my exaltation; "I feel it almost
enough to be concerned with what may become of one's enjoyment of him. I
don't know in short what will become of his circulation; I am only quite
at my ease as to what will become of his work. It will simply keep all
its quality. He'll try again for the common with what he'll believe to
be a still more infernal cunning, and again the common will fatally
elude him, for his infernal cunning will have been only his genius in an
ineffectual disguise." We sat drawn up by the pavement, facing poor
Limbert's future as I saw it. It relieved me in a manner to know the
worst, and I prophesied with an assurance which as I look back upon it
strikes me as rather remarkable. "_Que voulez-vous?_" I went on; "you
can't make a sow's ear of a silk purse! It's grievous indeed if you
like--there are people who can't be vulgar for trying. _He_ can't--it
wouldn't come off, I promise you, even once. It takes more than
trying--it comes by grace. It happens not to be given to Limbert to
fall. He belongs to the heights--he breathes there, he lives there, and
it's accordingly to the heights I must ascend," I said as I took leave
of my conductress, "to carry him this wretched news from where _we_
move!"

V

A few months were sufficient to show how right I had been about his
circulation. It didn't move one, as I had said; it stopped short in the
same place, fell off in a sheer descent, like some precipice gaped up at
by tourists. The public in other words drew the line for him as sharply
as he had drawn it for Minnie Meadows. Minnie has skipped with a
flouncing caper over his line, however; whereas the mark traced by a
lustier cudgel has been a barrier insurmountable to Limbert. Those
next times I had spoken of to Jane Highmore, I see them simplified by
retrocession. Again and again he made his desperate bid--again and again
he tried to. His rupture with Mr. Bousefield caused him, I fear, in
professional circles to be thought impracticable, and I am perfectly
aware, to speak candidly, that no sordid advantage ever accrued to him
from such public patronage of my performances as he had occasionally
been in a position to offer. I reflect for my comfort that any injury I
may have done him by untimely application of a faculty of analysis which
could point to no converts gained by honourable exercise was at least
equalled by the injury he did himself. More than once, as I have hinted,
I held my tongue at his reque