d a little
the weight he himself had to carry. He bore her a slight grudge, which
lasted till Julia Dallow came back; when the circumstance of the girl's
being summoned immediately down to Harsh created a diversion that was
perhaps after all only fanciful. Biddy, as we know, entertained a
theory, which Nick had found occasion to combat, that Mrs. Dallow had
not treated him perfectly well; therefore in going to Harsh the very
first time that relative held out a hand to her so jealous a little
sister must have recognised a special inducement. The inducement might
have been that the relative had comfort for her, that she was acting by
her cousin's direct advice, that they were still in close communion on
the question of the offers Biddy was not to accept, that in short
Peter's sister had taken upon herself to see that their young friend
should remain free for the day of the fugitive's inevitable return. Once
or twice indeed Nick wondered if Julia had herself been visited, in a
larger sense, by the thought of retracing her steps--if she wished to
draw out her young friend's opinion as to how she might do that
gracefully. During the few days she was in town Nick had seen her twice
in Great Stanhope Street, but neither time alone. She had said to him on
one of these occasions in her odd, explosive way: "I should have thought
you'd have gone away somewhere--it must be such a bore." Of course she
firmly believed he was staying for Miriam, which he really was not; and
probably she had written this false impression off to Peter, who, still
more probably, would prefer to regard it as just. Nick was staying for
Miriam only in the sense that he should very glad of the money he might
receive for the portrait he was engaged in painting. That money would be
a great convenience to him in spite of the obstructive ground Miriam had
taken in pretending--she had blown half a gale about it--that he had
had no right to dispose of such a production without her consent. His
answer to this was simply that the purchaser was so little of a stranger
that it didn't go, so to speak, out of the family, out of hers. It
didn't matter, Miriam's retort that if Mr. Sherringham had formerly been
no stranger he was utterly one now, so that nothing would ever less
delight him than to see her hated image on his wall. He would back out
of the bargain and Nick be left with the picture on his hands. Nick
jeered at this shallow theory and when she came to sit the qu