Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 2.djvu/212

204 Sherringham looked at her a moment. "Dear Biddy, your little digs are as soft as zephyrs."

She coloured, but she protested. "My little digs? What do you mean? Are you not in favour of art?"

"The question is delightfully simple. I don't know what you're talking about. Everything has its place. A parliamentary life scarcely seems to me the situation for portrait-painting."

"That's just what Nick says."

"You talk of it together a great deal?"

"Yes, Nick's very good to me."

"Clever Nick! And what do you advise him?"

"Oh, to do something."

"That's valuable," Peter laughed. "Not to give up his sweetheart for the sake of a paint-pot, I hope?"

"Never, never, Peter! It's not a question of his giving up, for Julia has herself drawn back. I think she never really felt safe; she loved him, but she was afraid of him. Now she's only afraid—she has lost the confidence she tried to have. Nick has tried to hold her, but she has jerked herself away. Do you know what she said to me? She said: 'My confidence has gone forever.'"

"I didn't know she was such a prig!" Sherringham exclaimed. "They're queer people, verily, with water in their veins instead of blood. You and I wouldn't be like that, should we? though you have taken up such a discouraging position about caring for a fellow."

"I care for art," poor Biddy returned.

"You do, to some purpose," said Peter, glancing at the bust.