Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 3.djvu/146

138 should be angelically careful of her and surround her with every attention and precaution."

"The likes of us—the likes of us!" Mrs. Rooth repeated plaintively, with ineffectual, theoretical resentment. "I don't know what you are talking about, and I decline to be turned upside down. I have my ideas as well as you, and I repudiate the charge of false humility. I've been through too many troubles to be proud, and a pleasant, polite manner was the rule of my life even in the days when, God knows, I had everything. I've never changed, and if, with God's help, I had a civil tongue then, I have a civil tongue now. It's more than you always have, my poor perverse and passionate child. Once a lady always a lady—all the footlights in the world, turn them up as high as you will, won't make a difference. And I think people know it, people who know anything (if I may use such an expression), and it's because they know it that I'm not afraid to address them courteously. And I must say—and I call Mr. Dormer to witness, for if he could reason with you a bit about it he might render several people a service—your conduct to Mr. Sherringham simply breaks my heart," Mrs. Rooth concluded, with a jump of several steps in the fine modern avenue of her argument.

Nick was appealed to, but he hesitated a moment, and while he hesitated Miriam remarked: "Mother is good—mother is very good; but it is only little by little that you discover how good she is." This seemed to leave Nick free to ask Mrs. Rooth, with the preliminary intimation that what she had just said was very striking, what she meant by her daughter's conduct to Peter Sherringham. Before Mrs. Rooth could answer