Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 2.djvu/86

78 from bad to worse, and I don't care what becomes of you. You wouldn't understand us here and they won't understand you there, and everything is impossible, and no one is a whit the wiser, and it's not of the least consequence. Only when you raise your arms lift them just a little higher," Madame Carré added.

"My mother will be happier chez nous," said Miriam, throwing her arms straight up with a noble tragic movement.

"You won't be in the least in the right path till your mother's in despair."

"Well, perhaps we can bring that about even in London," Sherringham suggested, laughing.

"Dear Mrs. Rooth—she's great fun," Mr. Dashwood dropped. Miriam transferred the gloomy beauty of her gaze to him, as if she were practising. "You won't upset her, at any rate." Then she stood with her fatal mask before Madame Carré. "I want to do the modern too. I want to do le drame, with realistic effects."

"And do you want to look like the portico of the Madeleine when it's draped for a funeral?" her instructress mocked. "Never, never. I don't believe you're various: that's not the way I see you. You're pure tragedy, with de grands effets de voix, in the great style, or you're nothing."

"Be beautiful—be only that," Sherringham advised. "Be only what you can be so well—something that one may turn to for glimpse of perfection, to lift one out of all the vulgarities of the day."