Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 2.djvu/118

110 Nick broke into a laugh. "I like lessons in getting on—in other words I suppose you mean in urbanity—from you, Julia!"

"Why not from me?"

"Because you can do nothing base. You're incapable of putting on a flattering manner, to get something by it: therefore why should you expect me to? You're unflattering—that is you're austere—in proportion as there may be something to be got."

Mrs. Dallow sprang up from her chair, coming towards him. "There is only one thing I want in the world—you know very well."

"Yes, you want it so much that you won't even take it when it's pressed upon you. How long do you seriously expect me to bear it" Nick repeated.

"I never asked you to do anything base," she said, standing in front of him. "If I'm not clever about throwing myself into things, it's all the more reason you should be."

"If you're not clever, my dear Julia?" Nick, standing close to her, placed his hands on her shoulders and shook her a little with a mixture of tenderness and passion. "You're clever enough to make me furious, sometimes!"

She opened and closed her fan, looking down at it while she submitted to this attenuated violence. "All I want is that when a man like Mr. Macgeorge talks to you, you shouldn't appear to be bored to death. You used to be so charming in that sort of way. And now you appear to take no interest in anything. At dinner to-night you scarcely opened your lips; you treated them all as if you only wished they'd go."