Part 60 (1/2)
”Do you doubt it?” Peter asked.
”I've never been in love and I never shall be.”
”You're as perverse, in your way, as Julia,” he returned to this. ”But I confess I don't understand Nick's att.i.tude any better. He seems to me, if I may say so, neither fish nor flesh.”
”Oh his att.i.tude's very n.o.ble, Peter; his state of mind's wonderfully interesting,” Biddy pleaded. ”Surely _you_ must be in favour of art,”
she beautifully said.
It made him look 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?
Aren't you in favour of art?”
”The question's delightfully simple. I don't know what you're talking about. Everything has its place. A parliamentary life,” he opined, ”scarce 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,” Biddy pursued, ”for Julia has herself shaken free. I think she never really felt safe--she loved him, but 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 wrested herself away. Do you know what she said to me? She said, 'My confidence has gone for ever.'”
”I didn't know she was such a prig!” Julia's brother commented. ”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”--and Peter glanced at the bust.
”To that of making you laugh at me.”
But this he didn't heed. ”Would you give a good man up for 'art'?”
”A good man? What man?”
”Well, say me--if I wanted to marry you.”
She had the briefest of pauses. ”Of course I would--in a moment. At any rate I'd give up the House of Commons,” she amended. ”That's what Nick's going to do now--only you mustn't tell any one.”
Peter wondered. ”He's going to chuck up his seat?”
”I think his mind is made up to it. He has talked me over--we've had some deep discussions. Yes, I'm on the side of art!” she ardently said.
”Do you mean in order to paint--to paint that girl?” Peter went on.