"See here, Julia, how long do you really expect me to endure this kind of thing?" Julia made him no answer; she only leaned back in her chair with her eyes upon his. He met her gaze a moment; then he turned round to the fire and for another moment looked into it. After this he faced his hostess again with the exclamation: "It's so foolish--it's so damnably foolish!" She still said nothing, but at the end of a minute she spoke without answering him. "I shall expect you on Tuesday, and I hope you'll come by a decent train." "What do you mean by a decent train?" "I mean I hope you'll not leave it till the last thing before dinner, so that we can have a little walk or something." "What's a little walk or something? Why, if you make such a point of my coming to Griffin, do you want me to come at all?" She hesitated an instant; then she returned; "I knew you hated it!" "You provoke me so," said Nick. "You try to, I think." "And Severals is still worse. You'll get out of that if you can," Mrs. Dallow went on. "If I can? What's to prevent me?" "You promised Lady Whiteroy. But of course that's nothing." "I don't care a straw for Lady Whiteroy." "And you promised me. But that's less still." "It _is_ foolish--it's quite idiotic," said Nick with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the ceiling. There was another silence, at the end of which Julia remarked: "You might have answered Mr. Macgeorge when he spoke to you." "Mr. Macgeorge--what has he to do with it?" "He has to do with your getting on a little. If you think that's the way--!" Nick broke into a laugh. "I like lessons in getting on--in other words I suppose you mean in urbanity--from you, Julia!" "Why not from me?" "Because you can do nothing base. You're incapable of putting on a flattering manner to get something by it: therefore why should you expect me to? You're unflattering--that is, you're austere--in proportion as there may be something to be got." She sprang from her chair, coming toward him. "There's only one thing I want in the world--you know very well." "Yes, you want it so much that you won't even take it when it's pressed on you. How long do you seriously expect me to bear it?" Nick repeated. "I never asked you to do anything base," she said as she stood in front of him. "If I'm not clever about throwing myself into things it's all the more reason you should be." "If you're not clever, my dear Julia--?" Nick, close to her, placed his hands on her shoulders and shook her with a mixture of tenderness and passion. "You're clever enough to make me furious, sometimes!" She opened and closed her fan looking down at it while she submitted to his mild violence. "All I want is that when a man like Mr. Macgeorge talks to you you shouldn't appear bored to death. You used to be so charming under those inflictions. Now you appear to take no interest in anything. At dinner to-night you scarcely opened your lips; you treated them all as if you only wished they'd go."