ancelot's supplementary
knowledge of the creature. But as he passed her by, solicitous as
before not to tread upon her, he felt as if all the cold water in her
pail were pouring down the back of his neck.

Nevertheless, the effect of both these turns of fortune was transient.
The symphony was duly performed, and dismissed in the papers as
promising, if over-ambitious; the only tangible result was a suggestion
from the popular composer, who was a member of his club, that Lancelot
should collaborate with him in a comic opera, for the production of
which he had facilities. The composer confessed he had a fluent gift
of tune, but had no liking for the drudgery of orchestration, and as
Lancelot was well up in these tedious technicalities, the two might
strike a partnership to mutual advantage.

Lancelot felt insulted, but retained enough mastery of himself to reply
that he would think it over. As he gave no signs of life or thought,
the popular composer then wrote to him at length on the subject,
offering him fifty pounds for the job, half of it on account. Lancelot
was in sore straits when he got the letter, for his stock of money was
dwindling to vanishing point, and he dallied with the temptation
sufficiently to take the letter home with him. But his spirit was not
yet broken, and the letter, crumpled like a rag, was picked up by Mary
Ann and straightened out, and carefully placed upon the mantel-shelf.

Time did something of a similar service for Mary Ann herself, picking
her up from the crumpled attitude in which Lancelot had detected her on
the doorstep, straightening her out again, and replacing her upon her
semi-poetic pedestal. But, as with the cream-laid notepaper, the
wrinklings could not be effaced entirely; which was more serious for
Mary Ann.

Not that Mary Ann was conscious of these diverse humours in Lancelot.
Unconscious of changes in herself, she could not conceive herself
related to his variations of mood; still less did she realise the
inward struggle of which she was the cause. She was vaguely aware that
he had external worries, for all his grandeur, and if he was by turns
brusque, affectionate, indifferent, playful, brutal, charming, callous,
demonstrative, she no more connected herself with these vicissitudes
than with the caprices of the weather. If her sun smiled once a day it
was enough. How should she know that his indifference was often a
victory over himself, as his amativeness was a