constructed of steel and leather, and all I asked of her for our
tractable friend was not to do him to death. He had consented for
a time to be of india-rubber, but my thoughts were fixed on the day
he should resume his shape or at least get back into his box. It
was evidently all right, but I should be glad when it was well
over. I had a special fear--the impression was ineffaceable of the
hour when, after Mr. Morrow's departure, I had found him on the
sofa in his study. That pretext of indisposition had not in the
least been meant as a snub to the envoy of The Tatler--he had gone
to lie down in very truth. He had felt a pang of his old pain, the
result of the agitation wrought in him by this forcing open of a
new period. His old programme, his old ideal even had to be
changed. Say what one would, success was a complication and
recognition had to be reciprocal. The monastic life, the pious
illumination of the missal in the convent cell were things of the
gathered past. It didn't engender despair, but at least it
required adjustment. Before I left him on that occasion we had
passed a bargain, my part of which was that I should make it my
business to take care of him. Let whoever would represent the
interest in his presence (I must have had a mystical prevision of
Mrs. Weeks Wimbush) I should represent the interest in his work--or
otherwise expressed in his absence. These two interests were in
their essence opposed; and I doubt, as youth is fleeting, if I
shall ever again know the intensity of joy with which I felt that
in so good a cause I was willing to make myself odious.

One day in Sloane Street I found myself questioning Paraday's
landlord, who had come to the door in answer to my knock. Two
vehicles, a barouche and a smart hansom, were drawn up before the
house.