’You were quite fetching!’ she continued. ’When you held out your hand and offered to be my stay, I was obliged to jump up. With all my powers of self-control I could hardly keep from boxing your ears and sending you into the lake for your impudence. However, I had no wish that the transformation scene should come off too soon. I intended to lead you on through other follies till I had ruined your reputation and your self-respect. But the fates have been against me; I cannot wait longer here. I abandon you to yourself and to your good little wife. I cannot waste time over you. I have other matters to attend to; better game to pursue than such a wooden leaping frog as you.’ She stood up from her chair, and went to the window; it commanded a bleak prospect. She could not see the returning party on it. The girls Labarte had perhaps found the desired minerals and would not desist from collecting till they had each enough to form a _parure_ of Tremoline.
Artemisia returned to her seat against the wall, and said, ’As for that romance I told you about myself, believe of it as much or as little as you please. When you tell your own story, with your autobiography, the little episode of Artemisia Durham will not be found in it. We only remember and write of ourselves as we would like others to know us, not as we are. Is it not so?’
Then suddenly she broke into a song, a popular Viennese opera air, which she had turned into rough English verse to enable her to sing it at concerts elsewhere than in Germany. She had a beautiful, a naturally flexible voice, and every note was like an articulate crystal drop.
’A little grain of falsehood Is found in all that’s said, It penetrates as leaven Whatever’s utterèd. No man is what he seemeth. No woman what appears. There’s falsehood oft in laughter, And falsehood e’en in tears. Both fact and fib together go In everything we say or do. To a peck of truth—a pinch of lie, As the spice in the pudding, to qualify.’
There is a toy, the delight of children, that consists in a manikin with his legs curled under him, weighted with lead in his globular nether parts. This manikin, however, persistently held down, or violently knocked over, always rights himself.