Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 1.djvu/65

Rh "Very good; I'll give a little artistic tea, with Julia, too, of course. And you must come, Mr. Nash." This gentleman promised, with an inclination, and Peter continued: "But if, as you say, you're not for helping the young lady, how came you to arrange this interview with the great model?"

"Precisely to stop her. The great model will find her very bad. Her judgments, as you probably know, are Rhadamanthine."

"Poor girl!" said Biddy. "I think you're cruel."

"Never mind; I'll look after them," said Sherringham.

"And how can Madame Carré judge, if the girl recites English?"

"She's so intelligent that she could judge if she recited Chinese," Peter declared.

"That's true, but the jeune Anglaise recites also in French," said Gabriel Nash.

"Then she isn't stupid."

"And in Italian, and in several more tongues, for aught I know."

Sherringham was visibly interested. "Very good; we'll put her through them all."

"She must be most clever," Biddy went on, yearningly.

"She has spent her life on the Continent; she has wandered about with her mother; she has picked up things."

"And is she a lady?" Biddy asked.

"Oh, tremendous! The great ones of the earth on the mother's side. On the father's, on the other hand, I imagine, only a Jew stockbroker in the city."

"Then they're rich—or ought to be," Sherringham suggested.