ump since noon--we had indeed
come out further on. Just this fine dishonesty of her eyes,
moreover--the light of a part to play, the excitement (heaven knows what
it struck me as being!) of a happy duplicity--may well have been what
contributed most to her present grand air.

It was in any case what evoked for me most the contrasted image, so
fresh with me, of the other, the tragic lady--the image that had so
embodied the unutterable opposite of everything actually before me. What
was actually before me was the positive pride of life and expansion, the
amplitude of conscious action and design; not the arid channel forsaken
by the stream, but the full-fed river sweeping to the sea, the volume of
water, the stately current, the flooded banks into which the source had
swelled. There was nothing Mrs. Server had been able to risk, but there
was a rich indifference to risk in the mere carriage of Grace
Brissenden's head. Her reference, for that matter, to our discussed
subject had the effect of relegating to the realm of dim shades the lady
representing it, and there was small soundness in her glance at the
possibility on the part of this person of an anxious prowl back. There
was indeed--there could be--small sincerity in any immediate
demonstration from a woman so markedly gaining time and getting her
advantages in hand. The connections between the two, certainly, were
indirect and intricate, but it was positive to me that, for the
spiritual ear, my companion's words had the sound of a hard bump, a
contact from the force of which the weaker vessel might have been felt
to crack. At last, merciful powers, it was in pieces! The shock of the
brass had told upon the porcelain, and I fancied myself for an instant
facing Mrs. Briss over the damage--a damage from which I was never, as I
knew, to see the poor banished ghost recover. As strange as anything was
this effect almost of surprise for me in the freedom of her mention of
"May." For what had she come to me, if for anything, but to insist on
her view of May, and what accordingly was more to the point than to
mention her? Yet it was almost already as if to mention her had been to
get rid of her. She was mentioned, however, inevitably and none the less
promptly, anew--even as if simply to receive a final shake before being
quite dropped. My friend kept it up. "If you were so bent on not losing
what I might have to give you that you fortunately stuck to the ship,
for poor Briss t