back to town; but they had gone down again for Christmas and Julia had
taken this occasion to write to Nick that she hoped very much he
wouldn't refuse them all his own company for just a little scrap of the
supremely sociable time. Nick, after reflexion, judged it best not to
refuse, so that he passed, in the event, four days under his cousin's
roof. The "all" proved a great many people, for she had taken care to
fill the house. She took the largest view of hospitality and Nick had
never seen her so splendid, so free-handed, so gracefully active. She
was a perfect mistress of the revels; she had arranged some ancient
bravery for every day and for every night. The Dormers were so much in
it, as the phrase was, that after all their discomfiture their fortune
seemed in an hour to have come back. There had been a moment when, in
extemporised charades, Lady Agnes, an elderly figure being required,
appeared on the point of undertaking the part of the housekeeper at a
castle, who, dropping her _h_'s, showed sheeplike tourists about; but
she waived the opportunity in favour of her daughter Grace. Even Grace
had a great success; Grace dropped her _h_'s as with the crash of
empires. Nick of course was in the charades and in everything, but Julia
was not; she only invented, directed, led the applause. When nothing
else was forward Nick "sketched" the whole company: they followed him
about, they waylaid him on staircases, clamouring to be allowed to sit.
He obliged them so far as he could, all save Julia, who didn't clamour;
and, growing rather red, he thought of Gabriel Nash while he bent over
the paper. Early in the new year he went abroad for six weeks, but only
as far as Paris. It was a new Paris for him then; a Paris of the Rue
Bonaparte and three or four professional friends--he had more of these
there than in London; a Paris of studios and studies and models, of
researches and revelations, comparisons and contrasts, of strong
impressions and long discussions and rather uncomfortable economies,
small cafes, bad fires and the general sense of being twenty again.

While he was away his mother and sisters--Lady Agnes now sometimes wrote
to him--returned to London for a month, and before he was again
established in Rosedale Road they went back for a third course of
Broadwood. After they had been there five days--and this was the salt of
the whole feast--Julia took herself off to Harsh, leaving them in
undisturbed possession. They