inging off a paragraph
for the papers while she talked to Mr. Gunning.

His pretext, heaven-sent, unmistakable, stared him in the face. He could
not write paragraphs for the papers (they wouldn't take his paragraphs),
but he could talk to Mr. Gunning. It was not so difficult as he would
have at first supposed. He had already learnt the trick of it. You took
a chair. You made a statement. Any statement would do. You had only to
say to Mr. Gunning, "Isn't that so?" and he would bow and assure you,
with a solemn courtesy, that it was, and sit up waiting patiently for
you to do it again; and you went on talking to Miss Gunning until he
showed signs of restlessness. When you had done this several times
running he would sink back in his chair appeased. But Prothero had
discovered that if you concentrated your attention on Mr. Gunning, if
you exposed him to a steady stream of statements, he invariably went to
sleep; and while he slept Laura wrote.

And while Laura wrote, Owen could keep on looking at her as much as he
liked.

From where he sat his half-closed eyes could take in rather more than a
side view of Laura. He could see her head as it bent and turned over her
work, showing, now the two low waves of its dark hair, now the flat
coils at the back that took the beautiful curve of Laura's head. From
time to time she would look up at him and smile, and he would smile
back again under his eyelids with a faint quiver of his moustache.

And Laura said to herself, "He is rather ugly, but I like him."

It was not odd that she should like him; but what struck her as amazing
was the peace that in his presence settled on Papa. Once he had got over
the first shock of his appearance, it soothed Mr. Gunning to see
Prothero sitting there, smoking, his long legs stretched out, his head
thrown back, his eyes half closed. It established him in the illusion of
continued opulence, for Mr. Gunning was not aware of the things that had
happened to him four years ago. But there had been lapses and
vanishings, unaccountable disturbances of the illusion. In the days of
opulence people had come to see him; now they only came to see Laura.
They were always the same people, Miss Holland and Miss Lempriere and
Mr. Tanqueray. They did no positive violence to the illusion; in their
way they ministered to it. They took their place among the company of
brilliant and indifferent strangers whom he had once entertained with
cold ceremony and a high and