Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 1.djvu/17

Rh Agnes. "But that's all right," she added, as if this might have been taken for a complaint of the limitations of Julia's bounty. "She has to select, among so many, and that's a proof of taste," her ladyship went on.

"You can't say she doesn't choose lovely ones," Grace remarked to her brother, in a tone of some triumph.

"My dear, they are all lovely. George Dallow's judgment was so sure, he was incapable of making a mistake," Nicholas Dormer returned.

"I don't see how you can talk of him; he was dreadful," said Lady Agnes.

"My dear, if he was good enough for Julia to marry, he is good enough for one to talk of."

"She did him a great honour."

"I dare say; but he was not unworthy of it. No such intelligent collection of beautiful objects has been made in England in our time."

"You think too much of beautiful objects," returned her ladyship.

"I thought you were just now implying that I thought too little."

"It's very nice—his having left Julia so well off," Biddy interposed, soothingly, as if she foresaw a tangle.

"He treated her en grand seigneur, absolutely," Nick went on.

"He used to look greasy, all the same," Grace Dormer pursued, with a kind of dull irreconcilability. "His name ought to have been Tallow."

"You are not saying what Julia would like, if that's what you are trying to say," her brother remarked.