Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 3.djvu/208

200 the understanding that he was to marry her, and since he was not to marry her they had no right to keep the place. "Yes, you make the mess and we pay the penalty!" Lady Agnes flashed out; but this was the only overt protest that she made, except indeed to contend that their withdrawal would be an act ungracious and offensive to Julia. She looked as she had looked during the months that succeeded his father's death, but she gave a general grim assent to the proposition that, let Julia take it as she would, their own duty was unmistakably clear.

It was Grace who was the principal representative of the idea that Julia would be outraged by such a step; she never ceased to repeat that she had never heard of anything so "nasty." Nick would have expected this of Grace, but he felt rather deserted and betrayed when Biddy murmured to him that she knew—that there was really no need of their sacrificing their mother's comfort to a mere fancy. She intimated that if Nick would only consent to their going on with Broadwood as if nothing had happened (or rather as if everything had happened), she would answer for Julia. For almost the first time in his life Nick disliked what Biddy said to him, and he gave her a sharp rejoinder, embodying the general opinion that they all had enough to do to answer for themselves. He remembered afterwards the way she looked at him, startled, even frightened, with rising tears, before turning away. He held that it would be time enough to judge how Julia would take it after they had thrown up the place; and he made it his duty to see that his mother should address to Mrs. Dallow by letter a formal notification of their retirement. Mrs. Dallow could protest then if she liked. Nick was