Part 23 (1/2)

_Miss Ramsey_: ”And I _don't_ like Mr. Ashley at all. Of course I respect him--and I admire his intellect; there's no question about his being handsome; but I have never thought of him for a moment in any other way; and now I can't even respect him.”

_Miss Garnett_: ”n.o.body could. I'm sure Emily would be welcome to him as far as _I_ was concerned. But he has never been about with me so much as he has with you, and I don't wonder you feel indignant.”

_Miss Ramsey_, coldly: ”I don't feel indignant. I wish to be just.”

_Miss Garnett_: ”Yes, that is what I mean. And poor Emily is so uninteresting! In the play that Kentucky Summers does, she is perfectly fascinating at first, and you can see why the poor girl's fiance should be so taken with her. But I'm sure no one could say you had ever given Mr. Ashley the least encouragement. It would be pure justice on your part. I think you are grand! I shall always be proud of knowing what you were going to do.”

_Miss Ramsey_, after some moments of snubbing intention: ”I don't know what I am going to do myself, yet. Or how. What _was_ that play? I never heard of it.”

_Miss Garnett_: ”I don't remember distinctly, but it was about a young man who falls in love with her, when he's engaged to another girl, and she determines, as soon as she finds it out, to disgust him, so that he will go back to the other girl, don't you know.”

_Miss Ramsey_: ”That sounds rather more practical than the Peg Woffington plan. What does she do?”

_Miss Garnett_: ”Nothing you'd like to do.”

_Miss Ramsey_: ”I'd like to do something in such a cause. What does she do?”

_Miss Garnett_: ”Oh, when he is calling on her, Kentucky Summers pretends to fly into a rage with her sister, and she pulls her hair down, and slams everything round the room, and scolds, and drinks champagne, and wants him to drink with her, and I don't know what all.

The upshot is that he is only too glad to get away.”

_Miss Ramsey_: ”It's rather loathsome, isn't it?”

_Miss Garnett_: ”It _is_ rather loathsome. But it was in a good cause, and I suppose it was what an actress would think of.”

_Miss Ramsey_: ”An actress?”

_Miss Garnett_: ”I forgot. The heroine is a distinguished actress, you know, and Kentucky could play that sort of part to perfection. But I don't think a lady would like to cut up, much, in the _best_ cause.”

_Miss Ramsey_: ”Cut up?”

_Miss Garnett_: ”She certainly frisks about the room a good deal. How delicious these mallows are! Have you ever tried toasting them?”

_Miss Ramsey_: ”At school. There seems an idea in it. And the hero isn't married. I don't like the notion of a married man.”

_Miss Garnett_: ”Oh, I'm quite sure he isn't married. He's merely engaged. That makes the whole difference from the Peg Woffington story. And there's no portrait, I'm confident, so that you wouldn't have to do that part.”

_Miss Ramsey_, haughtily: ”I don't propose to do _any_ part, if the affair can't be arranged without some such mountebank business!”

_Miss Garnett_: ”You can manage it, if anybody can. You have so much dignity that you could awe him into doing his duty by a single glance.

I wouldn't be in his place!”

_Miss Ramsey_: ”I shall not give him a glance. I shall not see him when he comes. That will be simpler still.” To Nora, at the door: ”What is it, Nora?”

II

NORA, MISS RAMSEY, MISS GARNETT

_Nora_: ”Mr. Ashley, Miss Ramsey.”

_Miss Ramsey_, with a severity not meant for Nora: ”Ask him to sit down in the reception-room a moment.”