Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 1.djvu/34

26 as if she might have supposed he was not one; and if he was really one why didn't he introduce him? But Biddy would not for the world have put this question to her brother, who now moved to the nearest bench and dropped upon it, as if to wait for the other's return. No sooner, however, had his sister seated herself than he said: "See here, my dear, do you think you had better stay?"

"Do you want me to go back to mother?" the girl asked, with a lengthening visage.

"Well, what do you think?" and Nick smiled down at her.

"Is your conversation to be about—about private affairs?"

"No, I can't say that. But I doubt whether mother would think it the sort of thing that's 'necessary to your development.'"

This assertion appeared to inspire Biddy with the eagerness with which again she broke out: "But who are they—who are they?"

"I know nothing of the ladies. I never saw them before. The man's a fellow I knew very well at Oxford. He was thought immense fun there. We have diverged, as he says, and I had almost lost sight of him, but not so much as he thinks, because I've read him, and read him with interest. He has written a very clever book."

"What kind of a book?"

"A sort of a novel."

"What sort of a novel?"

"Well, I don't know—with a lot of good writing." Biddy listened to this with so much interest that she thought it