Chapter 2 - Page 2

from. She had almost no visitors, only a decent old lady or two,
and, every day, poor dingy Miss Teagle, who was also ancient and who
came humbly enough to governess the infant of the parlours. Peter
Baron's window had always, to his sense, looked out on a good deal of
life, and one of the things it had most shown him was that there is
nobody so bereft of joy as not to be able to command for twopence the
services of somebody less joyous. Mrs. Ryves was a struggler (Baron
scarcely liked to think of it), but she occupied a pinnacle for Miss
Teagle, who had lived on--and from a noble nursery--into a period of
diplomas and humiliation.

Mrs. Ryves sometimes went out, like Baron himself, with manuscripts
under her arm, and, still more like Baron, she almost always came
back with them. Her vain approaches were to the music-sellers; she
tried to compose--to produce songs that would make a hit. A
successful song was an income, she confided to Peter one of the first
times he took Sidney, blase and drowsy, back to his mother. It was
not on one of these occasions, but once when he had come in on no
better pretext than that of simply wanting to (she had after all
virtually invited him), that she mentioned how only one song in a
thousand was successful and that the terrible difficulty was in
getting the right words. This rightness was just a vulgar "fluke"--
there were lots of words really clever that were of no use at all.
Peter said, laughing, that he supposed any words he should try to
produce would be sure to be too clever; yet only three weeks after
his first encounter with Mrs. Ryves he sat at his delightful
davenport (well aware that he had duties more pressing), trying to
string together rhymes idiotic enough to make his neighbour's
fortune. He was satisfied of the fineness of her musical gift--it
had the touching note. The touching note was in her person as well.

The davenport was delightful, after six months of its tottering
predecessor, and such a re-enforcement to the young man's style was
not impaired by his sense of something lawless in the way it had been
gained. He had made the purchase in anticipation of the money he
expected from Mr. Locket, but Mr. Locket's liberality was to depend
on the ingenuity of his contributor, who now found himself confronted
with the consequence of a frivolous optimism. The fruit of his
labour presented, as he stared at it with his elbows on his desk, an
aspect uncompromising and incorruptible. It seemed to look up at him
reproachfully and to say, with its essential finish: "How could you
promise anything so base; how could you pass your word to mutilate
and dishonour me?" The alterations demanded by Mr. Locket were
impossible; the