Page:The Portrait of a Lady (1882).djvu/84

76 76 THE POETRAIT OF A LADY. Miss Stackpole turned her gaze to the Constable again, and Ralph bespoke her attention for a small Watteau hanging near it, which represented a gentleman in a pink doublet and hose and a ruff, leaning against the pedestal of the statue of a nymph in a garden, and playing the guitar to two ladies seated on the grass. " That's my ideal of a regular occupation," he said. Miss Stackpole turned to him again, and though her eyes had rested upon the picture, he saw that she had not apprehended the subject. She was thinking of something much more serious. " 1 don't see how you can reconcile it to your conscience," she said. " My dear lady, I have no conscience ! " "Well, I advise you to cultivate one. You will need it the next time you go to America." " I shall probably never go again." " Are you ashamed to show yourself 1 " Ralph meditated, with a gentle smile. " I suppose that, if one has no conscience, one has no shame " " Well, you have got plenty of assurance," Henrietta declared. " Do you consider it right to give up your country ? " " Ah, one doesn't give up one's country any more than on gives up one's grandmother. It's antecedent to choice." " I suppose that means that you would give it up if you could 1 What do they think of you over here 1 " " They delight in me." " That's because you truckle to them." " Ah, set it down a little to my natural charm ! " Ealph urged. "I don't know anything about your natural charm. If you have got any charm, it's quite unnatural. It's wholly acquired or at least you have tried hard to acquire it, living over here. I don't say you have succeeded. It's a charm that I don't appreciate, any way. Make yourself useful in some way, and then we will talk about it." " Well now, tell me what I shall do," said Ralph. " Go right home, to begin with." " Yes, I see. And then 1 " " Take right hold of something." " Well, now, what sort of thing 1 " " Anything you please, so long as you take hold. Some new idea, some big work." "Is it very difficult to take hold 1 " Ralph inquired. " Not if you put your heart into it." " Ah, my heart," said Ralph. "If it depends upon my heart "