kissed her.
Presently three others of his guests departed, and Mr. Nash's assurance that he had them for life recurred to him as he observed that Mrs. Rooth and her daughter quite failed to profit by so many examples. The Lovicks remained—a colleague and his sociable wife—and Peter gave them a hint that they were not to leave him absolutely alone with the two ladies. Miriam quitted Mrs. Lovick, who had attempted, with no great subtlety, to engage her, and came up to Sherringham as if she suspected him of a design of stealing from the room and had the idea of preventing it.
"I want some more tea: will you give me some more? I feel quite faint. You don't seem to suspect how that sort of thing takes it out of you."
Sherringham apologized, extravagantly, for not having seen that she had the proper quantity of refreshment, and took her to the round table, in a corner, on which the little collation had been served. He poured out tea for her and pressed bread-and-butter on her, and petits fours, of all which she profusely and methodically partook. It was late; the afternoon had faded and a lamp had been brought in, the wide shade of which shed a fair glow upon the tea-service, the little plates of comestibles. The Lovicks sat with Mrs. Rooth at the other end of the room, and the girl stood at the table drinking her tea and eating her bread-and-butter. She consumed these articles so freely that he wondered if she had been in serious want of food—if they were so poor as to have to count with that sort of privation. This supposition was softening, but still not so much so as to make him ask her to sit down. She appeared indeed to prefer to stand: she looked better so, as if the freedom, the conspicuity of being on her feet and treading a stage were agreeable to her. While Sherringham lingered near her, vaguely, with his hands in his pockets, not knowing exactly what to say and instinctively avoiding, now, the theatrical question (there were moments when he was plentifully tired of it), she broke out, abruptly: "Confess that you think me intolerably bad!"
"Intolerably—no."
"Only tolerably! I think that's worse."
"Every now and then you do something very clever," Sherringham said.
"How many such things did I do to-day?"
"Oh, three or four. I don't know that I counted very carefully."
She raised her cup to her lips, looking at him over the rim of it—a proceeding which gave her eyes a strange expression.
"It bores you, and you think it disagreeable," she said in a moment—"a girl always talking about herself." He protested that she could never bore him, and she went on: "Oh, I don't want compliments—I want the truth. An actress has to talk about herself; what else can she talk about, poor vain thing?"
"She can talk sometimes about other actresses."
"That comes to the same thing. You won't be serious. I'm awfully serious." There was something that caught his attention in the way she said this—a longing, half-hopeless, half-argumentative, to be believed in. "If one really wants to do anything one must worry it out; of course everything doesn't come the first day," she pursued. "I can't see everything at once; but I can see a little more—step by step—as I go: can't I?"
"That's the way—that's the way," said Sherringham. "If you see the things to do, the art of doing them will come, if you hammer away. The great point is to see them."
"Yes; and you don't think me clever enough for that."
"Why do you say so, when I've asked you to come here on purpose?"
"You've asked me to come, but I've had no success."
"On the contrary; every one thought you wonderful."
"Oh, they don't know!" said Miriam Rooth. "You've not said a word to me. I don't mind your not having praised me; that would be too banal. But if I'm bad—and I know I'm dreadful—I wish you would talk to me about it."
"It's delightful to talk to you," Sherringham said.
"No, it isn't, but it's kind," she answered, looking away from him.
Her voice had a quality, as she uttered these words, which made him exclaim, "Every now and then you say something—!"
She turned her eyes back to him, smiling. "I don't want it to come by accident." Then she added: "If there's any good to be got from trying, from showing one's self, how can it come unless one hears the simple truth, the truth that turns one inside out? It's all for that—to know what one is, if one's a stick! "
"You have great courage, you have rare qualities," said Sherringham. She had begun to touch him, to seem different: he was glad she had not gone.
For a moment she made no response to this, putting down her empty cup and looking vaguely over the table, as if to select something more to eat. Suddenly she raised her head and broke out with vehemence: "I will, I will, I will!"
"You'll do what you want, evidently."
"I will succeed—I will be great. Of course I know too little, I've seen too little. But I've always liked it; I've never liked anything else. I used to learn things, and to do scenes, and to rant about the room, when I was five years old." She went on, communicative, persuasive, familiar, egotistical (as was necessary), and slightly common, or perhaps only natural; with reminiscences, reasons and anecdotes, an unexpected profusion, and with an air of comradeship, of freedom of intercourse, which appeared to plead that she was capable at least of embracing that side of the profession she desired to adopt. He perceived that if she had seen very little, as she said, she had also seen a great deal; but both her experience and her innocence had been accidental and irregular. She had seen very little acting—the theatre was always too expensive. If she could only go often—in Paris, for instance, every night for six months—to see the best, the worst, everything, she would make things out, she would observe and learn what to do, what not to do: it would be a kind of school. But she couldn't, without selling the clothes off her back. It was vile and disgusting to be poor; and if ever she were to know the bliss of having a few francs in her pocket she would make up for it—that she could promise! She had never been acquainted with any one who could tell her anything—if it was good or bad, or right or wrong—except Mrs. Delamere and poor Ruggieri. She supposed they had told her a great deal, but perhaps they hadn't, and she was perfectly willing to give it up if it was bad. Evidently Madame Carré thought so; she thought it was horrid. Wasn't it perfectly divine, the way the old woman had said those verses, those speeches of Célie? If she would only let her come and listen to her once in a while, like that, it was all she would ask. She had got lots of ideas, just from that; she had practised them over, over and over again, the moment she got home. He might ask her mother—he might ask the people next door. If Madame Carré didn't think she could work she might have heard something that would show her. But she didn't think her even good enough to criticize; for that wasn't criticism, telling her her head was good. Of course her head was good; she didn't need travel up to the quartiers excentriques to find that out. It was her mother—the way she talked—who gave that idea, that she wanted to be elegant, and very moral, and a femme du monde, and all that sort of trash. Of course that put people off, when they were only thinking of the right way. Didn't she know, Miriam herself, that that was the only thing to think of? But any one would be kind to her mother who knew what a dear she was. "She doesn't know when it's right or wrong, but she's a perfect saint," said the girl, obscuring considerably her vindication. "She doesn't mind when I say things over by the hour, dinning them into her ears while she sits there and reads. She's a tremendous reader; she's awfully up in literature. She taught me everything herself—I mean all that sort of thing. Of course I'm not so fond of reading; I go in for the book of life." Sherringham wondered whether her mother had not, at any rate, taught her that phrase, and thought it highly probable. "It would give on my nerves, the life I lead her," Miriam continued; "but she's really a delicious woman."
The oddity of this epithet made Sherringham laugh, and altogether, in a few minutes, which is perhaps a sign that he abused his right to be a man of moods, the young lady had produced a revolution of curiosity in him, re-awakened his sympathy. Her mixture, as it spread itself before one, was a quickening spectacle: she was intelligent and clumsy—she was underbred and fine. Certainly she was very various, and that was rare; not at all at this moment the heavy-eyed, frightened creature who had pulled herself together with such an effort at Madame Carré's, nor the elated "phenomenon" who had just been declaiming, nor the rather affected and contradictious young person with whom he had walked home from the Rue de Constantinople. Was this succession of phases a sign that she really possessed the celebrated artistic temperament, the nature that made people provoking and interesting? That Sherringham himself was of that shifting complexion is perhaps proved by his odd capacity for being of two different minds at very nearly the same time. Miriam was pretty now, with likeable looks and charming usual eyes. Yes, there were things he could do for her; he had already forgotten the chill of Mr. Nash's irony, of his prophecy. He was even scarcely conscious how much, in general, he detested hints, insinuations, favours asked obliquely and plaintively: that was doubtless also because the girl was so pretty and so fraternizing. Perhaps indeed it was unjust to qualify it as roundabout, the manner in which Miss Rooth conveyed to him that it was open to him not only to pay for lessons for her, but to meet the expense of her nightly attendance, with her mother, at instructive exhibitions of theatrical art. It was a large order, sending the pair to all the plays; but what Sherringham now found himself thinking about was not so much its largeness as that it would be rather interesting to go with them sometimes and point the moral (the technical one), showing her the things he liked, the things he disapproved. She repeated her declaration that she recognized the fallacy of her mother's views about "noble" heroines and about the importance of her looking out for such tremendously proper people. "One must let her talk, but of course it creates a prejudice," she said, with her eyes on Mr. and Mrs. Lovick, who had got up, terminating their communion with Mrs. Rooth. "It's a great muddle, I know, but she can't bear anything coarse—and quite right, too. I shouldn't, either, if I didn't have to. But I don't care where I go if I can act, or who they are if they'll help me. I want to act—that's what I want to do; I don't want to meddle in people's affairs. I can look out for myself—I'm all right!" the girl exclaimed, roundly, frankly, with a ring of honesty which made her crude and pure. "As for doing the bad ones, I'm not afraid of that."
"The bad ones?"
"The bad women, in the plays—like Madame Carré. I'll do anything."
"I think you'll do best what you are," remarked Sherringham, laughing. "You're a strange girl."
"Je crois bien! Doesn't one have to be, to want to go and exhibit one's self to a loathsome crowd, on a platform, with trumpets and a big drum, for money—to parade one's body and one's soul?"
Sherringham looked at her a moment: her face changed constantly; now there was a little flush and a noble delicacy in it.
"Give it up; you're too good for it," he said, abruptly.
"Never, never—never till I'm pelted!"
"Then stay on here a bit; I'll take you to the theatres."
"Oh, you dear!" Miriam delightedly exclaimed. Mr. and Mrs. Lovick, accompanied by Mrs. Rooth, now crossed the room to them, and the girl went on, in the same tone: "Mamma, dear, he's the best friend we've ever had; he's a great deal nicer than I thought."
"So are you, mademoiselle," said .Peter Sherringham.
"Oh, I trust Mr. Sherringham—I trust him infinitely," Mrs. Rooth returned, covering him with her mild, respectable, wheedling eyes. "The kindness of every one has been beyond everything. Mr. and Mrs. Lovick can't say enough. They make the most obliging offers; they want you to know their brother."
"Oh, I say, he's no brother of mine," Mr. Lovick protested, good-naturedly.
"They think he'll be so suggestive, he'll put us up to the right things," Mrs. Rooth went on.
"It's just a little brother of mine—such a dear, clever boy," Mrs. Lovick explained.
"Do you know she has got nine? Upon my honour she has!" said her husband. "This one is the sixth. Fancy if I had to take them over!"
"Yes, it makes it rather awkward," Mrs. Lovick amiably conceded. "He has gone on the stage, poor dear boy; he acts rather well."
"He tried for the diplomatic service, but he didn't precisely dazzle his examiners," Mr. Lovick remarked.
"Edmund's very nasty about him. There are lots of gentlemen on the stage; he's not the first."
"It's such a comfort to hear that," said Mrs. Booth.
"I'm much obliged to you. Has he got a theatre?" Miriam asked.
"My dear young lady, he hasn't even got an engagement," replied the young man's unsympathizing brother-in-law.
"He hasn't been at it very long, but I'm sure he'll get on. He's immensely in earnest, and he's very good-looking. I just said that if he should come over to see us you might rather like to meet him. He might give you some tips, as my husband says."
"I don't care for his looks, but I should like his tips," said Miriam, smiling.
"And is he coming over to see you?" asked Sherringham, to whom, while this exchange of remarks, which he had not lost, was going on, Mrs. Rooth had, in lowered accents, addressed herself.
"Not if I can help it, I think!" Mr. Lovick declared, but so jocosely that it was not embarrassing.
"Oh, sir, I'm sure you're fond of him," Mrs. Rooth remonstrated, as the party passed together into the antechamber.
"No, really, I like some of the others—four or five of them; but I don't like Arty."
"We'll make it up to him, then; we'll like him," Miriam declared, gaily; and her voice rang in the staircase (Sherringham went a little way with them), with a charm which her host had not perceived in her sportive note the day before.