Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 2.djvu/85

Rh "On it? But what do they put in it? Who will interpret them? Who will manage a style like that—the style of which the verses she just repeated are a specimen? Whom have you got that one has ever heard of?"

"Oh, you'll hear of a good deal when once she gets started," Basil Dashwood contended, cheerfully.

Madame Carré looked at him a moment; then, "You'll become very bad," she said to Miriam. "I'm glad I sha'n't see it."

"People will do things for me—I'll make them," the girl declared. "I'll stir them up so that they'll have ideas."

"What people, pray?"

"Ah, terrible woman!" Sherringham moaned, theatrically.

"We translate your pieces—there will be plenty of parts," Basil Dashwood said.

"Why then go out of the door to come in at the window?—especially if you smash it! An English arrangement of a French piece is a pretty woman with her back turned."

"Do you really want to keep her?" Sherringham asked of Madame Carré, as if he were thinking for a moment that this after all might be possible. She bent her strange eyes on him. "No, you are all too queer together; we couldn't be bothered with you, and you're not worth it."

"I'm glad it's together; we can console each other."

"If you only would; but you don't seem to! In short, I don't understand you—I give you up. But it doesn't matter," said the old woman, wearily, "for the theatre is dead and even you, ma toute-belle, won't bring it to life. Everything is going