. But you seem to me terribly to _alourdir_ everything you touch."

Peter read into this judgement a deep irritation--Miriam clearly set the
teeth of her instructress on edge. She acted on her nerves, was made up
of roughnesses and thicknesses unknown hitherto to her fine,
free-playing finger-tips. This exasperation, however, was a degree of
flattery; it was neither indifference nor simple contempt; it
acknowledged a mystifying reality in the _jeune Anglaise_ and even a
shade of importance. The latter remarked, serenely enough, that the
things she wanted most to do were just those that were not for the
_gros moyens_, the vulgar obvious dodges, the starts and shouts that any
one could think of and that the _gros public_ liked. She wanted to do
what was most difficult, and to plunge into it from the first; and she
explained as if it were a discovery of her own that there were two kinds
of scenes and speeches: those which acted themselves, of which the
treatment was plain, the only way, so that you had just to take it; and
those open to interpretation, with which you had to fight every step,
rendering, arranging, doing the thing according to your idea. Some of
the most effective passages and the most celebrated and admired, like
the frenzy of Juliet with her potion, were of the former sort; but it
was the others she liked best.

Madame Carre received this revelation good-naturedly enough, considering
its want of freshness, and only laughed at the young lady for looking so
nobly patronising while she gave it. Her laughter appeared partly
addressed to the good faith with which Miriam described herself as
preponderantly interested in the subtler problems of her art.
Sherringham was charmed with the girl's pluck--if it was pluck and not
mere density; the stout patience with which she submitted, for a
purpose, to the old woman's rough usage. He wanted to take her away, to
give her a friendly caution, to advise her not to become a bore, not to
expose herself. But she held up her beautiful head as to show how little
she cared at present for any exposure, and that (it was half
coarseness--Madame Carre was so far right--and half fortitude) she had
no intention of coming away so long as; there was anything to be picked
up. She sat and still she sat, challenging her hostess with every sort
of question--some reasonable, some ingenious, some strangely futile and
some highly indiscreet; but all with the effect that, contrary to
Peter's