Preface

The litigation seemed interminable and had in fact been complicated; but
by the decision on the appeal the judgement of the divorce-court was
confirmed as to the assignment of the child. The father, who, though
bespattered from head to foot, had made good his case, was, in pursuance
of this triumph, appointed to keep her: it was not so much that the
mother's character had been more absolutely damaged as that the
brilliancy of a lady's complexion (and this lady's, in court, was
immensely remarked) might be more regarded as showing the spots.
Attached, however, to the second pronouncement was a condition that
detracted, for Beale Farange, from its sweetness--an order that he
should refund to his late wife the twenty-six hundred pounds put down
by her, as it was called, some three years before, in the interest of
the child's maintenance and precisely on a proved understanding that he
would take no proceedings: a sum of which he had had the administration
and of which he could render not the least account. The obligation thus
attributed to her adversary was no small balm to Ida's resentment; it
drew a part of the sting from her defeat and compelled Mr. Farange
perceptibly to lower his crest. He was unable to produce the money or to
raise it in any way; so that after a squabble scarcely less public and
scarcely more decent than the original shock of battle his only issue
from his predicament was a compromise proposed by his legal advisers and
finally accepted by hers.

His debt was by this arrangement remitted to him and the little girl
disposed of in a manner worthy of the judgement-seat of Solomon. She was
divided in two and the portions tossed impartially to the disputants.
They would take her, in rotation, for six months at a time; she would
spend half the year with each. This was odd justice in the eyes of those
who still blinked in the fierce light projected from the tribunal--a
light in which neither parent figured in the least as a happy example to
youth and innocence. What was to have been expected on the evidence was
the nomination, _in loco parentis_, of some proper third person, some
respectable or at least some presentable friend. Apparently, however,
the circle of the Faranges had been scanned in vain for any such
ornament; so that the only solution finally meeting all the difficulties
was, save that of sending Maisie to a Home, the partition of the
tutelary office in the manner I have mentioned. There were more reasons
for her parents to agree to it than there had ever been for them to
agree to anything; and they now prepared with her help to enjoy the
distinction that waits upon vulgarity sufficiently attested. Their
rupture had resounded, and after being perfectly insignificant
together they