Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 1.djvu/41

Rh Her brother got up at this tribute, and Mr. Nash, rising too, said, with his bright colloquial air—

"But, Miss Dormer, he had eyes. He was made to see—to see all over, to see everything. There are so few like that."

"I think he still sees," Biddy rejoined, wondering a little why Nick didn't defend himself.

"He sees his side, dear young lady. Poor man, fancy your having a 'side'—you, you—and spending your days and your nights looking at it! I'd as soon pass my life looking at an advertisement on a hoarding."

"You don't see me some day a great statesman?" said Nick.

"My dear fellow, it's exactly what I've a terror of."

"Mercy! don't you admire them?" Biddy cried.

"It's a trade like another, and a method of making one's way which society certainly condones. But when one can be something better!"

"Dear me, what is better?" Biddy asked.

The young man hesitated, and Nick, replying for him, said—

"Gabriel Nash is better! You must come and lunch with us. I must keep you—I must!" he added.

"We shall save him yet," Mr. Nash observed genially to Biddy as they went; while the girl wondered still more what her mother would make of him.