Inspiration, moreover, seemed rather to have faded away; in consequence
of Olive's influence she had read and studied so much that it seemed now
as if everything must take form beforehand. Olive was a splendid critic,
whether he liked her or not, and she had made her go over every word of
her lecture twenty times. There wasn't an intonation she hadn't made her
practise; it was very different from the old system, when her father had
worked her up. If Basil considered women superficial, it was a pity he
couldn't see what Olive's standard of preparation was, or be present at
their rehearsals, in the evening, in their little parlour. Ransom's
state of mind in regard to the affair at the Music Hall was simply
this--that he was determined to circumvent it if he could. He covered it
with ridicule, in talking of it to Verena, and the shafts he levelled at
it went so far that he could see she thought he exaggerated his dislike
to it. In point of fact he could not have overstated that; so odious did
the idea seem to him that she was soon to be launched in a more
infatuated career. He vowed to himself that she should never take that
fresh start which would commit her irretrievably if she should succeed
(and she would succeed--he had not the slightest doubt of her power to
produce a sensation in the Music Hall), to the acclamations of the
newspapers. He didn't care for her engagements, her campaigns, or all
the expectancy of her friends; to "squelch" all that, at a stroke, was
the dearest wish of his heart.
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