The Tragic Muse. Генри Джеймс

come with Peter. The young man set forth that she was at the moment at an hotel in the Rue de la Paix, but had only been there since that morning; he had seen her before proceeding to the Champs Elysées. She had come up to Paris by an early train– she had been staying at Versailles, of all places in the world. She had been a week in Paris on her return from Cannes—her stay there had been of nearly a month: fancy!—and then had gone out to Versailles to see Mrs. Billinghurst. Perhaps they'd remember her, poor Dallow's sister. She was staying there to teach her daughters French—she had a dozen or two!—and Julia had spent three days with her. She was to return to England about the twenty-fifth. It would make seven weeks she must have been away from town—a rare thing for her; she usually stuck to it so in summer.

      "Three days with Mrs. Billinghurst—how very good-natured of her!" Lady Agnes commented.

      "Oh they're very nice to her," Sherringham said.

      "Well, I hope so!" Grace Dormer exhaled. "Why didn't you make her come here?"

      "I proposed it, but she wouldn't." Another eye-beam, at this, passed between the two ladies and Peter went on: "She said you must come and see her at the Hôtel de Hollande."

      "Of course we'll do that," Lady Agnes declared. "Nick went to ask about her at the Westminster."

      "She gave that up; they wouldn't give her the rooms she wanted, her usual set."

      "She's delightfully particular!" Grace said complacently. Then she added: "She does like pictures, doesn't she?"

      Peter Sherringham stared. "Oh I daresay. But that's not what she has in her head this morning. She has some news from London—she's immensely excited."

      "What has she in her head?" Lady Agnes asked.

      "What's her news from London?" Grace added.

      "She wants Nick to stand."

      "Nick to stand?" both ladies cried.

      "She undertakes to bring him in for Harsh. Mr. Pinks is dead—the fellow, you know, who got the seat at the general election. He dropped down in London—disease of the heart or something of that sort. Julia has her telegram, but I see it was in last night's papers."

      "Imagine—Nick never mentioned it!" said Lady Agnes.

      "Don't you know, mother?—abroad he only reads foreign papers."

      "Oh I know. I've no patience with him," her ladyship continued. "Dear Julia!"

      "It's a nasty little place, and Pinks had a tight squeeze—107 or something of that sort; but if it returned a Liberal a year ago very likely it will do so again. Julia at any rate believes it can be made to—if the man's Nick—and is ready to take the order to put him in."

      "I'm sure if she can do it she will," Grace pronounced.

      "Dear, dear Julia! And Nick can do something for himself," said the mother of this candidate.

      "I've no doubt he can do anything," Peter Sherringham returned good-naturedly. Then, "Do you mean in expenses?" he inquired.

      "Ah I'm afraid he can't do much in expenses, poor dear boy! And it's dreadful how little we can look to Percy."

      "Well, I daresay you may look to Julia. I think that's her idea."

      "Delightful Julia!" Lady Agnes broke out. "If poor Sir Nicholas could have known! Of course he must go straight home," she added.

      "He won't like that," said Grace.

      "Then he'll have to go without liking it."

      "It will rather spoil your little excursion, if you've only just come," Peter suggested; "to say nothing of the great Biddy's, if she's enjoying Paris."

      "We may stay perhaps—with Julia to protect us," said Lady Agnes.

      "Ah she won't stay; she'll go over for her man."

      "Her man–?"

      "The fellow who stands, whoever he is—especially if he's Nick." These last words caused the eyes of Peter Sherringham's companions to meet again, and he went on: "She'll go straight down to Harsh."

      "Wonderful Julia!" Lady Agnes panted. "Of course Nick must go straight there too."

      "Well, I suppose he must see first if they'll have him."

      "If they'll have him? Why how can he tell till he tries?"

      "I mean the people at headquarters, the fellows who arrange it."

      Lady Agnes coloured a little. "My dear Peter, do you suppose there will be the least doubt of their 'having' the son of his father?"

      "Of course it's a great name, Cousin Agnes—a very great name."

      "One of the greatest, simply," Lady Agnes smiled.

      "It's the best name in the world!" said Grace more emphatically.

      "All the same it didn't prevent his losing his seat."

      "By half-a-dozen votes: it was too odious!" her ladyship cried.

      "I remember—I remember. And in such a case as that why didn't they immediately put him in somewhere else?"

      "How one sees you live abroad, dear Peter! There happens to have been the most extraordinary lack of openings—I never saw anything like it—for a year. They've had their hand on him, keeping him all ready. I daresay they've telegraphed him."

      "And he hasn't told you?"

      Lady Agnes faltered. "He's so very odd when he's abroad!"

      "At home too he lets things go," Grace interposed. "He does so little—takes no trouble." Her mother suffered this statement to pass unchallenged, and she pursued philosophically: "I suppose it's because he knows he's so clever."

      "So he is, dear old man. But what does he do, what has he been doing, in a positive way?"

      "He has been painting."

      "Ah not seriously!" Lady Agnes protested.

      "That's the worst way," said Peter Sherringham. "Good things?"

      Neither of the ladies made a direct response to this, but Lady Agnes said: "He has spoken repeatedly. They're always calling on him."

      "He speaks magnificently," Grace attested.

      "That's another of the things I lose, living in far countries. And he's doing the Salon now with the great Biddy?"

      "Just the things in this part. I can't think what keeps them so long," Lady Agnes groaned. "Did you ever see such a dreadful place?"

      Sherringham stared. "Aren't the things good? I had an idea–!"

      "Good?" cried Lady Agnes. "They're too odious, too wicked."

      "Ah," laughed Peter, "that's what people fall into if they live abroad. The French oughtn't to live abroad!"

      "Here they come," Grace announced at this point; "but they've got a strange man with them."

      "That's a bore when we want to talk!" Lady Agnes sighed.

      Peter got up in the spirit of welcome and stood a moment watching the others approach. "There will be no difficulty in talking, to judge by the gentleman," he dropped; and while he remains so conspicuous our eyes may briefly rest on him. He was middling high and was visibly a representative of the nervous rather than of the phlegmatic branch of his race. He had an oval face, fine firm features, and a complexion that tended to the brown. Brown were his eyes, and women thought them soft; dark brown his hair, in which the same critics sometimes regretted the absence of a little undulation. It was perhaps to conceal this plainness that he wore it very short. His teeth were white, his moustache was pointed, and so was the small beard that adorned the extremity of his chin. His face expressed intelligence and was very much alive; it had the further distinction that it often struck superficial observers with a certain foreignness of cast. The deeper sort, however, usually felt it latently English enough. There was an idea that, having taken up the diplomatic career and gone to live in strange lands, he cultivated the mask of an alien, an Italian or a Spaniard; of an alien in time even—one of the wonderful ubiquitous diplomatic agents of the sixteenth century. In fact, none the less,