IV
Peter's meeting with Nick was of the friendliest on both sides, involving a great many "dear fellows" and "old boys," and his salutation to the younger of the Miss Dormers consisted of the frankest "Delighted to see you, my dear Bid!" There was no kissing, but there was cousinship in the air, of a conscious, living kind, as Gabriel Nash doubtless quickly noted, hovering for a moment outside the group. Biddy said nothing to Peter Sherringham, but there was no flatness in a silence which heaved, as it were, with the fairest physiognomic portents. Nick introduced Gabriel Nash to his mother and to the other two as "a delightful old friend" whom he had just come across, and Sherringham acknowledged the act by saying to Mr. Nash, but as if rather less for his sake than for that of the presenter: "I've seen you very often before."
"Ah repetition—recurrence: we haven't yet, in the study of how to live, abolished that clumsiness, have we?" Mr. Nash genially inquired. "It's a poverty in the supernumeraries of our stage that we don't pass once for all, but come round and cross again like a procession or an army at the theatre. It's a sordid economy that ought to have been managed better. The right thing would be just one appearance, and the procession, regardless of expense, for ever and for ever different." The company was occupied in placing itself at table, so that the only disengaged attention for the moment was Grace's, to whom, as her eyes rested on him, the young man addressed these last words with a smile. "Alas, it's a very shabby idea, isn't it? The world isn't got up regardless of expense!"
Grace looked quickly away from him and said to her brother: "Nick, Mr. Pinks is dead."
"Mr. Pinks?" asked Gabriel Nash, appearing to wonder where he should sit.
"The member for Harsh; and Julia wants you to stand," the girl went on.
"Mr. Pinks, the member for Harsh? What names to be sure!" Gabriel mused cheerfully, still unseated.
"Julia wants me? I'm much obliged to her!" Nick absently said. "Nash, please sit by my mother, with Peter on her other side."
"My dear, it isn't Julia"—Lady Agnes spoke earnestly. "Every one wants you. Haven't you heard from your people? Didn't you know the seat was vacant?"
Nick was looking round the table to see what was on it. "Upon my word I don't remember. What else have you ordered, mother?"
"There's some bœuf braisé, my dear, and afterwards some galantine. Here's a dish of eggs with asparagus-tips."
"I advise you to go in for it, Nick," said Peter Sherringham, to whom the preparation in question was presented.
"Into the eggs with asparagus-tips? Donnez m'en s'il vous plaît. My dear fellow, how can I stand? how can I sit? Where's the money to come from?"
"The money? Why from Jul–!" Grace began, but immediately caught her mother's eye.
"Poor Julia, how you do work her!" Nick exclaimed. "Nash, I recommend you the asparagus-tips. Mother, he's my best friend—do look after him."
"I've an impression I've breakfasted—I'm not sure," Nash smiled.
"With those beautiful ladies? Try again—you'll find out."
"The money can be managed; the expenses are very small and the seat's certain," Lady Agnes pursued, not apparently heeding her son's injunction in respect to Nash.
"Rather—if Julia goes down!" her elder daughter exclaimed.
"Perhaps Julia won't go down!" Nick answered humorously.
Biddy was seated next to Mr. Nash, so that she could take occasion to ask, "Who are the beautiful ladies?" as if she failed to recognise her brother's allusion. In reality this was an innocent trick: she was more curious than she could have given a suitable reason for about the odd women from whom her neighbour had lately separated.
"Deluded, misguided, infatuated persons!" Mr. Nash replied, understanding that she had asked for a description. "Strange eccentric, almost romantic, types. Predestined victims, simple-minded sacrificial lambs!"
This was copious, yet it was vague, so that Biddy could only respond: "Oh all that?" But meanwhile Peter Sherringham said to Nick: "Julia's here, you know. You must go and see her."
Nick looked at him an instant rather hard, as if to say: "You too?" But Peter's eyes appeared to answer, "No, no, not I"; upon which his cousin rejoined: "Of course I'll go and see her. I'll go immediately. Please to thank her for thinking of me."
"Thinking of you? There are plenty to think of you!" Lady Agnes said. "There are sure to be telegrams at home. We must go back—we must go back!"
"We must go back to England?" Nick Dormer asked; and as his mother made no answer he continued: "Do you mean I must go to Harsh?"
Her ladyship evaded this question, inquiring of Mr. Nash if he would have a morsel of fish; but her gain was small, for this gentleman, struck again by the unhappy name of the bereaved constituency, only broke out: "Ah what a place to represent! How can you—how can you?"
"It's an excellent place," said Lady Agnes coldly. "I imagine you've never been there. It's a very good place indeed. It belongs very largely to my cousin, Mrs. Dallow."
Gabriel partook of the fish, listening with interest. "But I thought we had no more pocket-boroughs."
"It's pockets we rather lack, so many of us. There are plenty of Harshes," Nick Dormer observed.
"I don't know what you mean," Lady Agnes said to Nash with considerable majesty.
Peter Sherringham also addressed him with an "Oh it's all right; they come down on you like a shot!" and the young man continued ingenuously:
"Do you mean to say you've to pay money to get into that awful place—that it's not you who are paid?"
"Into that awful place?" Lady Agnes repeated blankly.
"Into the House of Commons. That you don't get a high salary?"
"My dear Nash, you're delightful: don't leave me—don't leave me!" Nick cried; while his mother looked at him with an eye that demanded: "Who in the world's this extraordinary person?"
"What then did you think pocket-boroughs were?" Peter Sherringham asked.
Mr. Nash's facial radiance rested on him. "Why, boroughs that filled your pocket. To do that sort of thing without a bribe—c'est trop fort!"
"He lives at Samarcand," Nick Dormer explained to his mother, who flushed perceptibly. "What do you advise me? I'll do whatever you say," he went on to his old acquaintance.
"My dear, my dear–!" Lady Agnes pleaded.
"See Julia first, with all respect to Mr. Nash. She's of excellent counsel," said Peter Sherringham.
Mr. Nash smiled across the table at his host. "The lady first—the lady first! I've not a word to suggest as against any idea of hers."
"We mustn't sit here too long, there'll be so much to do," said Lady Agnes anxiously, perceiving a certain slowness in the service of the bœuf braisé.
Biddy had been up to this moment mainly occupied in looking, covertly and in snatches, at Peter Sherringham; as was perfectly lawful in a young lady with a handsome cousin whom she had not seen for more than a year. But her sweet voice now took license to throw in the words: "We know what Mr. Nash thinks of politics: he told us just now he thinks them dreadful."
"No, not dreadful—only inferior," the personage impugned protested. "Everything's relative."
"Inferior to what?" Lady Agnes demanded.
Mr. Nash appeared to consider a moment. "To anything else that may be in question."
"Nothing else is in question!" said her ladyship in a tone that would have been triumphant if it had not been so dry.
"Ah