Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 2.djvu/185

Rh "I'm sorry to disappoint Mr. Carteret," said Julia. "I'll go and see him. I'll make it all right," she went on. "Besides, you'll make a fortune by your portraits. The great men get a thousand, just for a head."

"I'm only joking," Nick returned, with sombre eyes that contradicted this profession. "But what things you deserve I should do!"

"Do you mean striking likenesses?"

"You do hate it! Pushed to that point, it's curious," the young man audibly mused.

"Do you mean you're joking about Mr. Carteret's promise?"

"No, the promise is real; but I don't seriously offer it as a reason."

"I shall go to Beauclere," said Mrs. Dallow. "You're an hour late," she added in a different tone; for at that moment the door of the room was thrown open and Mrs. Gresham, the butler pronouncing her name, was ushered in.

"Ah, don't impugn my punctuality; it's my character?" the useful lady exclaimed, putting a sixpence from the cabman into her purse. Nick went off, at this, with a simplified farewell—went off foreseeing exactly what he found the next day, that Mrs. Gresham would have received orders not to budge from her hostess's side. He called on the morrow, late in the afternoon, and Julia saw him liberally, in pursuance of her assertion that she would be "beautiful" to him, that she had not thrown away his devotion; but Mrs. Gresham remained immutably a spectator of her liberality. Julia looked at him kindly, but her companion was more benignant still; so that what Nick did with his own eyes was not to appeal