She closed the door and came in while her brother said to her, "How in the world did you guess it?"
"I saw it in the _Morning Post_." And she kept her eyes on their kinsman.
"In the _Morning Post_?" he vaguely echoed.
"I saw there"s to be a first night at that theatre, the one you took us to. So I said, "Oh he"ll go there.""
"Yes, I"ve got to do that too," Peter admitted.
"She"s going to sit to me again this morning, his wonderful actress--she has made an appointment: so you see I"m getting on," Nick pursued to his sister.
"Oh I"m so glad--she"s so splendid!" The girl looked away from her cousin now, but not, though it seemed to fill the place, at the triumphant portrait of Miriam Rooth.
"I"m delighted you"ve come in. I _have_ waited for you," Peter hastened to declare to her, though conscious that this was in the conditions meagre.
"Aren"t you coming to see us again?"
"I"m in despair, but I shall really not have time. Therefore it"s a blessing not to have missed you here."
"I"m very glad," said Biddy. Then she added: "And you"re going to America--to stay a long time?"
"Till I"m sent to some better place."
"And will that better place be as far away?"
"Oh Biddy, it wouldn"t be better then," said Peter.
"Do you mean they"ll give you something to do at home?"
"Hardly that. But I"ve a tremendous lot to do at home to-day." For the twentieth time Peter referred to his watch.
She turned to her brother, who had admonished her that she might bid him good-morning. She kissed him and he asked what the news would be in Calcutta Gardens; to which she made answer: "The only news is of course the great preparations they"re making, poor dears, for Peter. Mamma thinks you must have had such a nasty dinner the other day," the girl continued to the guest of that romantic occasion.
"Faithless Peter!" said Nick, beginning to whistle and to arrange a canvas in antic.i.p.ation of Miriam"s arrival.
"Dear Biddy, thank your stars you"re not in my horrid profession,"
protested the personage so designated. "One"s bowled about like a cricket-ball, unable to answer for one"s freedom or one"s comfort from one moment to another."
"Oh ours is the true profession--Biddy"s and mine," Nick broke out, setting up his canvas; "the career of liberty and peace, of charming long mornings spent in a still north light and in the contemplation, I may even say in the company, of the amiable and the beautiful."
"That certainty"s the case when Biddy comes to see you," Peter returned.
Biddy smiled at him. "I come every day. Anch"io son pittore! I encourage Nick awfully."
"It"s a pity I"m not a martyr--she"d bravely perish with me," Nick said.
"You are--you"re a martyr--when people say such odious things!" the girl cried. "They do say them. I"ve heard many more than I"ve repeated to you."
"It"s you yourself then, indignant and loyal, who are the martyr,"
observed Peter, who wanted greatly to be kind to her.
"Oh I don"t care!"--but she threw herself, flushed and charming, into a straight appeal to him. "Don"t you think one can do as much good by painting great works of art as by--as by what papa used to do? Don"t you think art"s necessary to the happiness, to the greatness of a people?
Don"t you think it"s manly and honourable? Do you think a pa.s.sion for it"s a thing to be ashamed of? Don"t you think the artist--the conscientious, the serious one--is as distinguished a member of society as any one else?"
Peter and Nick looked at each other and laughed at the way she had got up her subject, and Nick asked their kinsman if she didn"t express it all in perfection. "I delight in general in artists, but I delight still more in their defenders," Peter made reply, perhaps a little meagrely, to Biddy.
"Ah don"t attack me if you"re wise!" Nick said.
"One"s tempted to when it makes Biddy so fine."
"Well, that"s the way she encourages me: it"s meat and drink to me,"
Nick went on. "At the same time I"m bound to say there"s a little whistling in the dark in it."
"In the dark?" his sister demanded.
"The obscurity, my dear child, of your own aspirations, your mysterious ambitions and esthetic views. Aren"t there some heavyish shadows there?"
"Why I never cared for politics."
"No, but you cared for life, you cared for society, and you"ve chosen the path of solitude and concentration."
"You horrid boy!" said Biddy.
"Give it up, that arduous steep--give it up and come out with me," Peter interposed.
"Come out with you?"
"Let us walk a little or even drive a little. Let us at any rate talk a little."
"I thought you had so much to do," Biddy candidly objected.
"So I have, but why shouldn"t you do a part of it with me? Would there be any harm? I"m going to some tiresome shops--you"ll cheer the frugal hour."
The girl hesitated, then turned to Nick. "Would there be any harm?"
"Oh it"s none of _his_ business!" Peter protested.
"He had better take you home to your mother."
"I"m going home--I shan"t stay here to-day," Biddy went on. Then to Peter: "I came in a hansom, but I shall walk back. Come that way with me."
"With pleasure. But I shall not be able to go in," Peter added.
"Oh that"s no matter," said the girl. "Good-bye, Nick."
"You understand then that we dine together--at seven sharp. Wouldn"t a club, as I say, be best?" Peter, before going, inquired of Nick. He suggested further which club it should be; and his words led Biddy, who had directed her steps toward the door, to turn a moment as with a reproachful question--whether it was for this Peter had given up Calcutta Gardens. But her impulse, if impulse it was, had no sequel save so far as it was a sequel that Peter freely explained to her, after Nick had a.s.sented to his conditions, that her brother too had a desire to go to Miss Rooth"s first night and had already promised to accompany him.
"Oh that"s perfect; it will be so good for him--won"t it?--if he"s going to paint her again," Biddy responded.