Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 2.djvu/208

200 over what she had heard; this was indicated by her saying vaguely: "No, no, I've not seen her." Then she became aware that she was answering a question he had not asked her, and she went on: "We shall be too delighted. I saw her—perhaps you remember—in your rooms in Paris. I thought her so wonderful then! Every one is talking of her here. But we don't go to the theatre much, you know: we don't have boxes offered us except when you come. Poor Nick is too much taken up in the evening. I've wanted awfully to see her. They say she's magnificent."

"I don't know," said Peter. "I haven't seen her."

"You haven't seen her?"

"Never, Biddy. I mean on the stage. In private, often—yes," Sherringham added, conscientiously.

"Oh!" Biddy exclaimed, bending her face on Nick's bust again. She asked him no question about the new star, and he offered her no further information. There were things in his mind that pulled him different ways, so that for some minutes silence was the result of the conflict. At last he said, after an hesitation caused by the possibility that she was ignorant of the fact he had lately elicited from Julia, though it was more probable she might have learned it from the same source:

"Am I perhaps indiscreet in alluding to the circumstance that Nick has been painting Miss Rooth's portrait?"

"You are not indiscreet in alluding to it to me, because I know it."

"Then there's no secret nor mystery about it?"

Biddy considered a moment. "I don't think mamma knows it."