She shook her head slowly, then with a smile which struck him as one of the sweetest things he had ever seen--it conveyed, at the expense of her own prospects, such a shy, generous little mercy of reassurance--"He isn't, Peter," she brought out. "Julia thinks it trifling--all that sort of thing," she added "She wants him to go in for different honours." "Julia's the oddest woman. I mean I thought she loved him," Peter explained. "And when you love a person--!" He continued to make it out, leaving his sentence impatiently unfinished, while Biddy, with lowered eyes, sat waiting--it so interested her--to learn what you did when you loved a person. "I can't conceive her giving him up. He has great ability, besides being such a good fellow." "It's for his happiness, Peter--that's the way she reasons," Biddy set forth. "She does it for an idea; she has told me a great deal about it, and I see the way she feels." "You try to, Biddy, because you're such a dear good-natured girl, but I don't believe you do in the least," he took the liberty of replying. "It's too little the way you yourself would feel. Julia's idea, as you call it, must be curious." "Well, it is, Peter," Biddy mournfully admitted. "She won't risk not coming out at the top." "At the top of what?" "Oh of everything." Her tone showed a trace of awe of such high views. "Surely one's at the top of everything when one's in love." "I don't know," said the girl. "Do you doubt it?" Peter asked. "I've never been in love and I never shall be." "You're as perverse, in your way, as Julia," he returned to this. "But I confess I don't understand Nick's attitude any better. He seems to me, if I may say so, neither fish nor flesh." "Oh his attitude's very noble, Peter; his state of mind's wonderfully interesting," Biddy pleaded. "Surely _you_ must be in favour of art," she beautifully said. It made him look at her a moment. "Dear Biddy, your little digs are as soft as zephyrs." She coloured, but she protested. "My little digs? What do you mean? Aren't you in favour of art?" "The question's delightfully simple. I don't know what you're talking about. Everything has its place. A parliamentary life," he opined, "scarce seems to me the situation for portrait-painting." "That's just what Nick says." "You talk of it together a great deal?" "Yes, Nick's very good to me." "Clever Nick! And what do you advise him?" "Oh to _do_ something." "That's valuable," Peter laughed. "Not to give up his sweetheart for the sake of a paint-pot, I hope?" "Never, never, Peter! It's not a question of his giving up," Biddy pursued, "for Julia has herself shaken free. I think she never really felt safe--she loved him, but was afraid of him. Now she's only afraid--she has lost the confidence she tried to have. Nick has tried to hold her, but she has wrested herself away. Do you know what she said to me? She said, 'My confidence has gone for ever.'"