er, she was sure, would have gone--was certainly
believed to have been seen there five days ago; and of course his first
necessity, for public use, would be to patch up something with Mrs.
Folliott. Mark knew about Mrs. Folliott?--who was only, for that matter,
one of a regular "bevy." Not that it signified, however, if he didn't:
she would tell him about _her_ later.

He took occasion from the first fraction of a break not quite to know
what he knew about Mrs. Folliott--though perhaps he could imagine a
little; and it was probably at this minute that, having definitely
settled to a position, and precisely in his very own tapestry _bergere_,
the one with the delicious little spectral "subjects" on the back and
seat, he partly exhaled, and yet managed partly to keep to himself, the
deep resigned sigh of a general comprehension. He knew what he was "in"
for, he heard her go on--she said it again and again, seemed constantly
to be saying it while she smiled at him with her peculiar fine charm,
her positive gaiety of sensibility, scarce dimmed: "I'm just selfishly
glad, just selfishly glad!" Well, she was going to have reason to be;
she was going to put the whole case to him, all her troubles and plans,
and each act of the tragi-comedy of her recent existence, as to the
dearest and safest sympathiser in all the world. There would be no
chance for _his_ case, though it was so much for his case he had
come; yet there took place within him but a mild, dumb convulsion,
the momentary strain of his substituting, by the turn of a hand, one
prospect of interest for another.

Squaring himself in his old _bergere_, and with his lips, during the
effort, compressed to the same passive grimace that had an hour or two
before operated for the encouragement of Mrs. Folliott--just as it
was to clear the stage completely for the present more prolonged
performance--he shut straight down, as he even in the act called it to
himself, on any personal claim for social consideration and rendered
a perfect little agony of justice to the grounds of his friend's
vividness. For it was all the justice that could be expected of him
that, though, secretly, he wasn't going to be interested in her being
interesting, she was yet going to be so, all the same, by the very force
of her lovely material (Bob Ash _was_ such a pure pearl of a donkey!)
and he was going to keep on knowing she was--yes, to the very end. When
after the lapse of an hour he rose to go,