Nay, more, the ruby ring with its peculiar device was thus exposed,
which graced the slender finger of the charlatan! I do not apply this
term as concerned the profession he affected at all, but merely (as
shall be seen later) as one appropriate to himself individually.
There must be beings of all kinds to constitute a world, philosophers
tell us, and he, no doubt, so long in ignorance of it, had stumbled
suddenly on his proper vocation at last. The _role_ he was playing (so
far successfully) had doubtless been the occasion of an exquisite
delight to him, unknown to simpler mortals, who masquerade not without
dread misgivings of detection. I for one, when affecting any costume not
essentially belonging to me, or covering my face even with a paper-mask
for holiday diversion, have had a feeling of unusual transparency and
obviousness, so to speak, which precluded on my part every thing like a
successful maintenance of the part I was attempting to play. It was as
if some mocking voice was saying: "This is Miriam Monfort, the true
Miriam; the person you have known before as such was only making
believe--but the Simon-pure is before you, a volume of folly that all
who run may read! Behold her--she was never half so evident before!"
But to digress thus in the very moment of detection, of recognition,
seems irrelevant.
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