"I can say 'L'Aventuriere,'" Miriam interrupted in a cold voice which seemed to hint at a want of participation in the maternal solicitudes. "Allow us the pleasure of hearing you then. Madame Carre will give you the _replique_," said Peter Sherringham. "Certainly, my child; I can say it without the book," Madame Carre responded. "Put yourself there--move that chair a little away." She patted her young visitor, encouraging her to rise, settling with her the scene they should take, while the three men sprang up to arrange a place for the performance. Miriam left her seat and looked vaguely about her; then having taken off her hat and given it to her mother she stood on the designated spot with her eyes to the ground. Abruptly, however, instead of beginning the scene, Madame Carre turned to the elder lady with an air which showed that a rejoinder to this visitor's remarks of a moment before had been gathering force in her breast. "You mix things up, _chere madame_, and I have it on my heart to tell you so. I believe it's rather the case with you other English, and I've never been able to learn that either your morality or your talent is the gainer by it. To be too respectable to go where things are done best is in my opinion to be very vicious indeed; and to do them badly in order to preserve your virtue is to fall into a grossness more shocking than any other. To do them well is virtue enough, and not to make a mess of it the only respectability. That's hard enough to merit Paradise. Everything else is base humbug! _Voila, chere madame_, the answer I have for your scruples!" "It's admirable--admirable; and I am glad my friend Dormer here has had the great advantage of hearing you utter it!" Nash exclaimed with a free designation of Nick.