Part 4 (1/2)
”Well, I don't know--with a lot of good writing.” Biddy listened to this so receptively that she thought it perverse her brother should add: ”I daresay Peter will have come if you return to mother.”
”I don't care if he has. Peter's nothing to me. But I'll go if you wish it.”
Nick smiled upon her again and then said: ”It doesn't signify. We'll all go.”
”All?” she echoed.
”He won't hurt us. On the contrary he'll do us good.”
This was possible, the girl reflected in silence, but none the less the idea struck her as courageous, of their taking the odd young man back to breakfast with them and with the others, especially if Peter should be there. If Peter was nothing to her it was singular she should have attached such importance to this contingency. The odd young man reappeared, and now that she saw him without his queer female appendages he seemed personally less weird. He struck her moreover, as generally a good deal accounted for by the literary character, especially if it were responsible for a lot of good writing. As he took his place on the bench Nick said to him, indicating her, ”My sister Bridget,” and then mentioned his name, ”Mr. Gabriel Nash.”
”You enjoy Paris--you're happy here?” Mr. Nash inquired, leaning over his friend to speak to the girl.
Though his words belonged to the situation it struck her that his tone didn't, and this made her answer him more dryly than she usually spoke.
”Oh yes, it's very nice.”
”And French art interests you? You find things here that please?”
”Oh yes, I like some of them.”
Mr. Nash considered her kindly. ”I hoped you'd say you like the Academy better.”
”She would if she didn't think you expected it,” said Nicholas Dormer.
”Oh Nick!” Biddy protested.
”Miss Dormer's herself an English picture,” their visitor p.r.o.nounced in the tone of a man whose urbanity was a general solvent.
”That's a compliment if you don't like them!” Biddy exclaimed.
”Ah some of them, some of them; there's a certain sort of thing!” Mr.
Nash continued. ”We must feel everything, everything that we can. We're here for that.”
”You do like English art then?” Nick demanded with a slight accent of surprise.
Mr. Nash indulged his wonder. ”My dear Dormer, do you remember the old complaint I used to make of you? You had formulas that were like walking in one's hat. One may see something in a case and one may not.”
”Upon my word,” said Nick, ”I don't know any one who was fonder of a generalisation than you. You turned them off as the man at the street-corner distributes hand-bills.”
”They were my wild oats. I've sown them all.”
”We shall see that!”
”Oh there's nothing of them now: a tame, scanty, homely growth. My only good generalisations are my actions.”
”We shall see _them_ then.”
”Ah pardon me. You can't see them with the naked eye. Moreover, mine are princ.i.p.ally negative. People's actions, I know, are for the most part the things they do--but mine are all the things I _don't_ do. There are so many of those, so many, but they don't produce any effect. And then all the rest are shades--extremely fine shades.”