Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 1.djvu/40

32 you see, is for the convenience of others. It requires the most abject concessions. It plays such mischief with one's style that really I have had to give it up."

"And politics?" Nick Dormer asked.

"Well, what about them?" was Mr. Nash's reply, in a peculiar intonation, as he watched his friend's sister, who was still examining her statue. Biddy was divided between irritation and curiosity. She had interposed space, but she had not gone beyond ear-shot. Nick's question made her curiosity throb, especially in its second form, as a rejoinder to their companion's.

"That, no doubt you'll say, is still far more for the convenience of others—is still worse for one's style."

Biddy turned round in time to hear Mr. Nash exclaim: "It has simply nothing in life to do with shades! I can't say worse for it than that."

Biddy stepped nearer at this, and, drawing still further on her courage: "Won't mamma be waiting? Oughtn't we to go to luncheon?" she asked.

Both the young men looked up at her, and Mr. Nash remarked—

"You ought to protest! You ought to save him!"

"To save him?" said Biddy.

"He had a style; upon my word he had! But I've seen it go. I've read his speeches."

"You were capable of that?" Dormer demanded.

"For you, yes. But it was like listening to a nightingale in a brass band."

"I think they were beautiful," Biddy declared.