"And has Florence seen Miss Rooth?"
"Miss Rooth?" the girl repeated, redder than before. He felt on the spot that she had heard of the expenditure of his time and attention on that young lady. It was as if she were conscious of how conscious he would himself be in speaking of her, and there was a sweetness in her allowance for him on that score. But Biddy was more confused for him than he was for himself. He guessed in a moment how much she had thought over what she had heard; this was indicated by her saying vaguely, "No, no, I've not seen her." Then she knew she was answering a question he hadn't asked her, and she went on: "We shall be too delighted. I saw her—perhaps you remember—in your rooms in Paris. I thought her so wonderful then! Every one's talking of her here. But we don't go to the theatre much, you know: we don't have boxes offered us except when you come. Poor Nick's too much taken up in the evening. I've wanted awfully to see her. They say she's magnificent."
"I don't know," Peter was glad to be able honestly to answer. "I haven't seen her."
"You haven't seen her?"
"Never, Biddy. I mean on the stage. In private often—yes," he conscientiously added.
"Oh!" Biddy exclaimed, bending her face on Nick's bust again. She asked him no question about the new star, and he offered her no further information. There were things in his mind pulling him different ways, so that for some minutes silence was the result of the conflict. At last he said, after an hesitation caused by the possibility that she was ignorant of the fact he had lately elicited from Julia, though it was more probable she might have learned it from the same source:
"Am I perhaps indiscreet in alluding to the circumstance that Nick has been painting Miss Rooth's portrait?"
"You're not indiscreet in alluding to it to me, because I know it."
"Then there's no secret nor mystery about it?"
Biddy just considered. "I don't think mamma knows it."