"We mustn't sit here too long, there'll be so much to do," said Lady Agnes anxiously, perceiving a certain slowness in the service of the _boeuf braise_. Biddy had been up to this moment mainly occupied in looking, covertly and in snatches, at Peter Sherringham; as was perfectly lawful in a young lady with a handsome cousin whom she had not seen for more than a year. But her sweet voice now took license to throw in the words: "We know what Mr. Nash thinks of politics: he told us just now he thinks them dreadful." "No, not dreadful--only inferior," the personage impugned protested. "Everything's relative." "Inferior to what?" Lady Agnes demanded. Mr. Nash appeared to consider a moment. "To anything else that may be in question." "Nothing else is in question!" said her ladyship in a tone that would have been triumphant if it had not been so dry. "Ah then!" And her neighbour shook his head sadly. He turned after this to Biddy. "The ladies whom I was with just now and in whom you were so good as to express an interest?" Biddy gave a sign of assent and he went on: "They're persons theatrical. The younger one's trying to go upon the stage." "And are you assisting her?" Biddy inquired, pleased she had guessed so nearly right. "Not in the least--I'm rather choking her off. I consider it the lowest of the arts." "Lower than politics?" asked Peter Sherringham, who was listening to this. "Dear no, I won't say that. I think the Theatre Francais a greater institution than the House of Commons." "I agree with you there!" laughed Sherringham; "all the more that I don't consider the dramatic art a low one. It seems to me on the contrary to include all the others." "Yes--that's a view. I think it's the view of my friends." "Of your friends?" "Two ladies--old acquaintances--whom I met in Paris a week ago and whom I've just been spending an hour with in this place." "You should have seen them; they struck me very much," Biddy said to her cousin. "I should like to see them if they really have anything to say to the theatre." "It can easily be managed. Do you believe in the theatre?" asked Gabriel Nash. "Passionately," Sherringham confessed. "Don't you?" Before Nash had had time to answer Biddy had interposed with a sigh. "How I wish I could go--but in Paris I can't!" "I'll take you, Biddy--I vow I'll take you." "But the plays, Peter," the girl objected. "Mamma says they're worse than the pictures." "Oh, we'll arrange that: they shall do one at the Francais on purpose for a delightful little yearning English girl." "Can you make them?" "I can make them do anything I choose." "Ah then it's the theatre that believes in _you_," said Mr. Nash. "It would be ungrateful if it didn't after all I've done for it!" Sherringham gaily opined.