"I say nothing but what she'd say herself," the young man urged. "About some things she has very good taste, but about this kind of thing she has no taste at all." "That's better, I think," said Lady Agnes, turning her eyes again to the "kind of thing" her son appeared to designate. "She's awfully clever--awfully!" Grace went on with decision. "Awfully, awfully!" her brother repeated, standing in front of her and smiling down at her. "You are nasty, Nick. You know you are," said the young lady, but more in sorrow than in anger. Biddy got up at this, as if the accusatory tone prompted her to place herself generously at his side. "Mightn't you go and order lunch--in that place, you know?" she asked of her mother. "Then we'd come back when it was ready." "My dear child, I can't order lunch," Lady Agnes replied with a cold impatience which seemed to intimate that she had problems far more important than those of victualling to contend with. "Then perhaps Peter will if he comes. I'm sure he's up in everything of that sort." "Oh hang Peter!" Nick exclaimed. "Leave him out of account, and _do_ order lunch, mother; but not cold beef and pickles." "I must say--about _him_--you're not nice," Biddy ventured to remark to her brother, hesitating and even blushing a little. "You make up for it, my dear," the young man answered, giving her chin--a very charming, rotund, little chin--a friendly whisk with his forefinger. "I can't imagine what you've got against him," her ladyship said gravely. "Dear mother, it's disappointed fondness," Nick argued. "They won't answer one's notes; they won't let one know where they are nor what to expect. 'Hell has no fury like a woman scorned'; nor like a man either." "Peter has such a tremendous lot to do--it's a very busy time at the embassy; there are sure to be reasons," Biddy explained with her pretty eyes. "Reasons enough, no doubt!" said Lady Agnes--who accompanied these words with an ambiguous sigh, however, as if in Paris even the best reasons would naturally be bad ones. "Doesn't Julia write to you, doesn't she answer you the very day?" Grace asked, looking at Nick as if she were the bold one. He waited, returning her glance with a certain severity. "What do you know about my correspondence? No doubt I ask too much," he went on; "I'm so attached to them. Dear old Peter, dear old Julia!" "She's younger than you, my dear!" cried the elder girl, still resolute. "Yes, nineteen days." "I'm glad you know her birthday." "She knows yours; she always gives you something," Lady Agnes reminded her son. "Her taste is good _then_, isn't it, Nick?" Grace Dormer continued. "She makes charming presents; but, dear mother, it isn't _her_ taste. It's her husband's." "How her husband's?" "The beautiful objects of which she disposes so freely are the things he collected for years laboriously, devotedly, poor man!"