The other day I tried to manipulate it a
little. Chance offered me an interview to which it was possible to give
a serious turn, and I boldly broke ground and begged her to suffer
my poor friend to go in peace. After a good deal of finessing she
consented, and the next day, with a single word, packed him off to
Naples to drown his sorrow in debauchery. I have come to the conclusion
that she is more dangerous in her virtuous moods than in her vicious
ones, and that she probably has a way of turning her back which is the
most provoking thing in the world. She 's an actress, she could n't
forego doing the thing dramatically, and it was the dramatic touch that
made it fatal. I wished her, of course, to let him down easily; but
she desired to have the curtain drop on an attitude, and her attitudes
deprive inflammable young artists of their reason..... Roderick made an
admirable bust of her at the beginning of the winter, and a dozen women
came rushing to him to be done, mutatis mutandis, in the same style.
They were all great ladies and ready to take him by the hand, but he
told them all their faces did n't interest him, and sent them away
vowing his destruction.
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