Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 1.djvu/124

116 to place my daughter where the conduct—and the picture of conduct, in which she should take part—wouldn't be absolutely dreadful. Now, chère madame, how about all that? how about the conduct in the French theatre—the things she should see, the things she should hear?"

"I don't think I know what you are talking about. They are the things she may see and hear everywhere; only they are better done, they are better said. The only conduct that concerns an actress, it seems to me, is her own, and the only way for her to behave herself is not to be a stick. I know no other conduct."

"But there are characters, there are situations, which I don't think I should like to see her undertake."

"There are many, no doubt, which she would do well to leave alone!" laughed the Frenchwoman.

"I shouldn't like to see her represent a very bad woman—a really bad one," Mrs. Rooth serenely pursued.

"Ah, in England, then, and in your theatre, every one is good? Your plays must be even more ingenious than I supposed."

"We haven't any plays," said Gabriel Nash.

"People will write them for Miss Rooth—it will be a new era," Peter Sherringham rejoined, with wanton, or at any rate combative, optimism.

"Will you, sir—will you do something? A sketch of some truly noble female type?" the old lady asked, engagingly.

"Oh, I know what you do with our pieces—to show your superior virtue!" Madame Carré broke in, before he had time to reply that he wrote nothing but diplomatic memoranda.