seye's; but he would have exposed himself to
almost any social discomfort in order to see Verena Tarrant on the
platform. The platform it evidently was to be--private if not
public--since one was admitted by a ticket given away if not sold. He
took his in his pocket, quite ready to present it at the door. It would
take some time for me to explain the contradiction to the reader; but
Basil Ransom's desire to be present at one of Verena's regular
performances was not diminished by the fact that he detested her views
and thought the whole business a poor perversity. He understood her now
very well (since his visit to Cambridge); he saw she was honest and
natural; she had queer, bad lecture-blood in her veins, and a comically
false idea of the aptitude of little girls for conducting movements; but
her enthusiasm was of the purest, her illusions had a fragrance, and so
far as the mania for producing herself personally was concerned, it had
been distilled into her by people who worked her for ends which to Basil
Ransom could only appear insane. She was a touching, ingenuous victim,
unconscious of the pernicious forces which were hurrying her to her
ruin. With this idea of ruin there had already associated itself in the
young man's mind, the idea--a good deal more dim and incomplete--of
rescue; and it was the disposition to confirm himself in the view that
her charm was her own, and her fallacies, her absurdity, a mere
reflexion of unlucky circumstance, that led him to make an effort to
behold her in the position in which he could least bear to think of her.
Such a glimpse was all that was wanted to prove to him that she was a
person for whom he might open an unlimited credit of tender compassion.
He expected to suffer--to suffer deliciously.

By the time he had crossed Mrs. Burrage's threshold there was no doubt
whatever in his mind that he was in the fashionable world. It was
embodied strikingly in the stout, elderly, ugly lady, dressed in a
brilliant colour, with a twinkle of jewels and a bosom much uncovered,
who stood near the door of the first room, and with whom the people
passing in before him were shaking hands. Ransom made her a Mississipian
bow, and she said she was delighted to see him, while people behind him
pressed him forward. He yielded to the impulsion, and found himself in a
great saloon, amid lights and flowers, where the company was dense, and
there were more twinkling, smiling ladies, with uncovered bosoms