_cabinet_. He had brought no guest, no foreigner of
distinction nor diplomatic swell, to honour them, and now they would see
what a paltry dinner he would give them. Peter stabbed him indignantly
with a long roll, and Lady Agnes, who seemed to be waiting for some
manifestation on Mrs. Dallow's part which didn't come, concluded, with a
certain coldness, that they quite sufficed to themselves for privacy as
well as for society. Nick called attention to this fine phrase of his
mother's and said it was awfully neat, while Grace and Biddy looked
harmoniously at Julia's clothes. Nick felt nervous and joked a good deal
to carry it off--a levity that didn't prevent Julia's saying to him
after a moment: "You might have come to see me to-day, you know. Didn't
you get my message from Peter?"

"Scold him, Julia--scold him well. I begged him to go," said Lady Agnes;
and to this Grace added her voice with an "Oh Julia, do give it to him!"
These words, however, had not the effect they suggested, since Mrs.
Dallow only threw off for answer, in her quick curt way, that that would
be making far too much of him. It was one of the things in her that Nick
mentally pronounced ungraceful, the perversity of pride or of shyness
that always made her disappoint you a little if she saw you expected a
thing. She snubbed effusiveness in a way that yet gave no interesting
hint of any wish to keep it herself in reserve. Effusiveness, however,
certainly, was the last thing of which Lady Agnes would have consented
to be accused; and Nick, while he replied to Julia that he was sure he
shouldn't have found her, was not unable to perceive the operation on
his mother of that shade of manner. "He ought to have gone; he owed you
that," she went on; "but it's very true he would have had the same luck
as we. I went with the girls directly after luncheon. I suppose you got
our card."

"He might have come after I came in," said Mrs. Dallow.

"Dear Julia, I'm going to see you to-night. I've been waiting for that,"
Nick returned.

"Of course _we_ had no idea when you'd come in," said Lady Agnes.

"I'm so sorry. You must come to-morrow. I hate calls at night," Julia
serenely added.

"Well then, will you roam with me? Will you wander through Paris on my
arm?" Nick asked, smiling. "Will you take a drive with me?"

"Oh that would be perfection!" cried Grace.

"I thought we were all going somewhere--to the Hippodrome, Peter," Biddy
said.

"Oh not all; just yo