Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 1.djvu/123

Rh "And very correctly," said Gabriel Nash. "The theatre in our countries is puerile and barbarous."

"There is something to be done for it, and perhaps mademoiselle is the person to do it," Sherringham suggested, contentiously.

"Ah, but, en attendant, what can it do for her?" Madame Carré asked.

"Well, anything that I can help it to do," said Peter Sherringham, who was more and more struck with the girl's rich type. Miriam Rooth sat in silence, while this discussion went on, looking from one speaker to the other with a suspended, literal air.

"Ah, if your part is marked out, I congratulate you, mademoiselle!" said the old actress, underlining the words as she had often underlined such words on the stage. She smiled with large permissiveness on the young aspirant, who appeared not to understand her. Her tone penetrated, however, to certain depths in the mother's nature, adding another stir to agitated waters.

"I feel the responsibility of what she shall find in the life, the standards, of the theatre," Mrs. Rooth explained. "Where is the purest tone—where are the highest standards? that's what I ask," the good lady continued, with a persistent candour which elicited a peal of unceremonious but sociable laughter from Gabriel Nash.

"The purest tone—qu'est-ce-que-c'est que ça?" Madame Carre demanded, in the finest manner of modern comedy.

"We are very, very respectable," Mrs. Rooth went on, smiling and achieving lightness, too. "What I want to do is