"Do you doubt it?" Peter asked.
"I've never been in love and I never shall be."
"You're as perverse, in your way, as Julia," he returned to this. "But I confess I don't understand Nick's attitude any better. He seems to me, if I may say so, neither fish nor flesh."
"Oh his attitude's very noble, Peter; his state of mind's wonderfully interesting," Biddy pleaded. "Surely you must be in favour of art," she beautifully said.
It made him look at her a moment. "Dear Biddy, your little digs are as soft as zephyrs."
She coloured, but she protested. "My little digs? What do you mean? Aren't you in favour of art?"
"The question's delightfully simple. I don't know what you're talking about. Everything has its place. A parliamentary life," he opined, "scarce seems to me the situation for portrait-painting."
"That's just what Nick says."
"You talk of it together a great deal?"
"Yes, Nick's very good to me."