Bertha contented herself with encouraging smiles.
The young Italian was due to lecture on his views, and had to leave. At least three appointments were made with him, none of which Nigel had the slightest intention of keeping—to “go into the matter more thoroughly”—then Semolini vanished, charmed with his reception.
“Good heavens! will someone take me away and serve me up on a cold plate?” said Nigel, directly he had gone. “Look here, Bertha, is the chap off his head, a fraud, or serious?”
“Awfully serious. Are you going to see him to look into the matter?”
“I think not,” said Nigel, “at least I don’t want to see his pictures, face to face, until I’ve insured my life. I must think of my widow and the children.”
Here Nigel’s young brother, Charlie, arrived. He was a slimmer, younger, but less good-looking edition of Nigel. He had just come down from Oxford, was pleasant, gentle, and appeared to be trying to repress a natural inclination to be a nut. He called on Bertha in the hope of seeing Madeline.
“I say, the Futurist chap has just been here,” said Nigel to Charlie.
“Good! What’s he like?”
“A little bit of all right. Frightfully fascinating, as girls say,” said Nigel.
“He’s not so bad,” said Bertha mildly.