name, "Mr. Gabriel Nash."

"You enjoy Paris--you're happy here?" Mr. Nash inquired, leaning over
his friend to speak to the girl.

Though his words belonged to the situation it struck her that his tone
didn't, and this made her answer him more dryly than she usually spoke.
"Oh yes, it's very nice."

"And French art interests you? You find things here that please?"

"Oh yes, I like some of them."

Mr. Nash considered her kindly. "I hoped you'd say you like the Academy
better."

"She would if she didn't think you expected it," said Nicholas Dormer.

"Oh Nick!" Biddy protested.

"Miss Dormer's herself an English picture," their visitor pronounced in
the tone of a man whose urbanity was a general solvent.

"That's a compliment if you don't like them!" Biddy exclaimed.

"Ah some of them, some of them; there's a certain sort of thing!" Mr.
Nash continued. "We must feel everything, everything that we can. We're
here for that."

"You do like English art then?" Nick demanded with a slight accent of
surprise.

Mr. Nash indulged his wonder. "My dear Dormer, do you remember the old
complaint I used to make of you? You had formulas that were like walking
in one's hat. One may see something in a case and one may not."

"Upon my word," said Nick, "I don't know any one who was fonder of a
generalisation than you. You turned them off as the man at the
street-corner distributes hand-bills."

"They were my wild oats. I've sown them all."

"We shall see that!"

"Oh there's nothing of them now: a tame, scanty, homely growth. My only
good generalisations are my actions."

"We shall see _them_ then."

"Ah pardon me. You can't see them with the naked eye. Moreover, mine are
principally negative. People's actions, I know, are for the most part
the things they do--but mine are all the things I _don't_ do. There are
so many of those, so many, but they don't produce any effect. And then
all the rest are shades--extremely fine shades."

"Shades of behaviour?" Nick inquired with an interest which surprised
his sister, Mr. Nash's discourse striking her mainly as the twaddle of
the under-world.

"Shades of impression, of appreciation," said the young man with his
explanatory smile. "All my behaviour consists of my feelings."

"Well, don't you show your feelings? You used to!"

"Wasn't it mainly those of disgust?" Nash asked. "Those operate no
longer. I've closed that window."

"Do you mean you like everything?"

"Dear