Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 3.djvu/145

Rh "What one would think, beloved mother, is that you are a still greater humbug than you are. It's you, on the contrary, who go down on your knees, who pour forth apologies about our being vagabonds."

"Vagabonds—listen to her!—after the education I've given her and our magnificent prospects!" wailed Mrs. Eooth, sinking, with clasped hands, upon the nearest ottoman.

"Not after our prospects, if prospects they are: a good deal before them. Yes, you've taught me tongues, and I'm greatly obliged to you—they no doubt impart variety, as well as incoherency, to my conversation; and that of people in our line is for the most part notoriously monotonous and shoppy. The gift of tongues is in general the sign of your genuine adventurer. Dear mamma, I've no low standard—that's the last thing," Miriam went on. "My weakness is my exalted conception of respectability. Ah, parlez-moi de ça and of the way I understand it! Oh, if I were to go in for being respectable you'd see something fine. I'm awfully conservative and I know what respectability is, even when I meet people of society on the accidental middle ground of glowering or smirking. I know also what it isn't—it isn't the sweet union of little girls and actresses. I should carry it much further than any of these people: I should never look at the likes of us! Every hour I live I see that the wisdom of the ages was in the experience of dear old Madame Carré—was in a hundred things she told me. She's founded a rock. After that," Miriam went on, to her host, "I can assure you that if you were so good as to bring Miss Dormer to see us we