there that afternoon at
five, carried any special mark of the portentous. It was not her being
at Ritz's that surprised him. The fact that she was chronically hard
up, and had once or twice lately been so brutally confronted with the
consequences as to accept--indeed solicit--a loan of five pounds from
him: this circumstance, as Garnett knew, would never be allowed to
affect the general tenor of her existence. If one came to Paris, where
could one go but to Ritz's? Did he see her in some grubby hole across
the river? Or in a family _pension_ near the Place de l'Etoile? There
was no affectation in her tendency to gravitate toward what was
costliest and most conspicuous. In doing so she obeyed one of the
profoundest instincts of her nature, and it was another instinct which
taught her to gratify the first at any cost, even to that of dipping
into the pocket of an impecunious newspaper correspondent. It was a
part of her strength--and of her charm too--that she did such things
naturally, openly, without any of the ugly grimaces of dissimulation or
compunction.

Her recourse to Garnett had of course marked a specially low ebb in her
fortunes. Save in moments of exceptional dearth she had richer sources
of supply; and he was nearly sure that, by running over the "society
column" of the Paris _Herald_, he should find an explanation, not
perhaps of her presence at Ritz's, but of her means of subsistence
there. What really perplexed him was not the financial but the social
aspect of the case. When Mrs. Newell had left London in July she had
told him that, between Cowes and Scotland, she and Hermy were provided
for till the middle of October: after that, as she put it, they would
have to look about. Why, then, when she had in her hand the opportunity
of living for three months at the expense of the British aristocracy,
did she rush off to Paris at heaven knew whose expense in the beginning
of September? She was not a woman to act incoherently; if she made
mistakes they were not of that kind. Garnett felt sure she would never
willingly relax her hold on her distinguished friends--was it possible
that it was they who had somewhat violently let go of her?

As Garnett reviewed the situation he began to see that this possibility
had for some time been latent in it. He had felt that something might
happen at any moment--and was not this the something he had obscurely
foreseen? Mrs. Newell really moved too fast: her position was as