The Tragic Muse (London & New York: Macmillan & Co., 1890)/Volume 2/Chapter 15
XV.
When Biddy saw him her cheek exhibited the prettiest pleased, surprised red that he had ever observed there, though he was not unacquainted with its fluctuations, and she stood still, smiling at him with the outer dazzle in her eyes, making no motion for him to enter. She only said: "Oh, Peter!" And then: "I'm all alone."
"So much the better, dear Biddy. Is that any reason I shouldn't come in?"
"Dear, no—do come in. You've just missed Nick; he has gone to the country—half an hour ago." She had on a large apron, and in her hand she carried a small stick, besmeared, as his quick eye saw, with modelling-clay. She dropped the door and fled back before him into the studio, where, when he followed her, she was in the act of flinging a cloth over a rough head, in clay, which, in the middle of the room, was supported on a high wooden stand. The effort to hide what she had been doing before he caught a glimpse of it made her redder still and led to her smiling more, to her laughing with a charming confusion of shyness and gladness. She rubbed her hands on her apron, she pulled it off, she looked delightfully awkward, not meeting Peter's eye, and she said: "I'm just scraping here a little—you mustn't mind me. What I do is awful, you know. Peter, please don't look. I've been coming here lately to make my little mess, because mamma doesn't particularly like it at home. I've had a lesson from a lady who exhibits; but you wouldn't suppose it, to see what I do. Nick's so kind; he lets me come here; he uses the studio so little; I do what I please. What a pity he's gone—he would have been so glad. I'm really alone—I hope you don't mind. Peter, please don't look."
Peter was not bent upon looking; his eyes had occupation enough in Biddy's own agreeable aspect, which was full of an unusual element of domestication and responsibility. Though she had taken possession, by exception, of her brother's quarters, she struck her visitor as more at home and more herself than he had ever seen her. It was the first time she had been to his vision so separate from her mother and sister. She seemed to know this herself and to be a little frightened by it—just enough to make him wish to be reassuring. At the same time Peter also on this occasion found himself touched with diffidence, especially after he had gone back and closed the door and settled down to a regular visit; for he became acutely conscious of what Julia had said to him in Paris and was unable to rid himself of the suspicion that it had been said with Biddy's knowledge. It was not that he supposed his sister had told the girl that she meant to do what she could to make him propose to her: that would have been cruel to her (if she liked him enough to consent), in Julia's uncertainty. But Biddy participated by imagination, by divination, by a clever girl's secret tremulous intincts, in her good friend's views about her, and this probability constituted for Sherringham a sort of embarrassing publicity. He had impressions, possibly gross and unjust, in regard to the way women move constantly together amid such considerations and subtly intercommunicate, when they do not still more subtly dissemble, the hopes or fears of which persons of the opposite sex form the subject. Therefore poor Biddy would know that if she failed to strike him in the right light it would not be for want of his attention's having been called to her claims. She would have been tacitly rejected, virtually condemned. Peter could not, without a slight sense of fatuity, endeavour to make up for this to her by kindness; he was aware that if any one knew it a man would be ridiculous who should take so much as that for granted. But no one would know it: oddly enough, in this calculation of security he left Biddy herself out. It did not occur to him that she might have a secret small irony to spare for his ingenious and magnanimous impulse to show her how much he liked her in order to make her forgive him for not liking her more. This magnanimity at any rate coloured the whole of Sherringham's visit to Rosedale Road, the whole of the pleasant, prolonged chat that kept him there for more than an hour. He begged the girl to go on with her work and not to let him interrupt it; and she obliged him at last, taking the cloth off the lump of clay and giving him a chance to be delightful by guessing that the shapeless mass was intended, or would be intended after a while, for Nick. He saw that she was more comfortable when she began to smooth it and scrape it with her little stick again, to manipulate it with an ineffectual air of knowing how; for this gave her something to do, relieved her nervousness and permitted her to turn away from him when she talked.
Peter walked about the room and sat down; got up and looked at Nick's things; watched her at moments in silence (which made her always say in a minute that he was not to look at her so or she could do nothing); observed how her position, before her high stand, her lifted arms, her turns of the head, considering her work this way and that, all helped her to be pretty. She repeated again and again that it was an immense pity about Nick, till he was obliged to say he didn't care a straw for Nick: he was perfectly content with the company he found. This was not the sort of thing he thought it right, under the circumstances, to say; but then even the circumstances did not require him to pretend he liked her less than he did. After all she was his cousin; she would cease to be so if she should become his wife; but one advantage of her not entering into that relation was precisely that she would remain his cousin. It was very pleasant to find a young, bright, slim, rose-coloured kinswoman all ready to recognize consanguinity when one came back from cousinless foreign lands. Peter talked about family matters; he didn't know, in his exile, where no one took an interest in them, what a fund of latent curiosity about them was in him. It was in him to gossip about them and to enjoy the sense that he and Biddy had indefeasible properties in common—ever so many things as to which they would understand each other à demimot. He smoked a cigarette, because she begged him to, said that people always smoked in studios—it made her feel so much more like an artist. She apologized for the badness of her work on the ground that Nick was so busy he could scarcely ever give her a sitting; so that she had to do the head from photographs and occasional glimpses. They had hoped to be able to put in an hour that morning, but news had suddenly come that Mr. Carteret was worse, and Nick had hurried down to Beauclere. Mr. Carteret was very ill, poor old dear, and Nick and he were immense friends. Nick had always been charming to him. Peter and Biddy took the concerns of the houses of Dormer and Sherringham in order, and the young man felt after a little as if they were as wise as a French conseil de famille, settling what was best for every one. He heard all about Lady Agnes and manifested an interest in the detail of her existence that he had not supposed himself to possess, though indeed Biddy threw out intimations which excited his curiosity, presenting her mother in a light that might call upon his sympathy.
"I don't think she has been very happy or very pleased, of late," the girl said. "I think she has had some disappointments, poor dear mamma; and Grace has made her go out of town for three or four days, for a little change. They have gone down to see an old lady, Lady St. Dunstans, who never comes to London now, and who, you know—she's tremendously old—was papa's godmother. It's not very lively for Grace, but Grace is such a dear she'll do anything for mamma. Mamma will go anywhere to see people she can talk with about papa."
Biddy added, in reply to a further inquiry from Peter, that what her mother was disappointed about was—well, themselves, her children and all their affairs; and she explained that Lady Agnes wanted all kinds of things for them that didn't come to them, that they didn't get or seem likely to get, so that their life appeared altogether a failure. She wanted a great deal, Biddy admitted; she really wanted everything and she had thought in her happier days that everything was to be hers. She loved them all so much, and then she was proud: she couldn't get over the thought of their not being successful. Sherringham was unwilling to press, at this point, for he suspected one of the things that Lady Agnes wanted; but Biddy relieved him a little by saying that one of these things was that Grace should get married.
"That's too unselfish of her," rejoined Peter, who didn't care for Grace. "Cousin Agnes ought to keep her near her always, if Grace is so obliging and devoted."
"Oh, mamma would give up anything of that sort for our good; she wouldn't sacrifice us that way!" Biddy exclaimed. "Besides, I'm the one to stay with mamma; not that I can manage and look after her and do everything so well as Grace. But, you know, I want to," said Biddy, with a liquid note in her voice, giving her lump of clay a little stab.
"But doesn't your mother want the rest of you to get married—Percival and Nick and you?" Peter asked.
"Oh, she has given up Percy. I don't suppose she thinks it would do. Dear Nick, of course—that's just what she does want."
Sherringham hesitated. "And you, Biddy?"
"Oh, I dare say; but that doesn't signify—I never shall."
Peter got up, at this; the tone of it set him in motion and he took a turn round the room. He said something to her about her being too proud; to which she replied that that was the only thing for a girl to be, to get on.
"What do you mean by getting on?" Peter demanded, stopping, with his hands in his pockets, on the other side of the studio.
"I mean crying one's eyes out!" Biddy unexpectedly exclaimed; but she drowned the effect of this pathetic paradox in a foolish laugh and in the quick declaration: "Of course it's about Nick that poor mother's really broken-hearted."
"What's the matter with Nick?" Sherringham asked, diplomatically.
"Oh, Peter, what's the matter with Julia?" Biddy quavered softly, back to him, with eyes suddenly frank and mournful. "I dare say you know what we all hoped—what we all supposed, from what they told us. And now they won't!" said Biddy.
"Yes, Biddy, I know. I had the brightest prospect of becoming your brother-in-law: wouldn't that have been it—or something like that? But it is indeed visibly clouded. What's the matter with them? May I have another cigarette?" Peter came back to the wide, cushioned bench where he had been lounging: this was the way they took up the subject he wanted most to look into. "Don't they know how to love?" he went on, as he seated himself again.
"It seems a kind of fatality!" sighed Biddy.
Peter said nothing for some moments, at the end of which he inquired whether his companion were to be quite alone during her mother's absence. She replied that her mother was very droll about that—she would never leave her alone: she thought something dreadful would happen to her. She had therefore arranged that Florence Tressilian should come and stay in Calcutta Gardens for the next few days, to look after her and see she did no wrong. Peter asked who Florence Tressilian might be: he greatly hoped, for the success of Lady Agnes's precautions, that she was not a flighty young genius like Biddy. She was described to him as tremendously nice and tremendously clever, but also tremendously old and tremendously safe; with the addition that Biddy was tremendously fond of her and that while she remained in Calcutta Gardens they expected to enjoy themselves tremendously. She was to come that afternoon, before dinner.
"And are you to dine at home?" said Peter.
"Certainly; where else?"
"And just you two, alone? Do you call that enjoying yourselves tremendously?"
"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, 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 a moment, as if she were 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 is so attractive!" Sherringham laughed. And when the girl asked him if he minded if there were not 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 economical point (illustrating, as Peter saw, the lucidity with which Lady Agnes had had in her old age to learn to recognize 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 him? They would have to dine early; he wanted not to miss a moment.
"The theatre—Miss Tressilian?" Biddy 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."
Biddy became fairly incoherent 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 perceived in a moment that she had heard that he had devoted much time and attention to that young lady. It was as if she were conscious that he would be conscious 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 became aware that she was answering a question he had not 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 is 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 is too much taken up in the evening. I've wanted awfully to see her. They say she's magnificent."
"I don't know," said Peter. "I haven't seen her."
"You haven't seen her?"
"Never, Biddy. I mean on the stage. In private, often—yes," Sherringham added, conscientiously.
"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 that pulled 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 circumstance that Nick has been painting Miss Rooth's portrait?"
"You are not indiscreet in alluding to it to me, because I know it."
"Then there's no secret nor mystery about it?"
Biddy considered a moment. "I don't think mamma knows it."
"You mean you have been keeping it from her because she wouldn't like it?"
"We're afraid she may think that papa wouldn't have liked it."
This was said with an absence of humour which for an instant moved Sherringham to mirth; but he quickly recovered himself, repenting of any apparent failure of respect to the high memory of his late celebrated relative. He rejoined quickly, but rather vaguely: "Ah, yes, I remember that great man's ideas;" and then he went on: "May.I ask if you know it, the fact that we are 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 whether 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," returned Biddy.
"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 1 can't tell you, for I don't understand it."
"If I ask you, it's not to pry into what doesn't concern me; but Julia is my sister, and I can't, after all, help taking some interest in her life. But she tells me very little. She doesn't think me worthy."
"Ah, poor Julia!" Biddy murmured, defensively. Her tone recalled to him that Julia had 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 are nice to him, you help him."
"Oh, Nick's life—it's very dear to me," said Biddy.
"That must be jolly for him."
"It makes me very happy."
Peter uttered a low, ambiguous groan; then he exclaimed, with irritation: "What the deuce is the matter with them then? Why can't they hit it off and be quiet and rational and do what every one wants them to do?"
"Oh, Peter, it's awfully complicated," said Biddy, with sagacity.
"Do you mean that Nick's in love with her?"
"In love with Julia?"
"No, no, with Miriam Rooth."
Biddy 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 reassurance): "He isn't, Peter," she declared. "Julia thinks it's trifling—all that sort of thing," she added. "She wants him to go in for different honours."
"Julia's the oddest woman. I thought she loved him," Sherringham remarked. "And when you love a person—" He continued to reflect, leaving his sentence impatiently unfinished, while Biddy, with lowered eyes, sat waiting (it 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 explained. "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 are such a dear good-natured girl, but I don't believe you do in the least. 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." Biddy's 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.
"Do you doubt it?" Sherringham demanded.
"I've never been in love and I never shall be."
"You're as perverse in your way as Julia. But I confess I don't understand Nick's attitude any better. He seems to me, if I may say so, neither fish nor flesh."
"Oh, his attitude is very noble, Peter; his state of mind is wonderfully interesting," Biddy pleaded. "Surely you must be in favour of art," she said.
Sherringham looked at her a moment. "Dear Biddy, your little digs are as soft as zephyrs."
She coloured, but she protested. "My little digs? What do you mean? Are you not in favour of art?"
"The question is delightfully simple. I don't know what you're talking about. Everything has its place. A parliamentary life scarcely seems to me the situation for portrait-painting."
"That's just what Nick says."
"You talk of it together a great deal?"
"Yes, Nick's very good to me."
"Clever Nick! And what do you advise him?"
"Oh, to do something."
"That's valuable," Peter laughed. "Not to give up his sweetheart for the sake of a paint-pot, I hope?"
"Never, never, Peter! It's not a question of his giving up, for Julia has herself drawn back. I think she never really felt safe; she loved him, but she was afraid of him. Now she's only afraid—she has lost the confidence she tried to have. Nick has tried to hold her, but she has jerked herself away. Do you know what she said to me? She said: 'My confidence has gone forever.'"
"I didn't know she was such a prig!" Sherringham exclaimed. "They're queer people, verily, with water in their veins instead of blood. You and I wouldn't be like that, should we? though you have taken up such a discouraging position about caring for a fellow."
"I care for art," poor Biddy returned.
"You do, to some purpose," said Peter, glancing at the bust.
"To that of making you laugh at me."
"Would you give a good man up for that?"
"A good man? What man?"
"Well, say me—if I wanted to marry you."
Biddy hesitated a little. "Of course I would, in a moment. At any rate, I'd give up the House of Commons. That's what Nick's going to do now—only you mustn't tell any one."
Sherringham stared. "He's going to chuck up his seat?"
"I think his mind is made up to it. He has talked me over—we have had some deep discussions. Yes, I'm on the side of art!" said Biddy, ardently.
"Do you mean in order to paint—to paint Miss Rooth?" Peter went on.
"To paint every one—that's what he wants. By keeping his seat he hasn't kept Julia, and she was the thing he cared most for, in public life. When he has got out of the whole thing his attitude, as he says, will be at least clear. He's tremendously interesting about it, Peter; he has talked to me wonderfully; he has won me over. Mamma's heart-broken; telling her will be the hardest part."
"If she doesn't know, why is she heart-broken?"
"Oh, at the marriage not coming off—she knows that. That's what she wanted. She thought it perfection. She blames Nick fearfully. She thinks he held the whole thing in his hand and that he has thrown away a magnificent opportunity."
"And what does Nick say to her?"
"He says, 'Dear old mummy!'"
"That's good," said Sherringham.
"I don't know what will become of her when this other blow arrives," Biddy pursued. "Poor Nick wants to please her—he does, he does. But, as he says, you can't please every one, and you must, before you die, please yourself a little."
Peter Sherringham sat looking at the floor; the colour had risen to his face while he listened to the girl. Then he sprang up and took another turn about the room. His companion's artless but vivid recital had set his blood in motion. He had taken Nick Dormer's political prospects very much for granted, thought of them as definite and brilliant and seductive. To learn there was something for which he was ready to renounce such honours, and to recognize the nature of that bribe, affected Sherringham powerfully and strangely. He felt as if he had heard the sudden blare of a trumpet, and he felt at the same time as if he had received a sudden slap in the face. Nick's bribe was "art"—the strange temptress with whom he himself had been wrestling and over whom he had finally ventured to believe that wisdom and training had won a victory. There was something in the conduct of his old friend and playfellow that made all his reasonings small. Nick's unexpected choice acted on him as a reproach and a challenge. He felt ashamed at having placed himself so unromantically on his guard, rapidly saying to himself that if Nick could afford to allow so much for "art" he might surely exhibit some of the same confidence. There had never been the least avowed competition between the cousins—their lines lay too far apart for that; but nevertheless they rode in sight of each other, and Sherringham had at present the sensation of suddenly seeing Nick Dormer give his horse the spur, bound forward and fly over a wall. He was put on his mettle and he had not to look long to spy an obstacle that he too might ride at. High rose his curiosity to see what warrant his kinsman might have for such risks—how he was mounted for such exploits. He really knew little about Nick's talent—so little as to feel no right to exclaim "What an ass!" when Biddy gave him the news which only the existence of real talent could redeem from absurdity. All his eagerness to ascertain what Nick had been able to make of such a subject as Miriam Rooth came back to him; though it was what mainly had brought him to Rosedale Road he had forgotten it in the happy accident of his encounter with Biddy. He was conscious that if the surprise of a revelation of power were in store for him Nick would be justified more than he himself would feel reinstated in his self-respect. For the courage of renouncing the forum for the studio hovered before him as greater than the courage of marrying an actress whom one was in love with: the reward in the latter case was so much more immediate. Peter asked Biddy what Nick had done with his portrait of Miriam. He hadn't seen it anywhere in rummaging about the room.
"I think it's here somewhere, but I don't know," Biddy replied, getting up and looking vaguely round her.
"Haven't you seen it? Hasn't he shown it to you?"
The girl rested her eyes on him strangely a moment; then she turned them away from him with a mechanical air of seeking for the picture. "I think it's in the room, put away with its face to the wall."
"One of those dozen canvases with their backs to us?"
"One of those perhaps."
"Haven't you tried to see?"
"I haven't touched them," said Biddy, colouring.
"Hasn't Nick had it out to show you?"
"He says it's in too bad a state—it isn't finished—it won't do."
"And haven't you had the curiosity to turn it round for yourself?"
The embarrassed look in poor Biddy's face deepened, and it seemed to Sherringham that her eyes pleaded with him a moment, that there was a menace of tears in them, a gleam of anguish. "I've had an idea he wouldn't like it."
Her visitor's own desire however had become too lively for easy forbearance. He laid his hand on two or three canvases which proved, as he extricated them, to be either blank or covered with rudimentary forms. "Dear Biddy, are you as docile, as obliging as that?" he asked, pulling out something else.
The inquiry was meant in familiar kindness, for Peter was struck, even to admiration, with the girl's having a sense of honour which all girls have not. She must in this particular case have longed for a sight of Nick's work—the work which had brought about such a crisis in his life. But she had passed hours in his studio alone, without permitting herself a stolen peep; she was capable of that if she believed it would please him. Sherringham liked a charming girl's being capable of that (he had known charming girls who would not have been), and his question was really an expression of respect. Biddy, however, apparently discovered some light mockery in it, and she broke out incongruously:
"I haven't wanted so much to see it. I don't care for her so much as that."
"So much as that?"
"I don't care for his actress—for that vulgar creature. I don't like her!" said Biddy, unexpectedly.
Peter stared. "I thought you hadn't seen her."
"I saw her in Paris—twice. She was wonderfully clever, but she didn't charm me."
Sherringham quickly considered, and then he said benevolently: "I won't inflict the picture upon you then; we'll leave it alone for the present." Biddy made no reply to this at first, but after a moment she went straight over to the row of stacked canvases and exposed several of them to the light. "Why did you say you wished to go to the theatre to-night?" her companion continued.
Still the girl was silent; then she exclaimed, with her back turned to him and a little tremor in her voice, while she drew forth one of her brother's studies after the other: "For the sake of your company, Peter! Here it is, I think," she added, moving a large canvas with some effort. "No, no, I'll hold it for you. Is that the light?"
She wouldn't let him take it; she bade him stand off and allow her to place it in the right position. In this position she carefully presented it, supporting it, at the proper angle, from behind and showing her head and shoulders above it. From the moment his eyes rested on the picture Sherringham accepted this service without protest. Unfinished, simplified and in some portions merely suggested, it was strong, brilliant and vivid and had already the look of life and the air of an original thing. Sherringham was startled, he was strangely affected—he had no idea Nick moved with that stride. Miriam was represented in three-quarters, seated, almost down to her feet. She leaned forward, with one of her legs crossed over the other, her arms extended and foreshortened, her hands locked together round her knee. Her beautiful head was bent a little, broodingly, and her splendid face seemed to look down at life. She had a grand appearance of being raised aloft, with a wide regard, from a height of intelligence, for the great field of the artist, all the figures and passions he may represent. Peter wondered where his kinsman had learned to paint like that. He almost gasped at the composition of the thing, at the drawing of the moulded arms. Biddy Dormer abstained from looking round the corner of the canvas as she held it; she only watched, in Peter's eyes, for his impression of it. This she easily caught, and he could see that she had done so when after a few minutes he went to relieve her. She let him lift the thing out of her grasp; he moved it and rested it, so that they could still see it, against the high back of a chair.
"It's tremendously good," he said.
"Dear, dear Nick," Biddy murmured, looking at it now.
"Poor, poor Julia!" Sherringham was prompted to exclaim, in a different tone. His companion made no rejoinder to this, and they stood another minute or two side by side in silence, gazing at the portrait. Then Sherringham took up his hat—he had no more time, he must go. "Will you come to-night all the same?" he asked, with a laugh that was somewhat awkward, putting out his hand to Biddy.
"All the same?"
"Why, you say she's a terrible creature," Peter went on with his eyes on the painted face.
"Oh, anything for art!" said Biddy, smiling.
"Well, at seven o'clock then." And Sherringham went away immediately, leaving the girl alone with the Tragic Muse and feeling again, with a quickened rush, a sense of the beauty of Miriam, as well as a new comprehension of the talent of Nick.