and was so proud too: she couldn't get over the thought of their
not being successful. Peter was unwilling to press at this point, for he
suspected one of the things Lady Agnes wanted; but Biddy relieved him a
little by describing her as eager above all that Grace should get
married.

"That's too unselfish of her," he pronounced, not caring at all for
Grace. "Cousin Agnes ought to keep her near her always, if Grace is so
obliging and devoted."

"Oh mamma would give up anything of that sort for our good; she wouldn't
sacrifice us that way!" Biddy protested. "Besides, I'm the one to stay
with mamma; not that I can manage and look after her and do everything
so well as Grace. But, you know, I _want_ to," said Biddy with a liquid
note in her voice--and giving her lump of clay a little stab for
mendacious emphasis.

"But doesn't your mother want the rest of you to get married--Percival
and Nick and you?" Peter asked.

"Oh she has given up Percy. I don't suppose she thinks it would do. Dear
Nick of course--that's just what she does want."

He had a pause. "And you, Biddy?"

"Oh I daresay. But that doesn't signify--I never shall."

Peter got up at this; the tone of it set him in motion and he took a
turn round the room. He threw off something cheap about her being too
proud; to which she replied that that was the only thing for a girl to
be to get on.

"What do you mean by getting on?"--and he stopped with his hands in his
pockets on the other side of the studio.

"I mean crying one's eyes out!" Biddy unexpectedly exclaimed; but she
drowned the effect of this pathetic paradox in a laugh of clear
irrelevance and in the quick declaration: "Of course it's about Nick
that she's really broken-hearted."

"What's the matter with Nick?" he went on with all his diplomacy.

"Oh Peter, what's the matter with Julia?" Biddy quavered softly back to
him, her eyes suddenly frank and mournful. "I daresay you know what we
all hoped, what we all supposed from what they told us. And now they
won't!" said the girl.

"Yes, Biddy, I know. I had the brightest prospect of becoming your
brother-in-law: wouldn't that have been it--or something like that? But
it's indeed visibly clouded. What's the matter with them? May I have
another cigarette?" Peter came back to the wide, cushioned bench where
he had previously lounged: this was the way they took up the subject he
wanted most to look into. "Don't they know how to love?" he speculated