Chapter 12 - Page 2

billiard, card and domino playing, quack-doctoring, and much murderous refuse, animate and inanimate — only last Sunday, my Lady, in the desolation of Boredom and the clutch of Giant Despair, almost hated her own maid for being in spirits.

She cannot, therefore, go too fast from Paris. Weariness of soul lies before her, as it lies behind — her Ariel has put a girdle of it round the whole earth, and it cannot be unclasped — but the imperfect remedy is always to fly, from the last place where it has been experienced. Fling Paris back into the distance, then, exchanging it for endless avenues and cross-avenues of wintry trees! And, when next beheld, let it be some leagues away, with the Gate of the Star a white speck glittering in the sun, and the city a mere mound in a plain: two dark square towers rising out of it, and light and shadow descending on it aslant, like the angels in Jacob’s dream!

Sir Leicester is generally in a complacent state, and rarely bored. When he has nothing else to do, he can always contemplate his own greatness. It is a considerable advantage to a man, to have so inexhaustible a subject. After reading his letters, he leans back in his corner of the carriage, and generally reviews his importance to society.

“You have an unusual amount of correspondence this morning?” says my Lady, after a long time. She is fatigued with reading. Has almost read a page in twenty miles.

“Nothing in it, though. Nothing whatever.”

“I saw one of Mr Tulkinghorn’s long effusions, I think?”

“You see everything,” says Sir Leicester, with admiration.

“Ha!” sighs my Lady. “He is the most tiresome of men!”

“He sends — I really beg your pardon — he sends,” says Sir Leicester, selecting the letter, and unfolding it, “a message to you. Our stopping to change horses, as I came to his postscript, drove it out of my memory. I beg you’ll excuse me. He says —” Sir Leicester is so long in taking out his eye-glass and adjusting it, that my Lady looks a little irritated. “He says ‘In the matter of the right of way —’ I beg your pardon, that’s not the place. He says — yes! Here I have it! He says, ‘I beg my respectful compliments to my Lady, who, I hope, has benefitted by the change. Will you do me the favour to mention (as it may interest her), that I have something to tell her on her return, in reference to the person who copied the affidavit in the Chancery suit, which so powerfully stimulated her curiosity. I have seen him.’”

My Lady,leaning forward, looks out of her window.

“That’s the message,” observes Sir Leicester.

“I should like to walk a little,” says my Lady, still looking