Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 1.djvu/23

 II.

walked away with Biddy, but he had not gone far before he stopped in front of a clever bust, where his mother, in the distance, saw him playing in the air with his hand, carrying out by this gesture, which presumably was applausive, some critical remark he had made to his sister. Lady Agnes raised her glass to her eyes by the long handle to which rather a clanking chain was attached, perceiving that the bust represented an ugly old man with a bald head; at which her ladyship indefinitely sighed, though it was not apparent in what way such an object could be detrimental to her daughter. Nick passed on, and quickly paused again; this time, his mother discerned, it was before the marble image of a grimacing woman. Presently she lost sight of him; he wandered behind things, looking at them all round.

"I ought to get plenty of ideas for my modelling, oughtn't I, Nick?" his sister inquired of him, after a moment.

"Ah, my poor child, what shall I say?"

"Don't you think I have any capacity for ideas?" the girl continued, ruefully.

"Lots of them, no doubt. But the capacity for applying them, for putting them into practice—how much of that have you?"