t Peter might after all only wish to make up by present
zeal for not having been near him before. He forgot that, as he had
subsequently learned from Biddy, their foreign, or all but foreign,
cousin had spent an hour in Rosedale Road, missing him there but pulling
out Miriam's portrait, the day of his own last visit to Beauclere. These
young men were not on a ceremonious footing and it was not in Nick's
nature to keep a record of civilities rendered or omitted; nevertheless
he had been vaguely conscious that during a stay in London elastic
enough on Peter's part he and his kinsman had foregathered less than of
yore. It was indeed an absorbing moment in the career of each, but even
while recognising such a truth Nick judged it not impossible that
Julia's brother might have taken upon himself to resent some
suppositions failure of consideration for that lady; though this indeed
would have been stupid and the newly appointed minister (to he had
forgotten where) didn't often make mistakes. Nick held that as he had
treated Julia with studious generosity she had nothing whatever to visit
on him--wherefore Peter had still less. It was at any rate none of that
gentleman's business. There were only two abatements to disposing in a
few frank words of all this: one of them Nick's general hatred of
talking of his private affairs (a reluctance in which he and Peter were
well matched); and the other a truth involving more of a confession--the
subtle truth that the most definite and even most soothing result of the
collapse of his engagement was, as happened, an unprecedented
consciousness of freedom. Nick's observation was of a different sort
from his cousin's; he noted much less the signs of the hour and kept
throughout a looser register of life; nevertheless, just as one of our
young men had during these days in London found the air peopled with
personal influences, the concussion of human atoms, so the other, though
only asking to live without too many questions and work without too many
rubs, to be glad and sorry in short on easy terms, had become aware of a
certain social tightness, of the fact that life is crowded and passion
restless, accident and community inevitable. Everybody with whom one had
relations had other relations too, and even indifference was a mixture
and detachment a compromise. The only wisdom was to consent to the
loss, if necessary, of everything but one's temper and to the ruin, if
necessary, of everything bu