turned to the door as Nick crossed the
threshold. The expression of her figure instantly told him--he saw the
creased card he had sent her lying on one of the beautiful bare
tables--how she had been sailing up and down in a majesty of
satisfaction. The inflation of her long plain dress and the brightened
dimness of her proud face were still in the air. In a moment he had
kissed her and was being kissed, not in quick repetition, but in tender
prolongation, with which the perfume of the white rose was mixed. But
there was something else too--her sweet smothered words in his ear: "Oh
my boy, my boy--oh your father, your father!" Neither the sense of
pleasure nor that of pain, with Lady Agnes--as indeed with most of the
persons with whom this history is concerned--was a liberation of
chatter; so that for a minute all she said again was, "I think of Sir
Nicholas and wish he were here"; addressing the words to Julia, who had
wandered forward without looking at the mother and son.

"Poor Sir Nicholas!" said Mrs. Dallow vaguely.

"Did you make another speech?" Lady Agnes asked.

"I don't know. Did I?" Nick appealed.

"I don't know!"--and Julia spoke with her back turned, doing something
to her hat before the glass.

"Oh of course the confusion, the bewilderment!" said Lady Agnes in a
tone rich in political reminiscence.

"It was really immense fun," Mrs. Dallow went so far as to drop.

"Dearest Julia!" Lady Agnes deeply breathed. Then she added: "It was you
who made it sure."

"There are a lot of people coming to dinner," said Julia.

"Perhaps you'll have to speak again," Lady Agnes smiled at her son.

"Thank you; I like the way you talk about it!" cried Nick. "I'm like
Iago: 'from this time forth I never will speak word!'"

"Don't say that, Nick," said his mother gravely.

"Don't be afraid--he'll jabber like a magpie!" And Julia went out of the
room.

Nick had flung himself on a sofa with an air of weariness, though not of
completely extinct cheer; and Lady Agnes stood fingering her rose and
looking down at him. His eyes kept away from her; they seemed fixed on
something she couldn't see. "I hope you've thanked Julia handsomely,"
she presently remarked.

"Why of course, mother."

"She has done as much as if you hadn't been sure."

"I wasn't in the least sure--and she has done everything."

"She has been too good--but _we_'ve done something. I hope you don't
leave out your father," Lady Agnes amplified as