Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 3.djvu/153

Rh humours, professing that she herself would never accept so much from Nick's good-nature, and Miriam settled it that at any rate he was some day and in some way to do her mother and sail very near the wind.

"She doesn't believe he wants to marry me, any more than you do," the girl, taking up her dispute again after a moment, represented to Nick; "but she believes—how indeed can I tell you what she believes?—that I can work it (that's about it), so that in the fullness of time I shall hold him in a vise. I'm to keep him along for the present, but not to listen to him, for if I listen to him I shall lose him. It's ingenious, it's complicated; but I dare say you follow me."

"Don't move—don't move," said Nick. "Excuse a beginner."

"No, I shall explain quietly. Somehow (here it's very complicated and you mustn't lose the thread), I shall be an actress and make a tremendous lot of money, and somehow, too (I suppose a little later), I shall become an ambassadress and be the favourite of courts. So you see it will all be delightful. Only I shall have to go straight! Mamma reminds me of a story I once heard about the mother of a young lady who was in receipt of much civility from the pretender to a crown, which indeed he, and the young lady too, afterwards more or less wore. The old countess watched the course of events and gave her daughter the cleverest advice: 'Tiens bon, ma fille, and you shall sit upon a throne,' Mamma wishes me to tenir bon (she apparently thinks there's a danger I may not), so that if I don't sit upon a throne I shall at least parade at the foot of one. And if before that for ten