e times when Fanny appeared quite unable to endure his
mental feebleness, and when she became so sharply impatient of it that
she would all but dismiss him for good. There were other times when she
got on much better with him; when he amused her, and when her sense of
superiority seemed to counterbalance that opposite side of the scale. If
Mr Sparkler had been other than the faithfullest and most submissive of
swains, he was sufficiently hard pressed to have fled from the scene of
his trials, and have set at least the whole distance from Rome to London
between himself and his enchantress. But he had no greater will of his
own than a boat has when it is towed by a steam-ship; and he followed
his cruel mistress through rough and smooth, on equally strong
compulsion.

Mrs Merdle, during these passages, said little to Fanny, but said
more about her. She was, as it were, forced to look at her through her
eye-glass, and in general conversation to allow commendations of her
beauty to be wrung from her by its irresistible demands. The defiant
character it assumed when Fanny heard these extollings (as it generally
happened that she did), was not expressive of concessions to the
impartial bosom; but the utmost revenge the bosom took was, to say
audibly, 'A spoilt beauty--but with that face and shape, who could
wonder?'

It might have been about a month or six weeks after the night of the
new advice, when Little Dorrit began to think she detected some new
understanding between Mr Sparkler and Fanny. Mr Sparkler, as if in
attendance to some compact, scarcely ever spoke without first looking
towards Fanny for leave. That young lady was too discreet ever to look
back again; but, if Mr Sparkler had permission to speak, she remained
silent; if he had not, she herself spoke. Moreover, it became plain
whenever Henry Gowan attempted to perform the friendly office of drawing
him out, that he was not to be drawn. And not only that, but Fanny would
presently, without any pointed application in the world, chance to say
something with such a sting in it that Gowan would draw back as if he
had put his hand into a bee-hive.

There was yet another circumstance which went a long way to confirm
Little Dorrit in her fears, though it was not a great circumstance
in itself. Mr Sparkler's demeanour towards herself changed. It became
fraternal. Sometimes, when she was in the outer circle of assemblies--at
their own residence, at Mrs Merdle's, or else