Chapter 24

Barbara

Another shock was waiting for me farther down the story.

For we had resumed our adventures, though we seldom saw Bailey
now. At long intervals we met him on our way to or from the
Gardens, and, if there was none from Pilkington's to mark him,
methought he looked at us somewhat longingly, as if beneath his
real knickerbockers a morsel of the egg-shell still adhered.
Otherwise he gave David a not unfriendly kick in passing, and
called him "youngster." That was about all.

When Oliver disappeared from the life of the Gardens we had
lofted him out of the story, and did very well without him,
extending our operations to the mainland, where they were on so
vast a scale that we were rapidly depopulating the earth. And
then said David one day,

"Shall we let Barbara in?"

We had occasionally considered the giving of Bailey's place to
some other child of the Gardens, divers of David's year having
sought election, even with bribes; but Barbara was new to me.

"Who is she?" I asked.

"She's my sister."

You may imagine how I gaped.

"She hasn't come yet," David said lightly, "but she's coming."

I was shocked, not perhaps so much shocked as disillusioned, for
though I had always suspicioned Mary A---- as one who harboured the
craziest ambitions when she looked most humble, of such
presumption as this I had never thought her capable.

I wandered across the Broad Walk to have a look at Irene, and she
was wearing an unmistakable air. It set me reflecting about
Mary's husband and his manner the last time we met, for though I
have had no opportunity to say so, we still meet now and again,
and he has even dined with me at the club. On these occasions
the subject of Timothy is barred, and if by any unfortunate
accident Mary's name is mentioned, we immediately look opposite
ways and a silence follows, in which I feel sure he is smiling,
and wonder what the deuce he is smiling at. I remembered now
that I had last seen him when I was dining with him at his club
(for he is become member of a club of painter fellows, and Mary
is so proud of this that she has had it printed on his card),
when undoubtedly he had looked preoccupied. It had been the
look, I saw now, of one who shared a guilty secret.

As all was thus suddenly revealed to me I laughed unpleasantly at
myself, for, on my soul, I had been thinking well of Mary of
late. Always foolishly inflated about David, she had been
grudging him even to me during these last weeks, and I had
forgiven her, putting it down to a mother's love. I knew from
the poor boy of unwonted treats she had been giving him; I had
seen her embrace him