"Ah but look at the results!" said the girl eagerly--glancing about at the monuments in the garden as if in regard even to them she were, through that unity of art her brother had just proclaimed, in some degree an effective cause. "There's a great deal being done here--a real vitality," Nicholas Dormer went on to his mother in the same reasonable informing way. "Some of these fellows go very far." "They do indeed!" said Lady Agnes. "I'm fond of young schools--like this movement in sculpture," Nick insisted with his slightly provoking serenity. "They're old enough to know better!" "Mayn't I look, mamma? It _is_ necessary to my development," Biddy declared. "You may do as you like," said Lady Agnes with dignity. "She ought to see good work, you know," the young man went on. "I leave it to your sense of responsibility." This statement was somewhat majestic, and for a moment evidently it tempted Nick, almost provoked him, or at any rate suggested to him an occasion for some pronouncement he had had on his mind. Apparently, however, he judged the time on the whole not quite right, and his sister Grace interposed with the inquiry-- "Please, mamma, are we never going to lunch?" "Ah mother, mother!" the young man murmured in a troubled way, looking down at her with a deep fold in his forehead. For Lady Agnes also, as she returned his look, it seemed an occasion; but with this difference that she had no hesitation in taking advantage of it. She was encouraged by his slight embarrassment, for ordinarily Nick was not embarrassed. "You used to have so _much_ sense of responsibility," she pursued; "but sometimes I don't know what has become of it--it seems all, _all_ gone!" "Ah mother, mother!" he exclaimed again--as if there were so many things to say that it was impossible to choose. But now he stepped closer, bent over her and in spite of the publicity of their situation gave her a quick expressive kiss. The foreign observer whom I took for granted in beginning to sketch this scene would have had to admit that the rigid English family had after all a capacity for emotion. Grace Dormer indeed looked round her to see if at this moment they were noticed. She judged with satisfaction that they had escaped. II