"Deluded, misguided, infatuated persons!" Mr. Nash replied, understanding that she had asked for a description. "Strange eccentric, almost romantic, types. Predestined victims, simple-minded sacrificial lambs!" This was copious, yet it was vague, so that Biddy could only respond: "Oh all that?" But meanwhile Peter Sherringham said to Nick: "Julia's here, you know. You must go and see her." Nick looked at him an instant rather hard, as if to say: "You too?" But Peter's eyes appeared to answer, "No, no, not I"; upon which his cousin rejoined: "Of course I'll go and see her. I'll go immediately. Please to thank her for thinking of me." "Thinking of you? There are plenty to think of you!" Lady Agnes said. "There are sure to be telegrams at home. We must go back--we must go back!" "We must go back to England?" Nick Dormer asked; and as his mother made no answer he continued: "Do you mean I must go to Harsh?" Her ladyship evaded this question, inquiring of Mr. Nash if he would have a morsel of fish; but her gain was small, for this gentleman, struck again by the unhappy name of the bereaved constituency, only broke out: "Ah what a place to represent! How can you--how can you?" "It's an excellent place," said Lady Agnes coldly. "I imagine you've never been there. It's a very good place indeed. It belongs very largely to my cousin, Mrs. Dallow." Gabriel partook of the fish, listening with interest. "But I thought we had no more pocket-boroughs." "It's pockets we rather lack, so many of us. There are plenty of Harshes," Nick Dormer observed. "I don't know what you mean," Lady Agnes said to Nash with considerable majesty. Peter Sherringham also addressed him with an "Oh it's all right; they come down on you like a shot!" and the young man continued ingenuously: "Do you mean to say you've to pay money to get into that awful place--that it's not _you_ who are paid?" "Into that awful place?" Lady Agnes repeated blankly. "Into the House of Commons. That you don't get a high salary?" "My dear Nash, you're delightful: don't leave me--don't leave me!" Nick cried; while his mother looked at him with an eye that demanded: "Who in the world's this extraordinary person?" "What then did you think pocket-boroughs were?" Peter Sherringham asked. Mr. Nash's facial radiance rested on him. "Why, boroughs that filled your pocket. To do that sort of thing without a bribe--_c'est trop fort!_" "He lives at Samarcand," Nick Dormer explained to his mother, who flushed perceptibly. "What do you advise me? I'll do whatever you say," he went on to his old acquaintance. "My dear, my dear----!" Lady Agnes pleaded. "See Julia first, with all respect to Mr. Nash. She's of excellent counsel," said Peter Sherringham. Mr. Nash smiled across the table at his host. "The lady first--the lady first! I've not a word to suggest as against any idea of hers."