Part 47 (1/2)
”I can't tell you what there is in the life of such a woman.”
”Imagine--when she's so perfect!” she exclaimed thoughtfully. ”Ah she kept me off--she kept me off! Her charming manner is in itself a kind of contempt. It's an abyss--it's the wall of China. She has a hard polish, an inimitable surface, like some wonderful porcelain that costs more than you'd think.”
”Do you want to become like that?” Sherringham asked.
”If I could I should be enchanted. One can always try.”
”You must act better than she,” he went on.
”Better? I thought you wanted me to give it up.”
”Ah I don't know what I want,” he cried, ”and you torment me and turn me inside out! What I want is you yourself.”
”Oh don't worry,” said Miriam--now all kindly. Then she added that Mademoiselle Voisin had invited her to ”call”; to which Sherringham replied with a certain dryness that she would probably not find that necessary. This made the girl stare and she asked: ”Do you mean it won't do on account of mamma's prejudices?”
”Say this time on account of mine.”
”Do you mean because she has lovers?”
”Her lovers are none of our business.”
”None of mine, I see. So you've been one of them?”
”No such luck!”
”What a pity!” she richly wailed. ”I should have liked to see that. One must see everything--to be able to do everything.” And as he pressed for what in particular she had wished to see she replied: ”The way a woman like that receives one of the old ones.”
Peter gave a groan at this, which was at the same time partly a laugh, and, turning away to drop on a bench, e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed: ”You'll do--you'll do!”
He sat there some minutes with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. His friend remained looking at the portrait of Rachel, after which she put to him: ”Doesn't such a woman as that receive--receive every one?”
”Every one who goes to see her, no doubt.”
”And who goes?”
”Lots of men--clever men, eminent men.”
”Ah what a charming life! Then doesn't she go out?”
”Not what we Philistines mean by that--not into society, never. She never enters a lady's drawing-room.”
”How strange, when one's as distinguished as that; except that she must escape a lot of stupidities and _corvees_. Then where does she learn such manners?”
”She teaches manners, _a ses heures_: she doesn't need to learn them.”
”Oh she has given me ideas! But in London actresses go into society,”
Miriam continued.
”Oh into ours, such as it is. In London _nous melons les genres_.”