Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 2.djvu/60

52 were to make her deviate? So certain was that irrepressible deviltry to insist ever on its own.

Besides, could one make her deviate? If she had no disposition to philander, what was his warrant for supposing that she could be corrupted into respectability? How could the career (his career) speak to a nature which had glimpses, as vivid as they were crude, of such a different range, and for which success meant quite another sauce to the dish? Would the brilliancy of marrying Peter Sherringham be such a bribe to relinquishment? How could he think so without fatuity—how could he regard himself as a high prize? Relinquishment of the opportunity to exercise a rare talent was not, in the nature of things, an easy effort to a young lady who was conceited as well as ambitious. Besides, she might eat her cake and have it—might make her fortune both on the stage and in the world. Successful actresses had ended by marrying dukes, and was not that better than remaining obscure and marrying a commoner? There were moments when Sherringham tried to think that Miriam's talent was not a force to reckon with; there was so little to show for it as yet that the caprice of believing in it would perhaps suddenly leave her. But his suspicion that it was real was too uneasy to make such an experiment peaceful, and he came back moreover to his deepest impression—that of her being of the turn of mind for which the only consistency is talent. Had not Madame Carré said at the last that she could "do anything"? It was true that if Madame Carré had been mistaken in the first place she might also be mistaken in the second. But in this latter case she would be mistaken with him, and such an error would be too like a truth.