out of it; you were as gloomy as if every earthly hope
had left you, and you didn't make a single contribution to any
discussion that took place. Don't you think I observe you?" she asked
with an irony tempered by a tenderness unsuccessfully concealed.

"Ah my darling, what you observe--!" Nick cried with a certain
bitterness of amusement. But he added the next moment more seriously, as
if his tone had been disrespectful: "You probe me to the bottom, no
doubt."

"You needn't come either to Griffin or to Severals if you don't want
to."

"Give them up yourself; stay here with me!"

She coloured quickly as he said this, and broke out: "Lord, how you hate
political houses!"

"How can you say that when from February to August I spend every blessed
night in one?"

"Yes, and hate that worst of all."

"So do half the people who are in it. You, my dear, must have so many
things, so many people, so much _mise-en-scene_ and such a perpetual
spectacle to live," Nick went on. "Perpetual motion, perpetual visits,
perpetual crowds! If you go into the country you'll see forty people
every day and be mixed up with them all day. The idea of a quiet
fortnight in town, when by a happy if idiotic superstition everybody
goes out of it, disconcerts and frightens you. It's the very time, it's
the very place, to do a little work and possess one's soul."

This vehement allocution found her evidently somewhat unprepared; but
she was sagacious enough, instead of attempting for the moment a general
rejoinder, to seize on a single phrase and say: "Work? What work can you
do in London at such a moment as this?"

Nick considered. "I might tell you I want to get up a lot of subjects,
to sit at home and read blue-books; but that wouldn't be quite what I
mean."

"Do you mean you want to paint?"

"Yes, that's it, since you gouge it out of me."

"Why do you make such a mystery about it? You're at perfect liberty,"
Julia said.

She put out her hand to rest it on the mantel-shelf, but her companion
took it on the way and held it in both his own. "You're delightful,
Julia, when you speak in that tone--then I know why it is I love you.
But I can't do anything if I go to Griffin, if I go to Severals."

"I see--I see," she answered thoughtfully and kindly.

"I've scarcely been inside of my studio for months, and I feel quite
homesick for it. The idea of putting in a few quiet days there has taken
hold of me: I rather cling to it."

"It see