ured curiosity--and, though she very often did the thing you
wouldn't suppose, she was not unexpectedly apologetic in this case.
Grace recognised that in such a position it would savour of apology for
her to disclose to Lady Agnes her grounds for having let Nick off; and
she wouldn't have liked to be the person to suggest to Julia that any
one looked for anything from her. Neither of the disunited pair blamed
the other or cast an aspersion, and it was all very magnanimous and
superior and impenetrable and exasperating. With all this Grace had a
suspicion that Biddy knew something more, that for Biddy the tormenting
curtain had been lifted.

Biddy had come and gone in these days with a perceptible air of
detachment from the tribulations of home. It had made her, fortunately,
very pretty--still prettier than usual: it sometimes happened that at
moments when Grace was most angry she had a faint sweet smile which
might have been drawn from some source of occult consolation. It was
perhaps in some degree connected with Peter Sherringham's visit, as to
which the girl had not been superstitiously silent. When Grace asked
her if she had secret information and if it pointed to the idea that
everything would be all right in the end, she pretended to know
nothing--What should she know? she asked with the loveliest arch of
eyebrows over an unblinking candour--and begged her sister not to let
Lady Agnes believe her better off than themselves. She contributed
nothing to their gropings save a much better patience, but she went with
noticeable regularity, on the pretext of her foolish modelling, to
Rosedale Road. She was frankly on Nick's side; not going so far as to
say he had been right, but saying distinctly how sure she was that,
whatever had happened, he couldn't have helped it, not a mite. This was
striking, because, as Grace knew, the younger of the sisters had been
much favoured by Julia and wouldn't have sacrificed her easily. It
associated itself in the irritated mind of the elder with Biddy's
frequent visits to the studio and made Miss Dormer ask herself if the
crisis in Nick's and Julia's business had not somehow been linked to
that unnatural spot.

She had gone there two or three times while Biddy was working, gone to
pick up any clue to the mystery that might peep out. But she had put her
hand on nothing more--it wouldn't have occurred to her to say nothing
less--than the so dreadfully pointed presence of Gabriel Nash. S