les about suffering him
to be reminded of where he fell short. The poor man was in truth
humiliated, and there were things as to which that kept us both silent.
In proportion as he tried more fiercely for the market the old plaintiff
arithmetic, fertile in jokes, dropped from our conversation. We joked
immensely still about the process, but our treatment of the results
became sparing and superficial. He talked as much as ever, with
monstrous arts and borrowed hints, of the traps he kept setting, but we
all agreed to take merely for granted that the animal was caught. This
propriety had really dawned upon me the day that after Mr. Bousefield's
visit Mrs. Highmore put me down at his door. Mr. Bousefield in that
juncture had been served up to me anew, but after we had disposed of him
we came to the book, which I was obliged to confess I had already
rushed through. It was from this moment--the moment at which my terrible
impression of it had blinked out at his anxious query--that the image of
his scared face was to abide with me. I couldn't attenuate then--the
cat was out of the bag; but later, each of the next times, I did, I
acknowledge, attenuate. We all did religiously, so far as was possible;
we cast ingenious ambiguities over the strong places, the beauties that
betrayed him most, and found ourselves in the queer position of admirers
banded to mislead a confiding artist. If we stifled our cheers however
and dissimulated our joy our fond hypocrisy accomplished little, for
Limbert's finger was on a pulse that told a plainer story. It was a
satisfaction to have secured a greater freedom with his wife, who at
last, much to her honour, entered into the conspiracy and whose sense
of responsibility was flattered by the frequency of our united appeal to
her for some answer to the marvellous riddle. We had all turned it over
till we were tired of it, threshing out the question why the note he
strained every chord to pitch for common ears should invariably insist
on addressing itself to the angels. Being, as it were, ourselves the
angels we had only a limited quarrel in each case with the event;
but its inconsequent character, given the forces set in motion, was
peculiarly baffling. It was like an interminable sum that wouldn't
come straight; nobody had the time to handle so many figures. Limbert
gathered, to make his pudding, dry bones and dead husks; how then was
one to formulate the law that made the dish prove a feast? What w