"Don't say that, Nick," said his mother gravely.
"Don't be afraid—he'll jabber like a magpie!" And Julia went out of the room.
Nick had flung himself on a sofa with an air of weariness, though not of completely extinct cheer; and Lady Agnes stood fingering her rose and looking down at him. His eyes kept away from her; they seemed fixed on something she couldn't see. "I hope you've thanked Julia handsomely," she presently remarked.
"Why of course, mother."
"She has done as much as if you hadn't been sure."
"I wasn't in the least sure—and she has done everything."
"She has been too good—but we've done something. I hope you don't leave out your father," Lady Agnes amplified as Nick's glance appeared for a moment to question her "we."
"Never, never!" Nick uttered these words perhaps a little mechanically, but the next minute he added as if suddenly moved to think what he could say that would give his mother most pleasure: "Of course his name has worked for me. Gone as he is he's still a living force." He felt a good deal of a hypocrite, but one didn't win such a seat every day in the year. Probably indeed he should never win another.
"He hears you, he watches you, he rejoices in you," Lady Agnes opined.
This idea was oppressive to Nick—that of the rejoicing almost as much as of the watching. He had made his concession, but, with a certain impulse to divert his mother from following up her advantage, he broke out: "Julia's a tremendously effective woman."