seemed called to take its place for him as one of the many things
necessarily crowded out of his consciousness. If she had moreover, like
himself, to make sacrifices to their real truth, it was to be granted
that her compensation might have affected her as more prompt and more
natural. They had long periods, in this London time, during which, when
they were together, a stranger might have listened to them without in the
least pricking up his ears; on the other hand the real truth was equally
liable at any moment to rise to the surface, and the auditor would then
have wondered indeed what they were talking about. They had from an
early hour made up their mind that society was, luckily, unintelligent,
and the margin allowed them by this had fairly become one of their
commonplaces. Yet there were still moments when the situation turned
almost fresh--usually under the effect of some expression drawn from
herself. Her expressions doubtless repeated themselves, but her
intervals were generous. "What saves us, you know, is that we answer so
completely to so usual an appearance: that of the man and woman whose
friendship has become such a daily habit--or almost--as to be at last
indispensable." That for instance was a remark she had frequently enough
had occasion to make, though she had given it at different times
different developments. What we are especially concerned with is the
turn it happened to take from her one afternoon when he had come to see
her in honour of her birthday. This anniversary had fallen on a Sunday,
at a season of thick fog and general outward gloom; but he had brought
her his customary offering, having known her now long enough to have
established a hundred small traditions. It was one of his proofs to
himself, the present he made her on her birthday, that he hadn't sunk
into real selfishness. It was mostly nothing more than a small trinket,
but it was always fine of its kind, and he was regularly careful to pay
for it more than he thought he could afford. "Our habit saves you, at
least, don't you see? because it makes you, after all, for the vulgar,