"I must be
myself, or die for it. My method of angling consists in showing myself
just as I am. You call me an actress, but I am not really one; I am only
a woman who can use her personality for her own purposes. If I go
with Lady Meadowcroft, it will be a mutual advantage. I shall really
sympathise with her for I can see the poor thing is devoured with
nervousness."
"But do you think you will be able to stand her?" I asked.
"Oh, dear, yes. She's not a bad little thing, au fond, when you get to
know her. It is society that has spoilt her. She would have made a nice,
helpful, motherly body if she'd married the curate."
As we neared Bombay, conversation grew gradually more and more Indian;
it always does under similar circumstances. A sea voyage is half
retrospect, half prospect; it has no personal identity. You leave
Liverpool for New York at the English standpoint, and are full of what
you did in London or Manchester; half-way over, you begin to discuss
American custom-houses and New York hotels; by the time you reach Sandy
Hook, the talk is all of quick trains west and the shortest route
from Philadelphia to New Orleans. You grow by slow stages into the new
attitude; at Malta you are still regretting Europe; after Aden, your
mind dwells most on the hire of punkah-wallahs and the proverbial
toughness of the dak-bungalow chicken.
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