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.
"In the drawing-room, sir? Mrs. Weeks Wimbush."
"And in the dining-room?"
"A young lady, sir--waiting: I think a foreigner."
It was three o'clock, and on days when Paraday didn't lunch out he
attached a value to these appropriated hours. On which days,
however, didn't the dear man lunch out? Mrs. Wimbush, at such a
crisis, would have rushed round immediately after her own repast.
I went into the dining-room first, postponing the pleasure of
seeing how, upstairs, the lady of the barouche would, on my
arrival, point the moral of my sweet solicitude.
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