, the fun was at an end. This lady
expressed the idea that the fun was after all rather a bore. At any rate
now they could rest, Mrs. Dallow and Nick and she, and she was glad Nick
was going to stay for a little quiet. She liked Harsh best when it was
not _en fete_: then one could see what a sympathetic old place it was.
She hoped Nick was not dreadfully fagged--she feared Julia was
completely done up. Julia, however, had transported her exhaustion to
the grounds--she was wandering about somewhere. She thought more people
would be coming to the house, people from the town, people from the
country, and had gone out so as not to have to see them. She had not
gone far--Nick could easily find her. Nick intimated that he himself was
not eager for more people, whereupon Mrs. Gresham rather archly smiled.
"And of course you hate _me_ for being here." He made some protest and
she added: "But I'm almost part of the house, you know--I'm one of the
chairs or tables." Nick declared that he had never seen a house so well
furnished, and Mrs. Gresham said: "I believe there _are_ to be some
people to dinner; rather an interference, isn't it? Julia lives so in
public. But it's all for you." And after a moment she added: "It's a
wonderful constitution." Nick at first failed to seize her allusion--he
thought it a retarded political reference, a sudden tribute to the great
unwritten instrument by which they were all governed and under the happy
operation of which his fight had been so successful. He was on the point
of saying, "The British? Wonderful!" when he gathered that the intention
of his companion had been simply to praise Mrs. Dallow's fine
robustness. "The surface so delicate, the action so easy, yet the frame
of steel."

He left Mrs. Gresham to her correspondence and went out of the house;
wondering as he walked if she wanted him to do the same thing his mother
wanted, so that her words had been intended for a prick--whether even
the two ladies had talked over their desire together. Mrs. Gresham was a
married woman who was usually taken for a widow, mainly because she was
perpetually "sent for" by her friends, who in no event sent for Mr.
Gresham. She came in every case, with her air of being _repandue_ at
the expense of dingier belongings. Her figure was admired--that is it
was sometimes mentioned--and she dressed as if it was expected of her to
be smart, like a young woman in a shop or a servant much in view. She
slipped in and