Part 74 (2/2)
”Oh I don't care!”--but she threw herself, flushed and charming, into a straight appeal to him. ”Don't you think one can do as much good by painting great works of art as by--as by what papa used to do? Don't you think art's necessary to the happiness, to the greatness of a people?
Don't you think it's manly and honourable? Do you think a pa.s.sion for it's a thing to be ashamed of? Don't you think the artist--the conscientious, the serious one--is as distinguished a member of society as any one else?”
Peter and Nick looked at each other and laughed at the way she had got up her subject, and Nick asked their kinsman if she didn't express it all in perfection. ”I delight in general in artists, but I delight still more in their defenders,” Peter made reply, perhaps a little meagrely, to Biddy.
”Ah don't attack me if you're wise!” Nick said.
”One's tempted to when it makes Biddy so fine.”
”Well, that's the way she encourages me: it's meat and drink to me,”
Nick went on. ”At the same time I'm bound to say there's a little whistling in the dark in it.”
”In the dark?” his sister demanded.
”The obscurity, my dear child, of your own aspirations, your mysterious ambitions and esthetic views. Aren't there some heavyish shadows there?”
”Why I never cared for politics.”
”No, but you cared for life, you cared for society, and you've chosen the path of solitude and concentration.”
”You horrid boy!” said Biddy.
”Give it up, that arduous steep--give it up and come out with me,” Peter interposed.
”Come out with you?”
”Let us walk a little or even drive a little. Let us at any rate talk a little.”
”I thought you had so much to do,” Biddy candidly objected.
”So I have, but why shouldn't you do a part of it with me? Would there be any harm? I'm going to some tiresome shops--you'll cheer the frugal hour.”
The girl hesitated, then turned to Nick. ”Would there be any harm?”
”Oh it's none of _his_ business!” Peter protested.
”He had better take you home to your mother.”
”I'm going home--I shan't stay here to-day,” Biddy went on. Then to Peter: ”I came in a hansom, but I shall walk back. Come that way with me.”
”With pleasure. But I shall not be able to go in,” Peter added.
”Oh that's no matter,” said the girl. ”Good-bye, Nick.”
”You understand then that we dine together--at seven sharp. Wouldn't a club, as I say, be best?” Peter, before going, inquired of Nick. He suggested further which club it should be; and his words led Biddy, who had directed her steps toward the door, to turn a moment as with a reproachful question--whether it was for this Peter had given up Calcutta Gardens. But her impulse, if impulse it was, had no sequel save so far as it was a sequel that Peter freely explained to her, after Nick had a.s.sented to his conditions, that her brother too had a desire to go to Miss Rooth's first night and had already promised to accompany him.
”Oh that's perfect; it will be so good for him--won't it?--if he's going to paint her again,” Biddy responded.
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