Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 2.djvu/120

112 his voice: "I've imperilled my immortal soul, or at least I've bemuddled my intelligence, by all the things I don't care for that I've tried to do, and all the things I detest that I've tried to be, and all the things I never can be that I've tried to look as if I were—all the appearances and imitations, the pretences and hypocrisies in which I've steeped myself to the eyes; and at the end of it (it serves me right!) my reward is simply to learn that I'm still not half humbug enough!"

Mrs. Dallow looked away from him as soon as he had spoken these words; she attached her eyes to the clock which stood behind him and observed irrelevantly:

"I'm very sorry, but I think you had better go. I don't like you to stay after midnight."

"Ah, what you like and what you don't like, and where one begins and the other ends—all that's an impenetrable mystery!" the young man declared. But he took no further notice of her allusion to his departure, adding in a different tone: "'A man like Mr. Macgeorge!' When you say a thing of that sort, in a certain particular way, I should rather like to suffer you to perish."

Mrs. Dallow stared; it might have seemed for an instant that she was trying to look stupid. "How can I help it if a few years hence he is certain to be at the head of any Liberal government?"

"We can't help it, of course, but we can help talking about it," Nick smiled. "If we don't mention it, it may not be noticed."

"You're trying to make me angry. You're in one of your