"It will do for me. No doubt I oughtn"t in modesty to speak for poor Florence."
"It isn"t fair to her; you ought to invite some one to meet her."
"Do you mean you, Peter?" the girl asked, turning to him quickly and with a look that vanished the instant he caught it.
"Try me. I"ll come like a shot."
"That"s kind," said Biddy, dropping her hands and now resting her eyes on him gratefully. She remained in this position as if under a charm; then she jerked herself back to her work with the remark: "Florence will like that immensely."
"I"m delighted to please Florence--your description of her"s so attractive!" Sherringham laughed. And when his companion asked him if he minded there not being a great feast, because when her mother went away she allowed her a fixed amount for that sort of thing and, as he might imagine, it wasn"t millions--when Biddy, with the frankness of their pleasant kinship, touched anxiously on this economic point (ill.u.s.trating, as Peter saw, the lucidity with which Lady Agnes had had in her old age to learn to recognise the occasions when she could be conveniently frugal) he answered that the shortest dinners were the best, especially when one was going to the theatre. That was his case to-night, and did Biddy think he might look to Miss Tressilian to go with them? They"d have to dine early--he wanted not to miss a moment.
"The theatre--Miss Tressilian?" she stared, interrupted and in suspense again.
"Would it incommode you very much to dine say at 7.15 and accept a place in my box? The finger of Providence was in it when I took a box an hour ago. I particularly like your being free to go--if you are free."
She began almost to rave with pleasure. "Dear Peter, how good you are!
They"ll have it at any hour. Florence will be so glad."
"And has Florence seen Miss Rooth?"
"Miss Rooth?" the girl repeated, redder than before. He felt on the spot that she had heard of the expenditure of his time and attention on that young lady. It was as if she were conscious of how conscious he would himself be in speaking of her, and there was a sweetness in her allowance for him on that score. But Biddy was more confused for him than he was for himself. He guessed in a moment how much she had thought over what she had heard; this was indicated by her saying vaguely, "No, no, I"ve not seen her." Then she knew she was answering a question he hadn"t asked her, and she went on: "We shall be too delighted. I saw her--perhaps you remember--in your rooms in Paris. I thought her so wonderful then! Every one"s talking of her here. But we don"t go to the theatre much, you know: we don"t have boxes offered us except when _you_ come. Poor Nick"s too much taken up in the evening. I"ve wanted awfully to see her. They say she"s magnificent."
"I don"t know," Peter was glad to be able honestly to answer. "I haven"t seen her."
"You haven"t seen her?"
"Never, Biddy. I mean on the stage. In private often--yes," he conscientiously added.
"Oh!" Biddy exclaimed, bending her face on Nick"s bust again. She asked him no question about the new star, and he offered her no further information. There were things in his mind pulling him different ways, so that for some minutes silence was the result of the conflict. At last he said, after an hesitation caused by the possibility that she was ignorant of the fact he had lately elicited from Julia, though it was more probable she might have learned it from the same source:
"Am I perhaps indiscreet in alluding to the circ.u.mstance that Nick has been painting Miss Rooth"s portrait?"
"You"re not indiscreet in alluding to it to me, because I know it."
"Then there"s no secret nor mystery about it?"
Biddy just considered. "I don"t think mamma knows it."
"You mean you"ve been keeping it from her because she wouldn"t like it?"
"We"re afraid she may think papa wouldn"t have liked it."
This was said with an absence of humour at which Peter could but show amus.e.m.e.nt, though he quickly recovered himself, repenting of any apparent failure of respect to the high memory of his late celebrated relative. He threw off rather vaguely: "Ah yes, I remember that great man"s ideas," and then went on: "May I ask if you know it, the fact we"re talking of, through Julia or through Nick?"
"I know it from both of them."
"Then if you"re in their confidence may I further ask if this undertaking of Nick"s is the reason why things seem to be at an end between them?"
"Oh I don"t think she likes it," Biddy had to say.
"Isn"t it good?"
"Oh I don"t mean the picture--she hasn"t seen it. But his having done it."
"Does she dislike it so much that that"s why she won"t marry him?"
Biddy gave up her work, moving away from it to look at it. She came and sat down on the long bench on which Sherringham had placed himself. Then she broke out: "Oh Peter, it"s a great trouble--it"s a very great trouble; and I can"t tell you, for I don"t understand it."
"If I ask you," he said, "it"s not to pry into what doesn"t concern me; but Julia"s my sister, and I can"t after all help taking some interest in her life. She tells me herself so little. She doesn"t think me worthy."
"Ah poor Julia!" Biddy wailed defensively. Her tone recalled to him that Julia had at least thought him worthy to unite himself to Bridget Dormer, and inevitably betrayed that the girl was thinking of that also.
While they both thought of it they sat looking into each other"s eyes.
"Nick, I"m sure, doesn"t treat _you_ that way; I"m sure he confides in you; he talks to you about his occupations, his ambitions," Peter continued. "And you understand him, you enter into them, you"re nice to him, you help him."
"Oh Nick"s life--it"s very dear to me," Biddy granted.
"That must be jolly for him."
"It makes _me_ very happy."
Peter uttered a low, ambiguous groan; then he cried with irritation; "What the deuce is the matter with them then? Why can"t they hit it off together and be quiet and rational and do what every one wants them to?"
"Oh Peter, it"s awfully complicated!" the girl sighed with sagacity.
"Do you mean that Nick"s in love with her?"
"In love with Julia?"
"No, no, with Miriam Rooth."
She shook her head slowly, then with a smile which struck him as one of the sweetest things he had ever seen--it conveyed, at the expense of her own prospects, such a shy, generous little mercy of rea.s.surance--"He isn"t, Peter," she brought out. "Julia thinks it trifling--all that sort of thing," she added "She wants him to go in for different honours."
"Julia"s the oddest woman. I mean I thought she loved him," Peter explained. "And when you love a person--!" He continued to make it out, leaving his sentence impatiently unfinished, while Biddy, with lowered eyes, sat waiting--it so interested her--to learn what you did when you loved a person. "I can"t conceive her giving him up. He has great ability, besides being such a good fellow."
"It"s for his happiness, Peter--that"s the way she reasons," Biddy set forth. "She does it for an idea; she has told me a great deal about it, and I see the way she feels."
"You try to, Biddy, because you"re such a dear good-natured girl, but I don"t believe you do in the least," he took the liberty of replying.
"It"s too little the way you yourself would feel. Julia"s idea, as you call it, must be curious."
"Well, it is, Peter," Biddy mournfully admitted. "She won"t risk not coming out at the top."
"At the top of what?"
"Oh of everything." Her tone showed a trace of awe of such high views.
"Surely one"s at the top of everything when one"s in love."
"I don"t know," said the girl.