One of Our Conquerors - World eBook Library

George Meredith
her to receive the lady, so that she may not be deprived of
the society of good women. I shall hope she will not disapprove
of me. I cannot forsake a friend.’
‘I beg to say good-bye,’ said Dudley.
She had seen a rigidity smite him as she spoke; and so little
startling was it, that she might have fancied it expected, save
for her knowing herself too serious to have played at wiles to
gain her ends.
He ‘wished her prudent advisers.’
She thanked him. ‘In a few days, Louise de Seilles will be
here.’
A Frenchwoman and Papist! was the interjection of his
twist of brows.
Surely I must now be free? she thought when he had covered
his farewell under a salutation regretful in frostiness.
A week later, she had the embrace of her Louise, and
Armandine was made happy with a piece of Parisian riband.
Winter was rapidly in passage: changes were visible everywhere;
Earth and House of Commons and the South London
borough exhibited them; Mrs. Burman was the sole exception.
To the stupefaction of physicians, in a manner to
make a sane man ask whether she was not being retained as
an instrument for one of the darker purposes of Providence—
and where are we standing if we ask such things?—she held
on to her thread of life.
February went by. And not a word from Themison; nor
from Carling, nor from the Rev. Groseman Buttermore, nor
from Jarniman. That is to say, the two former accepted invitations
to grand dinners; the two latter acknowledged contributions
to funds in which they were interested; but they
had apparently grown to consider Mrs. Burman as an establishment,
one of our fixtures. On the other hand, there was
nothing to be feared from her. Lakelands feared nothing: the
entry into Lakelands was decreed for the middle of April.
Those good creatures enclosed the poor woman and nourished
her on comfortable fiction. So the death of the member
for the South London borough (fifteen years younger
than the veteran in maladies) was not to be called premature,
and could by no possibility lead to an exposure of the
private history of the candidate for his vacant seat.
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