Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 2.djvu/109

Rh "No, no; to you. Give it up and live with me."

"Give it up?" And she turned her stage face upon him.

"Give it up and I'll marry you to-morrow."

"This a happy time to ask it!" she mocked. "And this is a good place."

"Very good indeed, and that's why I speak: it's a place to make one choose—it puts it all before one."

"To make you choose, you mean. I'm much obliged, but that's not my choice," laughed Miriam.

"You shall be anything you like—except this."

"Except what I most want to be? I am much obliged."

"Don't you care for me? Haven't you any gratitude?" Sherringham asked.

"Gratitude for kindly removing the blessed cup from my lips? I want to be what she is—I want it more than ever."

"Ah, what she is!" he replied impatiently.

"Do you mean I can't? We'll see if I can't. Tell me more about her—tell me everything."

"Haven't you seen for yourself, and can't you judge?"

"She's strange, she's mysterious," Miriam declared, looking at the fire. "She showed us nothing—nothing of her real self."

"So much the better, all things considered."

"Are there all sorts of other things in her life? That's what I believe," Miriam went on, raising her eyes to him.

"I can't tell you what there is in the life of such a woman."

"Imagine—when she's so perfect!" the girl exclaimed, thoughtfully. "Ah, she kept me off—she kept me off! Her charming manner is in itself a kind of contempt. It's an