Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 1.djvu/159

Rh 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,