Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 3.djvu/96

88 "Mercy, how you chatter about marrying!" the girl laughed. "You've all got it on the brain."

"Why, I put it that way to please you, because you complained to me last year precisely that this was not what seemed generally to be wanted."

"Oh, last year!" Miriam murmured. Then, differently: "Yes, it's very tiresome!" she exclaimed.

"You told me moreover in Paris, more than once, that you wouldn't listen to anything but that."

"Well, I won't, but I shall wait till I find a husband who's bad enough. One who'll beat me and swindle me and spend my money on other women—that's the sort of man for me. Mr. Dormer, delightful as he is, doesn't come up to that."

"You'll marry Basil Dashwood," Sherringham replied.

"Oh, marry?—call it marry, if you like. That's what poor mother says—she lives in dread of it."

"To this hour," said Sherringham, "I haven't managed to make out what your mother wants. She has so many ideas, as Madame Carré said."

"She wants me to be a tremendous sort of creature—all her ideas are reducible to that. What makes the muddle is that she isn't clear about the kind of creature she wants most. A great actress or a great lady—sometimes she inclines for one and sometimes for the other; but on the whole she persuades herself that a great actress, if she'll cultivate the right people, may be a great lady. When I tell her that won't do and that a great actress can never be anything but a great vagabond, then the dear old thing has tantrums and we have