e
it."

"And if she _is_ nice?"

"You advise it still less!" her brother exclaimed, laughing and putting
his arm round her.

Lady Agnes looked sombre--she might have been saying to herself: "Heaven
help us, what chance has a girl of mine with a man who's so agog about
actresses?" She was disconcerted and distressed; a multitude of
incongruous things, all the morning, had been forced upon her
attention--displeasing pictures and still more displeasing theories
about them, vague portents of perversity on Nick's part and a strange
eagerness on Peter's, learned apparently in Paris, to discuss, with a
person who had a tone she never had been exposed to, topics irrelevant
and uninteresting, almost disgusting, the practical effect of which was
to make light of her presence. "Let us leave this--let us leave this!"
she grimly said. The party moved together toward the door of departure,
and her ruffled spirit was not soothed by hearing her son remark to his
terrible friend: "You know you don't escape me; I stick to you!"

At this Lady Agnes broke out and interposed. "Pardon my reminding you
that you're going to call on Julia."

"Well, can't Nash also come to call on Julia? That's just what I
want--that she should see him."

Peter Sherringham came humanely to his kinswoman's assistance. "A better
way perhaps will be for them to meet under my auspices at my 'dramatic
tea.' This will enable me to return one favour for another. If Mr. Nash
is so good as to introduce me to this aspirant for honours we estimate
so differently, I'll introduce him to my sister, a much more positive
quantity."

"It's easy to see who'll have the best of it!" Grace Dormer declared;
while Nash stood there serenely, impartially, in a graceful detached way
which seemed characteristic of him, assenting to any decision that
relieved him of the grossness of choice and generally confident that
things would turn out well for him. He was cheerfully helpless and
sociably indifferent; ready to preside with a smile even at a
discussion of his own admissibility.

"Nick will bring you. I've a little corner at the embassy," Sherringham
continued.

"You're very kind. You must bring _him_ then to-morrow--Rue de
Constantinople."

"At five o'clock--don't be afraid."

"Oh dear!" Biddy wailed as they went on again and Lady Agnes, seizing
his arm, marched off more quickly with her son. When they came out into
the Champs Elysees Nick Dormer, looking round, saw his