human
Do I?
gpt
Do you? Now, let me think. Really, I never noticed. You'd have to begin all over again--if you ever did begin--before I could venture an opinion.
human
Evidently Miriam knows how to do it, and when I see her I shall ask her.
gpt
I wish you _could_ see her. You'd adore her. She'd be just your style.
human
What makes you think that? Is she so beautiful? What is she like?
gpt
Oh, I couldn't tell you what she's like. You'd have to see her for yourself. No, I don't think I should call her beautiful, though some people do. She's awfully attractive anyhow.
human
Attractive? In what way?
gpt
Oh, in a lot of ways. She isn't like anybody else. She's in a class by herself. In fact, she has to be, poor thing.
human
Why should she be poor thing, with so much to her credit in the way of assets?
gpt
Do you see?--that's something I can't tell you. There's a sort of mystery about her. I'm not sure that I understand it very well myself. I only know that dear mamma didn't feel that she could take her out, in New York, except among our very most intimate friends, where it didn't matter. And yet when Lady Bonchurch took her to Washington she got a lot of offers--I know that for a fact--and in England, too.
human
I seem to be getting deeper in, Strange smiled, with the necessary air of speaking carelessly.
gpt
Who is Lady Bonchurch?
human
Don't you know? Why, I thought you knew everything. She was the wife of the British Ambassador. They took a house at Greenport that year because they were afraid about Lord Bonchurch's lungs. It didn't do any good, though. He had to give up his post the next winter, and not long after that he died. I don't think air is much good for people's lungs, do you? I know it wasn't any help to dear mamma. We had all those tedious years at Greenport, and in the end--but that's how we came to know Lady Bonchurch, and she took a great fancy to Miriam. She said it was a shame a girl like that shouldn't have a chance, and so it was. Mamma thought she interfered and I suppose she did. Still, you can't blame her much, when she had no children of her own, can you?
gpt
I shouldn't want to blame her if she gave Miriam her chance.
human
That's what I've always said. And if Miriam had only wanted to, she could have been--well, almost anybody. She had offers and offers in Washington, and in England there was a Sir Somebody-or-other who asked her two or three times over. He married an actress in the end--and dear mamma thought Miriam must be crazy not to have taken him while he was to be had. Dear mamma said it would have been such a good thing for me to have some one like Miriam--who was under obligations to us, do you see?--in a good social position abroad.
gpt
But Miriam didn't see it in that way?
human
She didn't see it in any way. She's terribly exasperating in some respects, although she's such a dear. Poor mamma used to be very tried about her--and she so ill--and my stepfather going blind--and everything. If Miriam had only been in a good social position abroad it would have been a place for me to go--instead of having no home--like this.