"You looked so out of it; you were as gloomy as if every earthly hope had left you, and you didn't make a single contribution to any discussion that took place. Don't you think I observe you?" she asked with an irony tempered by a tenderness unsuccessfully concealed.

"Ah my darling, what you observe--!" Nick cried with a certain bitterness of amus.e.m.e.nt. But he added the next moment more seriously, as if his tone had been disrespectful: "You probe me to the bottom, no doubt."

"You needn't come either to Griffin or to Severals if you don't want to."

"Give them up yourself; stay here with me!"

She coloured quickly as he said this, and broke out: "Lord, how you hate political houses!"

"How can you say that when from February to August I spend every blessed night in one?"

"Yes, and hate that worst of all."

"So do half the people who are in it. You, my dear, must have so many things, so many people, so much _mise-en-scene_ and such a perpetual spectacle to live," Nick went on. "Perpetual motion, perpetual visits, perpetual crowds! If you go into the country you'll see forty people every day and be mixed up with them all day. The idea of a quiet fortnight in town, when by a happy if idiotic superst.i.tion everybody goes out of it, disconcerts and frightens you. It's the very time, it's the very place, to do a little work and possess one's soul."

This vehement allocution found her evidently somewhat unprepared; but she was sagacious enough, instead of attempting for the moment a general rejoinder, to seize on a single phrase and say: "Work? What work can you do in London at such a moment as this?"

Nick considered. "I might tell you I want to get up a lot of subjects, to sit at home and read blue-books; but that wouldn't be quite what I mean."

"Do you mean you want to paint?"

"Yes, that's it, since you gouge it out of me."

"Why do you make such a mystery about it? You're at perfect liberty,"

Julia said.

She put out her hand to rest it on the mantel-shelf, but her companion took it on the way and held it in both his own. "You're delightful, Julia, when you speak in that tone--then I know why it is I love you.

But I can't do anything if I go to Griffin, if I go to Severals."

"I see--I see," she answered thoughtfully and kindly.

"I've scarcely been inside of my studio for months, and I feel quite homesick for it. The idea of putting in a few quiet days there has taken hold of me: I rather cling to it."

"It seems so odd your having a studio!" Julia dropped, speaking so quickly that the words were almost incomprehensible.

"Doesn't it sound absurd, for all the good it does me, or I do _in_ it?

Of course one can produce nothing but rubbish on such terms--without continuity or persistence, with just a few days here and there. I ought to be ashamed of myself, no doubt; but even my rubbish interests me.

'_Guenille si l'on veut, ma guenille m'est chere_.' But I'll go down to Harsh with you in a moment, Julia," Nick pursued: "that would do as well if we could be quiet there, without people, without a creature; and I should really be perfectly content. You'd beautifully sit for me; it would be the occasion we've so often wanted and never found."

She shook her head slowly and with a smile that had a meaning for him.

"Thank you, my dear; nothing would induce me to go to Harsh with you."

He looked at her hard. "What's the matter whenever it's a question of anything of that sort? Are you afraid of me?" She pulled her hand from him quickly, turning away; but he went on: "Stay with me here then, when everything's so right for it. We shall do beautifully--have the whole place, have the whole day, to ourselves. Hang your engagements!

Telegraph you won't come. We'll live at the studio--you'll sit to me every day. Now or never's our chance--when shall we have so good a one?

Think how charming it will be! I'll make you wish awfully that I may do something."

"I can't get out of Griffin--it's impossible," Julia said, moving further away and with her back presented to him.

"Then you _are_ afraid of me--simply!"

She turned straight round, very pale. "Of course I am. You're welcome to know it."

He went toward her, and for a moment she seemed to make another slight movement of retreat. This, however, was scarcely perceptible, and there was nothing to alarm in the tone of reasonable entreaty in which he spoke as he stood there. "Put an end, Julia, to our absurd situation--it really can't go on. You've no right to expect a man to be happy or comfortable in so false a position. We're spoken of odiously--of that we may be sure; and yet what good have we of it?"

"Spoken of? Do I care for that?"

"Do you mean you're indifferent because there are no grounds? That's just why I hate it."

"I don't know what you're talking about!" she returned with sharp disdain.

"Be my wife to-morrow--be my wife next week. Let us have done with this fantastic probation and be happy."

"Leave me now--come back to-morrow. I'll write to you." She had the air of pleading with him at present, pleading as he pleaded.

"You can't resign yourself to the idea of one's looking 'out of it'!"

Nick laughed.

"Come to-morrow, before lunch," she went on.

"To be told I must wait six months more and then be sent about my business? Ah, Julia, Julia!" the young man groaned.

Something in this simple lament--it sounded natural and perfectly unstudied--seemed straightway to make a great impression on her. "You shall wait no longer," she said after a short silence.

"What do you mean by no longer?"

"Give me about five weeks--say till the Whitsuntide recess."

"Five weeks are a great deal," smiled Nick.

"There are things to be done--you ought to understand."

"I only understand how I love you."

She let herself go--"Dearest Nick!"--and he caught her and kept her in his arms.

"I've your promise then for five weeks hence to a day?" he demanded as she at last released herself.

"We'll settle that--the exact day; there are things to consider and to arrange. Come to luncheon to-morrow."

"I'll come early--I'll come at one," he said; and for a moment they stood all deeply and intimately taking each other in.

"Do you think I _want_ to wait, any more than you?" she asked in congruity with this.

"I don't feel so much out of it now!" he declared by way of answer.

"You'll stay of course now--you'll give up your visits?"

She had hold of the lappet of his coat; she had kept it in her hand even while she detached herself from his embrace. There was a white flower in his b.u.t.tonhole that she looked at and played with a moment before she said; "I've a better idea--you needn't come to Griffin. Stay in your studio--do as you like--paint dozens of pictures."

"Dozens? Barbarian!" Nick wailed.