efore, at the back of a drawer of the fine old
sideboard that occupied, as a "fixture," the deep recess in the dining-
room. Just now he laughed at his companions--quickly however changing
the subject; for the reason that, in the first place, his laugh struck
him even at that moment as starting the odd echo, the conscious human
resonance (he scarce knew how to qualify it) that sounds made while he
was there alone sent back to his ear or his fancy; and that, in the
second, he imagined Alice Staverton for the instant on the point of
asking him, with a divination, if he ever so prowled. There were
divinations he was unprepared for, and he had at all events averted
enquiry by the time Mrs. Muldoon had left them, passing on to other
parts.

There was happily enough to say, on so consecrated a spot, that could be
said freely and fairly; so that a whole train of declarations was
precipitated by his friend's having herself broken out, after a yearning
look round: "But I hope you don't mean they want you to pull _this_ to
pieces!" His answer came, promptly, with his re-awakened wrath: it was
of course exactly what they wanted, and what they were "at" him for,
daily, with the iteration of people who couldn't for their life
understand a man's liability to decent feelings. He had found the place,
just as it stood and beyond what he could express, an interest and a joy.
There were values other than the beastly rent-values, and in short, in
short--! But it was thus Miss Staverton took him up. "In short you're
to make so good a thing of your sky-scraper that, living in luxury on
_those_ ill-gotten gains, you can afford for a while to be sentimental
here!" Her smile had for him, with the words, the particular mild irony
with which he found half her talk suffused; an irony without bitterness
and that came, exactly, from her having so much imagination--not, like
the cheap sarcasms with which one heard most people, about the world of
"society," bid for the reputation of cleverness, from nobody's really
having any. It was agreeable to him at this very moment to be sure that
when he had answered, after a brief demur, "Well, yes; so, precisely, you
may put it!" her imagination would still do him justice. He explained
that even if never a dollar were to come to him from the other house he
would nevertheless cherish this one; and he dwelt, further, while they
lingered and wandered, on the fact of the stupefaction he was already
exciti