The subject was shortly dismissed, and Eustace fell
to reporting the remarkable conversation in which
he had taken part at the Mayor’s table.
His brother was moved to no little mirth, but did not
indulge in such savage contemptuousness as distinguished
the narrator. William Glazzard viewed the world
from a standpoint of philosophic calm; he expected
so little of men in general, that disappointment or
vexation could rarely befall him.
“These people,” he observed, “think
themselves pillars of society, and the best of the
joke is, that they really are what they imagine.
Without tolerably honest fools, we should fare badly
at the hands of those who hate neither wits nor honesty.
Let us encourage them, by all means. I see no
dawn as yet of the millennium of brains.”
The weather, for this time of year, was unusually
bright in Paris. Each morning glistened with
hoar-frost; by noon the sky shone blue over clean,
dry streets, and gardens which made a season for themselves,
leafless, yet defiant of winter’s melancholy.
Lilian saw it all with the eyes of a stranger, and
often was able to forget her anxiety in the joy of
wonderful, new impressions.
One afternoon she was resting in the room at the hotel,
whilst Quarrier went about the town on some business
or other. A long morning at the Louvre had tired
her, and her spirits drooped. In imagination
she went back to the days of silence and solitude in
London; the memory affected her with something of homesickness,
a wish that the past could be restored. The little
house by Clapham Common had grown dear to her; in
its shelter she had shed many tears, but also had
known much happiness: that sense of security
which was now lost, the hope that there she might live
always, hidden from the world’s inquisitive
gaze, justified to her own conscience by love and
calm. What now was before her? Not only the
elaborate deceit, the perpetual risk, weighed upon
her heart; she was summoned to a position such as
she had never foreseen, for which she had received
no training. When Denzil revealed to her his real
standing in the world, spoke laughingly of the wealth
he had inherited, and of his political ambitions,
her courage failed before the prospect. She had
not dared to let him see all her despondency, for
his impatient and sanguine temper would have resented
it. To please him and satisfy his utmost demands
was the one purpose of her life. But the task
he had imposed seemed to her, in these hours of faintness,
no less than terrible.
He entered, gay as usual, ready with tender words,
pet names and diminutives, the “little language”
of one who was still a lover. Seeing how things
were with her, he sat down to look over an English
newspaper. Presently his attention strayed, he
fell into reverie.
“Well,” he exclaimed at length, rousing
himself, “they have the news by now.”
