ught
to protest! You ought to save him!"

"To save him?" Biddy echoed.

"He had a style, upon my word he had! But I've seen it go. I've read his
speeches."

"You were capable of that?" Nick laughed.

"For you, yes. But it was like listening to a nightingale in a brass
band."

"I think they were beautiful," Biddy declared.

Her brother got up at this tribute, and Mr. Nash, rising too, said with
his bright colloquial air: "But, Miss Dormer, he had eyes. He was made
to see--to see all over, to see everything. There are so few like that."

"I think he still sees," Biddy returned, wondering a little why Nick
didn't defend himself.

"He sees his 'side,' his dreadful 'side,' dear young lady. Poor man,
fancy your having a 'side'--you, you--and spending your days and your
nights looking at it! I'd as soon pass my life looking at an
advertisement on a hoarding."

"You don't see me some day a great statesman?" said Nick.

"My dear fellow, it's exactly what I've a terror of."

"Mercy! don't you admire them?" Biddy cried.

"It's a trade like another and a method of making one's way which
society certainly condones. But when one can be something better--!"

"Why what in the world is better?" Biddy asked.

The young man gasped and Nick, replying for him, said: "Gabriel Nash is
better! You must come and lunch with us. I must keep you--I must!" he
added.

"We shall save him yet," Mr. Nash kept on easily to Biddy while they
went and the girl wondered still more what her mother would make of
him.

III

After her companions left her Lady Agnes rested for five minutes in
silence with her elder daughter, at the end of which time she observed:
"I suppose one must have food at any rate," and, getting up, quitted the
place where they had been sitting. "And where are we to go? I hate
eating out of doors," she went on.

"Dear me, when one comes to Paris--!" Grace returned in a tone
apparently implying that in so rash an adventure one must be prepared
for compromises and concessions. The two ladies wandered to where they
saw a large sign of "Buffet" suspended in the air, entering a precinct
reserved for little white-clothed tables, straw-covered chairs and
long-aproned waiters. One of these functionaries approached them with
eagerness and with a _"Mesdames sont seules?"_ receiving in return from
her ladyship the slightly snappish announcement _"Non; nous sommes
beaucoup!"_ He introduced them to a table larger than