why
you shouldn't dine at my mother's all the same. People go to the play
after dinner."

"Yes, but it wouldn't be fair, it wouldn't be decent: it's a case when I
must be in my seat from the rise of the curtain." Peter, about this, was
thoroughly lucid. "I should force your mother to dine an hour earlier
than usual and then in return for her courtesy should go off to my
entertainment at eight o'clock, leaving her and Grace and Biddy
languishing there. I wish I had proposed in time that they should go
with me," he continued not very ingenuously.

"You might do that still," Nick suggested.

"Oh at this time of day it would be impossible to get a box."

"I'll speak to Miss Rooth about it if you like when she comes," smiled
Nick.

"No, it wouldn't do," said Peter, turning away and looking once more at
his watch. He made tacitly the addition that still less than asking Lady
Agnes for his convenience to dine early would _this_ be decent, would it
be thinkable. His taking Biddy the night he dined with her and with Miss
Tressilian had been something very like a violation of those
proprieties. He couldn't say that, however, to the girl's brother, who
remarked in a moment that it was all right, since Peter's action left
him his own freedom.

"Your own freedom?"--and Peter's question made him turn.

"Why you see now I can go to the theatre myself."

"Certainly; I hadn't thought of that. You'd naturally have been going."

"I gave it up for the prospect of your company at home."

"Upon my word you're too good--I don't deserve such sacrifices," said
Peter, who read in his kinsman's face that this was not a figure of
speech but the absolute truth. "Didn't it, however, occur to you that,
as it would turn out, I might--I even naturally _would_--myself be
going?" he put forth.

Nick broke into a laugh. "It would have occurred to me if I understood a
little better--!" But he paused, as still too amused.

"If you understood a little better what?"

"Your situation, simply."

Peter looked at him a moment. "Dine with me to-night by ourselves and at
a club. We'll go to the theatre together and then you'll understand it."

"With pleasure, with pleasure: we'll have a jolly evening," said Nick.

"Call it jolly if you like. When did you say she was coming?" Peter
asked.

"Biddy? Oh probably, as I tell you, at any moment."

"I mean the great Miriam," Peter amended.

"The great Miriam, if she's punctual, will be here in about