Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 3.djvu/253

Rh "Will you come if I send you one?"

"Oh, but really, it's too beautiful of you." stammered the girl.

"You shall have a box; your brother shall bring you. You can't squeeze in a pin, I'm told; but I've kept a box, I'll manage it. Only, if I do, you know, mind you come!" Miriam exclaimed, in suppliance, resting her hand on Biddy's.

"Don't be afraid! And may I bring a friend—the friend with whom I'm staying?"

Miriam looked at her. "Do you mean Mrs. Dallow?"

"No, no—Miss Tressilian. She puts me up, she has got a flat. Did you ever see a flat?" asked Biddy, expansively. "My cousin's not in London." Miriam replied that she might bring whom she liked, and Biddy broke out, to her brother: "Fancy what kindness, Nick: we're to have a box to-night, and you're to take me!"

Nick turned to her, smiling, with an expression in his face which struck her even at the time as odd, but which she understood when the sense of it recurred to her later. Mr. Dashwood interposed with the remark that it was all very well to talk about boxes, but that he didn't see where at that time of day any such luxury was to come from.

"You haven't kept one, as I told you?" Miriam demanded.

"As you told me, my dear? Tell the lamb to keep its tender mutton from the wolves!"

"You shall have one: we'll arrange it," Miriam went on, to Biddy.

"Let me qualify that statement a little, Miss Dormer,"