"You were capable of that?" Nick laughed.
"For you, yes. But it was like listening to a nightingale in a brass band."
"I think they were beautiful," Biddy declared.
Her brother got up at this tribute, and Mr. Nash, rising too, said with his bright colloquial air: "But, Miss Dormer, he had eyes. He was made to see—to see all over, to see everything. There are so few like that."
"I think he still sees," Biddy returned, wondering a little why Nick didn't defend himself.
"He sees his 'side,' his dreadful 'side,' dear young lady. Poor man, fancy your having a 'side'—you, you—and spending your days and your nights looking at it! I'd as soon pass my life looking at an advertisement on a hoarding."
"You don't see me some day a great statesman?" said Nick.
"My dear fellow, it's exactly what I've a terror of."
"Mercy! don't you admire them?" Biddy cried.
"It's a trade like another and a method of making one's way which society certainly condones. But when one can be something better—!"