"Well, I don"t know--with a lot of good writing." Biddy listened to this so receptively that she thought it perverse her brother should add: "I daresay Peter will have come if you return to mother."
"I don"t care if he has. Peter"s nothing to me. But I"ll go if you wish it."
Nick smiled upon her again and then said: "It doesn"t signify. We"ll all go."
"All?" she echoed.
"He won"t hurt us. On the contrary he"ll do us good."
This was possible, the girl reflected in silence, but none the less the idea struck her as courageous, of their taking the odd young man back to breakfast with them and with the others, especially if Peter should be there. If Peter was nothing to her it was singular she should have attached such importance to this contingency. The odd young man reappeared, and now that she saw him without his queer female appendages he seemed personally less weird. He struck her moreover, as generally a good deal accounted for by the literary character, especially if it were responsible for a lot of good writing. As he took his place on the bench Nick said to him, indicating her, "My sister Bridget," and then mentioned his name, "Mr. Gabriel Nash."
"You enjoy Paris--you"re happy here?" Mr. Nash inquired, leaning over his friend to speak to the girl.
Though his words belonged to the situation it struck her that his tone didn"t, and this made her answer him more dryly than she usually spoke.
"Oh yes, it"s very nice."
"And French art interests you? You find things here that please?"
"Oh yes, I like some of them."
Mr. Nash considered her kindly. "I hoped you"d say you like the Academy better."
"She would if she didn"t think you expected it," said Nicholas Dormer.
"Oh Nick!" Biddy protested.
"Miss Dormer"s herself an English picture," their visitor p.r.o.nounced in the tone of a man whose urbanity was a general solvent.
"That"s a compliment if you don"t like them!" Biddy exclaimed.
"Ah some of them, some of them; there"s a certain sort of thing!" Mr.
Nash continued. "We must feel everything, everything that we can. We"re here for that."
"You do like English art then?" Nick demanded with a slight accent of surprise.
Mr. Nash indulged his wonder. "My dear Dormer, do you remember the old complaint I used to make of you? You had formulas that were like walking in one"s hat. One may see something in a case and one may not."
"Upon my word," said Nick, "I don"t know any one who was fonder of a generalisation than you. You turned them off as the man at the street-corner distributes hand-bills."
"They were my wild oats. I"ve sown them all."
"We shall see that!"
"Oh there"s nothing of them now: a tame, scanty, homely growth. My only good generalisations are my actions."
"We shall see _them_ then."
"Ah pardon me. You can"t see them with the naked eye. Moreover, mine are princ.i.p.ally negative. People"s actions, I know, are for the most part the things they do--but mine are all the things I _don"t_ do. There are so many of those, so many, but they don"t produce any effect. And then all the rest are shades--extremely fine shades."
"Shades of behaviour?" Nick inquired with an interest which surprised his sister, Mr. Nash"s discourse striking her mainly as the twaddle of the under-world.
"Shades of impression, of appreciation," said the young man with his explanatory smile. "All my behaviour consists of my feelings."
"Well, don"t you show your feelings? You used to!"
"Wasn"t it mainly those of disgust?" Nash asked. "Those operate no longer. I"ve closed that window."
"Do you mean you like everything?"
"Dear me, no! But I look only at what I do like."
"Do you mean that you"ve lost the n.o.ble faculty of disgust?"
"I haven"t the least idea. I never try it. My dear fellow," said Gabriel Nash, "we"ve only one life that we know anything about: fancy taking it up with disagreeable impressions! When then shall we go in for the agreeable?"
"What do you mean by the agreeable?" Nick demanded.
"Oh the happy moments of our consciousness--the multiplication of those moments. We must save as many as possible from the dark gulf."
Nick had excited surprise on the part of his sister, but it was now Biddy"s turn to make him open his eyes a little. She raised her sweet voice in appeal to the stranger.
"Don"t you think there are any wrongs in the world--any abuses and sufferings?"
"Oh so many, so many! That"s why one must choose."
"Choose to stop them, to reform them--isn"t that the choice?" Biddy asked. "That"s Nick"s," she added, blushing and looking at this personage.
"Ah our divergence--yes!" Mr. Nash sighed. "There are all kinds of machinery for that--very complicated and ingenious. Your formulas, my dear Dormer, your formulas!"
"Hang "em, I haven"t got any!" Nick now bravely declared.
"To me personally the simplest ways are those that appeal most," Mr.
Nash went on. "We pay too much attention to the ugly; we notice it, we magnify it. The great thing is to leave it alone and encourage the beautiful."
"You must be very sure you get hold of the beautiful," said Nick.
"Ah precisely, and that"s just the importance of the faculty of appreciation. We must train our special sense. It"s capable of extraordinary extension. Life"s none too long for that."
"But what"s the good of the extraordinary extension if there is no affirmation of it, if it all goes to the negative, as you say? Where are the fine consequences?" Dormer asked.
"In one"s own spirit. One is one"s self a fine consequence. That"s the most important one we have to do with. _I_ am a fine consequence," said Gabriel Nash.
Biddy rose from the bench at this and stepped away a little as to look at a piece of statuary. But she had not gone far before, pausing and turning, she bent her eyes on the speaker with a heightened colour, an air of desperation and the question, after a moment: "Are you then an aesthete?"
"Ah there"s one of the formulas! That"s walking in one"s hat! I"ve _no_ profession, my dear young lady. I"ve no _etat civil_. These things are a part of the complicated ingenious machinery. As I say, I keep to the simplest way. I find that gives one enough to do. Merely to be is such a _metier_; to live such an art; to feel such a career!"
Bridget Dormer turned her back and examined her statue, and her brother said to his old friend: "And to write?"