to suffer
"presentation" to him at the good lady's generous but ineffectual hands,
and had in fact the next instant, left alone with him, bowed, in formal
salutation, the massive, curly, witty head, so "romantic" yet so modern,
so "artistic" and ironic yet somehow so civic, so Gallic yet somehow so
cosmic, his personal vision of which had not hitherto transcended that
of the possessor of a signed and framed photograph in a consecrated
quarter of a writing-table.

It was positive, however, that poor John was afterward to remember
of this conjunction nothing whatever but the fact of the great man's
looking at him very hard, straight in the eyes, and of his not having
himself scrupled to do as much, and with a confessed intensity of
appetite. It was improbable, he was to recognise, that they had, for the
few minutes, only stared and grimaced, like pitted boxers or wrestlers;
but what had abode with him later on, none the less, was just the
cherished memory of his not having so lost presence of mind as to fail
of feeding on his impression. It was precious and precarious, that was
perhaps all there would be of it; and his subsequent consciousness was
quite to cherish this queer view of the silence, neither awkward nor
empty nor harsh, but on the contrary quite charged and brimming, that
represented for him his use, his unforgettable enjoyment in fact, of his
opportunity. Had nothing passed in words? Well, no misery of murmured
"homage," thank goodness; though something must have been said,
certainly, to lead up, as they put it at the theatre, to John's having
asked the head of the profession, before they separated, if he by chance
knew who the so radiantly handsome young woman might be, the one who
had so lately come in and who wore the pale yellow dress, of the strange
tone, and the magnificent pearls. They must have separated soon, it was
further to have been noted; since it was before the advance of the pair,
their wonderful dazzling charge upon him, that he had distinctly seen
the great man, at a distance again, block out from his sight the harmony
of the faded gold and the pearls--to speak only of that--and plant
himself there (the mere high Atlas-back of renown to Berridge now) as
for communion with them. He had blocked everything out, to this tune,
effectually; with nothing of the matter left for our friend meanwhile
but that, as he had said, the beautiful lady was the Princess. What
Princess, or the Princess of what?