Part 59 (2/2)
”Oh I don't mean the picture--she hasn't seen it. But his having done it.”
”Does she dislike it so much that that's why she won't marry him?”
Biddy gave up her work, moving away from it to look at it. She came and sat down on the long bench on which Sherringham had placed himself. Then she broke out: ”Oh Peter, it's a great trouble--it's a very great trouble; and I can't tell you, for I don't understand it.”
”If I ask you,” he said, ”it's not to pry into what doesn't concern me; but Julia's my sister, and I can't after all help taking some interest in her life. She tells me herself so little. She doesn't think me worthy.”
”Ah poor Julia!” Biddy wailed defensively. Her tone recalled to him that Julia had at least thought him worthy to unite himself to Bridget Dormer, and inevitably betrayed that the girl was thinking of that also.
While they both thought of it they sat looking into each other's eyes.
”Nick, I'm sure, doesn't treat _you_ that way; I'm sure he confides in you; he talks to you about his occupations, his ambitions,” Peter continued. ”And you understand him, you enter into them, you're nice to him, you help him.”
”Oh Nick's life--it's very dear to me,” Biddy granted.
”That must be jolly for him.”
”It makes _me_ very happy.”
Peter uttered a low, ambiguous groan; then he cried with irritation; ”What the deuce is the matter with them then? Why can't they hit it off together and be quiet and rational and do what every one wants them to?”
”Oh Peter, it's awfully complicated!” the girl sighed with sagacity.
”Do you mean that Nick's in love with her?”
”In love with Julia?”
”No, no, with Miriam Rooth.”
She shook her head slowly, then with a smile which struck him as one of the sweetest things he had ever seen--it conveyed, at the expense of her own prospects, such a shy, generous little mercy of rea.s.surance--”He isn't, Peter,” she brought out. ”Julia thinks it trifling--all that sort of thing,” she added ”She wants him to go in for different honours.”
”Julia's the oddest woman. I mean I thought she loved him,” Peter explained. ”And when you love a person--!” He continued to make it out, leaving his sentence impatiently unfinished, while Biddy, with lowered eyes, sat waiting--it so interested her--to learn what you did when you loved a person. ”I can't conceive her giving him up. He has great ability, besides being such a good fellow.”
”It's for his happiness, Peter--that's the way she reasons,” Biddy set forth. ”She does it for an idea; she has told me a great deal about it, and I see the way she feels.”
”You try to, Biddy, because you're such a dear good-natured girl, but I don't believe you do in the least,” he took the liberty of replying.
”It's too little the way you yourself would feel. Julia's idea, as you call it, must be curious.”
”Well, it is, Peter,” Biddy mournfully admitted. ”She won't risk not coming out at the top.”
”At the top of what?”
”Oh of everything.” Her tone showed a trace of awe of such high views.
”Surely one's at the top of everything when one's in love.”
”I don't know,” said the girl.
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