Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 3.djvu/138

130 I never urged you to adopt it!" Mrs. Rooth cried, in real bewilderment, to her daughter.

"She was abusing mine still more, the other day," joked Nick—"telling me I ought to be ashamed of it and of myself."

"Oh, I never know from one moment to the other—I live with my heart in my mouth," sighed the old woman.

"Aren't you quiet about the great thing—about my behaviour?" Miriam smiled. "My only extravagances are intellectual."

"I don't know what you call your behaviour."

"You would very soon if it were not what it is."

"And I don't know what you call intellectual," grumbled Mrs. Rooth.

"Yes, but I don't see very well how I could make you understand that. At any rate," Miriam went on, looking at Nick, "I retract what I said the other day about Mr. Dormer. I've no wish to quarrel with him about the way he has determined to dispose of his life, because after all it does suit me very well. It rests me, this little devoted corner; oh, it rests me. It's out of the tussle and the heat, it's deliciously still, and they can't get at me. Ah, when art's like this, à la bonne heure!" And she looked round on such a presentment of "art" with a splendid air that made Nick burst out laughing at its contrast with the humble fact. Miriam smiled at him as if she liked to be the cause of his mirth, and went on appealing to him: "You'll always let me come here for an hour, won't you, to take breath—to let the whirlwind pass? You needn't trouble yourself about me;