Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 1.djvu/237

Rh "Oh, Nick, don't spoil your victory by your perversity!" Lady Agnes cried, clasping her hands to him.

"I went through it with great glee—I won't deny that: it excited me, it interested me, it amused me. When once I was in it I liked it. But now that I'm out of it again—"

"Out of it?" His mother stared. "Isn't the whole point that you're in?"

"Ah, now I'm only in the House of Commons."

For an instant Lady Agnes seemed not to understand and to be on the point of laying her finger quickly to her lips with a "Hush!" as if the late Sir Nicholas might have heard the "only." Then, as if a comprehension of the young man's words promptly superseded that impulse, she replied with force: "You will be in the Lords the day you determine to get there."

This futile remark made Nick laugh afresh, and not only laugh but kiss her, which was always an intenser form of mystification for poor Lady Agnes, and apparently the one he liked best to practise; after which he said: "The odd thing is, you know, that Harsh has no wants. At least it's not sharply, not eloquently conscious of them. We all talked them over together, and I promised to carry them in my heart of hearts. But upon my word I can't remember one of them. Julia says the wants of Harsh are simply the national wants—rather a pretty phrase for Julia. She means she does everything for the place; she's really their member, and this house in which we stand is their legislative chamber. Therefore the lacunæ that I have undertaken to fill up are the national wants. It will be rather a job to rectify some of them, won't it? I