THE WORK IN PROGRESS
On the sheltered side of Eastbourne, just at the springing of the downs
as you climb towards Beachy Head, is a spacious and heavy-looking stone
house, with pillared porch, oriel windows on the ground floor of the
front, and a square turret rising above the fine row of chestnuts which
flanks the road. It was built some forty years ago, its only neighbours
then being a few rustic cottages; recently there has sprung up a suburb
of comely red-brick houses, linking it with the visitors' quarter of
Eastbourne. The builder and first proprietor, a gentleman whose dignity
derived from Mark Lane, called the house Odessa Lodge; at his death it
passed by purchase into the hands of people to whom this name seemed
something worse than inappropriate, and the abode was henceforth known
as The Chestnuts.
One morning early in November, three months after the date of that
letter which he addressed to Gilbert Grail and other working men of
Lambeth, our friend Egremont arrived from town at Eastbourne station
and was conveyed thence by fly to the house of which I speak. He
inquired for Mrs. Ormonde. That lady was not within, but would shortly
return from her morning drive. Egremont followed the servant to the
library and prepared to wait.
The room was handsomely furnished and more than passably supplied with
books, which inspection showed to be not only such as one expects to
find in the library of a country house, but to a great extent works of
very modern issue, arguing in their possessor the catholicity of taste
which our time encourages. The solid books which form the substratum of
every collection were brought together by Mr. Brook Ormonde, in the
first instance at his house in Devonshire Square; when failing health
compelled him to leave London, the town establishment was broken up,
and until his death, three years later, the family resided wholly at
The Chestnuts. During those years the library grew appreciably, for the
son of the house, Horace Ormonde, had just come forth from the academic
curriculum with a vast appetite for literature. His mother, moreover,
was of the women who read. Whilst Mr. Ormonde was taking a lingering
farewell of the world and its concerns, these two active minds were
busy with the fire-new thought of the scientific and humanitarian age.
Walter Egremont was then a frequent visitor of the house; he and Horace
talked many a summer night into dawn over the problems which nowadays
succeed measles and scarlatina as a form of youthful complaint. But
Horace Ormonde had even a shorter span of life before him than his
invalid father. He was drowned in bathing, and it was Egremont who had
to take the news up to The Chestnuts. A few months later, there was
another funeral from the house. Mrs. Ormonde remained alone.
It was in this room that Egremont had waited for the mother's coming,
that morning when he returned companionless from the beach. He was then
but two-and-twenty; big task was as terrible as a man can be called
upon to perform. Mrs. Ormonde had the strength to remember that; she
shed no tears, uttered no lamentations. When, after a few questions,
she was going silently from the room, Walter, his own eyes blinded,
caught her hand and pressed it passionately in both his own. She was
the woman whom he reverenced above all others, worshipping her with
that pure devotion which young men such as he are wont to feel for some
gracious lady much their elder. At that moment he would have given his
own life to the sea could he by so doing have brought her back the son
who would never return. Such moments do not come often to the best of
us, perhaps in very truth do not repeat themselves. Egremont never
entered the library without having that impulse of uttermost
unselfishness brought back vividly to his thoughts; on that account he
liked the room, and gladly spent a quiet half-hour in it.
In a little less than that Mrs. Ormonde returned from her breathing of
the sea air. At the door she was told of Egremont's arrival, and with a
look of pleased expectancy she went at once to the library.
Egremont rose from the fireside, and advanced with the quiet confidence
with which one greets only the dearest friends.
'So the sunshine has brought you,' she said, holding his hand for a
moment. 'We had a terrible storm in the night, and the morning is very
sweet after it. Had you arrived a very little sooner, you would have
been in time to drive with me.'
She was one of those women who have no need to soften their voice when
they would express kindness. Her clear and firm, yet sweet, tones
uttered with perfection a nature very richly and tenderly endowed.
During the past five years she had aged in appearance; the grief which
she would not expose had drawn its lines upon her features, and
something too of imperfect health was visible there. But her gaze was
the same as ever, large, benevolent, intellectual. In her presence
Egremont always felt a well-being, a peace of mind, which gave to his
own look its pleasantest quality. Of friends she was still, and would
ever be, the dearest to him. The thought of her approval was always
active with him when he made plans for fruitful work; he could not have
come before her with a consciousness of ignoble fault weighing upon his
mind.
She passed upstairs, and he followed more slowly. Behind the first
landing was a small conservatory; and there, amid evergreens, sat two
children whose appearance would have surprised a chance visitor knowing
nothing of the house and its mistress. They obviously came from some
very poor working-class home; their clothing was of the plainest
possible, and, save that they were very clean and in perfect order,
they might have been sitting on a doorstep in a London back street.
Mrs. Ormonde had thrown a kind word to them in hurrying by. At the
sight of Egremont they hushed their renewed talk and turned shamefaced
looks to the ground. He went on to the drawing-room, where there was
the same comfort and elegance as in the library. Almost immediately
Mrs. Ormonde joined him.
'So you want news!' she said, with her own smile, always a little sad,
always mingling tenderness with reserve on the firm lips. 'Really, I
told you everything essential in my letter. Annabel is in admirable
health, both of body and mind. She is deep in Virgil and Dante--what
more could you wish her? Her father, I am sorry to say, is not
altogether well. Indeed, I was guilty of doing my best to get him to
London for the winter.'
'Ah! That is something of which your letter made no mention.'
'No, for I didn't succeed. At least, he shook his head very
persistently.'
'I heartily wish you had succeeded. Couldn't you get help from
Annabel--Miss Newthorpe?'
'Never mind; let it be Annabel between us,' said Mrs. Ormonde, seating
herself near the fire. 'I tried to, but she was not fervent. All the
same, it is just possible, I think, that they may come. Mr. Newthorpe
needs society, however content he may believe himself. Annabel, to my
surprise, does really seem independent of such aids. How wonderfully
she has grown since I saw her two years ago! No, no, I don't mean
physically--though that is also true--but how her mind has grown! Even
her letters hadn't quite prepared me for what I found.'
Egremont was leaning on the back of a chair, his hands folded together.
He kept silence, and Mrs. Ormonde, with a glance at him, added:
'But she is something less than human at present. Probably that will
last for another year or so.'
'Less than human?'
'Abstract, impersonal. With the exception of her father, you were the
only living person of whom she voluntarily spoke to me.'
'She spoke of me?'
'Very naturally. Your accounts of Lambeth affair interest her deeply,
though again in rather too--what shall we call it?--too theoretical a
way. But that comes of her inexperience.'
'Still she at least speaks of me.'
Mrs. Ormonde could have made a discouraging rejoinder. She said nothing
for a moment, her eyes fixed on the fire. Then:
'But now for your own news.'
'What I have is unsatisfactory. A week ago the class suffered a
secession. You remember my description of Ackroyd?'
'Ackroyd? The young man of critical aspect?'
'The same. He has now missed two lectures, and I don't think he'll come
again.'
'Have you spoken to Bower about him?'
'No. The fact is, my impressions of Bower have continued to grow
unfavourable. Plainly, he cares next to nothing for the lectures. There
is a curious pomposity about him, too, which grates upon me. I
shouldn't have been at all sorry if he had been the seceder; he's bored
terribly, I know, yet he naturally feels bound to keep his place. But
I'm very sorry that Ackroyd has gone; he has brains, and I wanted to
get to know him. I shall not give him up; I must persuade him to come
and have a talk with me.'
'What of Mr. Grail?'
'Ah, Grail is faithful. Yes, Grail is the man of them all; that I am
sure of. I am going to ask him to stay after the lecture to-morrow. I
haven't spoken privately with him yet. But I think I can begin now to
establish nearer relations with two or three of them. I have been
lecturing for just a couple of months; they ought to know something of
me by this time, On the whole, I think I am succeeding. But if there is
one of them on whom I found great hopes, it is Grail. The first time I
saw him, I knew what a distinction there was between him and the
others. He seems to be a friend of Ackroyd's, too; I must try to get at
Ackroyd by means of him.'
'Is he--Grail, I mean--a married man?'
'I really don't know. Yet I should think so. I shouldn't be surprised
if he were unhappily married. Certainly there is some great trouble in
his life. Sometimes he looks terribly worn, quite ill.'
'And Mr. Bunce?' she asked, with a look of peculiar interest.
'Poor Bunce is also a good deal of a mystery to me. He, too, always
looks more or less miserable, and I'm afraid his interest is not very
absorbing. Still, he takes notes, and now and then even puts an
intelligent question.'
'He has not attacked you on the subject of religion yet.
'Oh, no! We still have that question to fight out. But of course I must
know him very well before I approach it. I think he bears me goodwill;
I caught him looking at me with a curious sort of cordiality the other
night.'
'I must have that little girl of his down again,' Mrs. Ormonde said. 'I
wonder whether she still reads that insufferable publication.
By-the-by, I found you had told them the story at Ullswater.'
'Yes. It came up _a propos_ of my scheme.'
A gong sounded down below.
'Twelve o'clock' remarked Mrs. Ormonde. 'My birds are going to their
dinner--poor little town sparrows! We'll let them get settled, then go
and have a peep at them--shall we?'
'Yes, I should like to see them--and,' he added pleasantly, 'to see the
look on your face when you watch them.'
'I have much to thank them for, Walter,' she said, earnestly. 'They
brighten many an hour when I should be unhappy.'
Presently Mrs. Ormonde led the way downstairs and to the rear of the
house. A room formerly devoted to billiards had been converted into a
homely but very bright refectory; it was hung round with cheerful
pictures, and before each of the two windows stood a large aquarium,
full of water-plants and fishes. At the table were seated seven little
girls, of ages from eight to thirteen, all poorly clad, yet all looking
remarkably joyous, and eating with much evidence of appetite. At the
head of the table was a woman of middle age and motherly aspect--Mrs.
Mapper. She had the superintendence of the convalescents whom the lady
of the house received and sent back to their homes in London better
physically and morally than they had ever been in their lives before.
The children did not notice that Mrs. Ormonde and her companion had
entered; they were chatting gaily over their meal. Now and then one of
them drew a gentle word of correction from Mrs. Mapper, but on the
whole they needed no rebuke. Those who had been longest in the house
speedily instructed new arrivals in the behaviour they had learned to
deem becoming. A girl waited at table. On that subject Mrs. Ormonde had
amusing stories to relate; how more than one servant had regretfully
but firmly declined to wait upon little ragamuffins (female, too), and
how one in particular had explained that she made no objection to doing
it only because she regarded it as a religious penance.
Egremont had his pleasure in regarding her face, nobly beautiful as she
moved her eyes from one to another of her poor little pensioners. She
had said at first that it would be impossible ever again to live in
this house, when she quitted it for a time after her husband's death.
How could she pass through the barren rooms, how dwell within sight and
sound of the treacherous waves which had taken her dearest? It was a
royal thought which converted the sad dwelling into a home for those
whose reawakening laughter would chide despondency from beneath the
roof; whose happiness would ease the heavy heart and make memory a
sacred solace. She had her abounding reward, and such as only the
greatly loving may attain to.
They withdrew without having excited attention; Mrs. Mapper saw them,
but Mrs. Ormonde made sign to her to say nothing.
'Two are upstairs, I'm sorry to say,' she remarked as they went back to
the drawing-room. 'They have obstinate colds; I keep them under the
bed-clothes. The difficulty these poor things have in getting rid of a
cold! With many of them I believe such a condition is chronic; it goes
on, I suppose, until they die of it.'
They talked together till luncheon time. Egremont led the conversation
back to Ullswater, where Mrs. Ormonde had just spent a fortnight.
'I think I must go and see them at Christmas,' he said, 'if they don't
come south.'
The other considered.
'Don't go so soon,' she said at length.
'So soon? It will be six mortal months.'
'Be advised.'
Egremont sighed and left the subject.
'Tell me what you have been doing of late,' Mrs. Ormonde resumed,
'apart from your lectures.'
'Very little of which any account can be rendered. I read a good deal,
and occasionally come across an acquaintance.'
'Have you seen the Tyrrells since they returned?'
'No. I had an invitation to dine with them the other day, but excused
myself.'
'On what grounds?'
'I mean to see less of people in general.'
Mrs. Ormonde regarded him.
'I hope,' she said, 'that you will pursue no such idea. You mean, of
course, that your Lambeth work is to be absorbing. Let it be so, but
don't fall into the mistake of making it your burden. You are not one
of those who can work in solitude.'
'I am getting a distaste for ordinary society.'
'Then I beg of you to resist the mood. Go into society freely. You are
in danger as soon as you begin to neglect it.'
'I, individually?'
'Yes.' She smiled at the deprecating look he turned on her. 'Let me be
your moral physician. Already I notice that you fall short of perfect
health: the refusal of that invitation is a symptom. Pray give faith to
what I say; if any one knows you, I think it is I.'
He kept silence. Mrs. Ormonde continued:
'I hear that the Tyrrells have made the acquaintance of Mr. Dalmaine.
Paula mentions him in a letter.'
'Ha! With enthusiasm probably?'
'No. They met him somewhere in Switzerland. He gave them the benefit of
his experience on the education question.'
'Of course. Well, I am prejudiced against the man, as you know.'
'He is a force. It looks as if we should hear a good deal of him in the
future.'
'Doubtless. The incarnate ideal of British philistinism is sure to have
a career before him.'
The lady laughed.
Early in the afternoon Egremont took leave of his friend and returned
to London. It was his habit when in England, to run down to Eastbourne
in this way about once a month.
Since the death of his father, his home had been represented by rooms
in Great Russell Street. He chose them on account of their proximity to
the British Museum; at that time he believed himself destined to
produce some monumental work of erudition: the subject had not defined
itself, but his thoughts were then busy with the origins of
Christianity, and it seemed to him that a study of certain Oriental
literatures would be fruitful of results. Characteristically, he must
establish himself at the very doors of the great Library. His Oriental
researches, as we know, were speedily abandoned, but the rooms in Great
Russell Street still kept their tenant. They were far from an ideal
abode, indifferently furnished, with draughty doors and smoky chimneys,
and the rent was exorbitant; the landlady, who speedily gauged her
lodger's character, had already made a small competency out of him.
Even during long absences abroad Egremont retained the domicile; at
each return he said to himself that he must really find quarters at
once more reputable and more homelike, but the thought of removing his
books, of dealing with new people, deterred him from the actual step.
In fact, was indifferent as to where or how he lived; all he asked was
the possibility of privacy. The ugliness of his surroundings did not
trouble him, for he paid no attention to them. Some day he would have a
beautiful home, but what use in thinking of that till he had someone to
share it with him? This was a mere _pied a terre_; it housed his body
and left his mind free.
The real home which he remembered was a house looking upon Clapham
Common. His father dwelt there for the last fifteen years of his life;
his mother died there, shortly after the removal from the small house
in Newington where she went to live upon her marriage. With much
tenderness Egremont thought of the clear-headed and warm-hearted man
whose life-long toil had made such provision for the son he loved.
Uneducated, homely, narrow enough in much of his thinking, the
manufacturer of oil-cloth must have had singular possibilities in his
nature to renew himself in a youth so apt for modern culture as Walter
was; thinking back in his maturity, the latter remembered many a
noteworthy trait in his father, and wished the old man could have lived
yet a few more years to see his son's work really beginning. And
Egremont often felt lonely. Possibly he had relatives living, but he
knew of none; in any case they could not now be of real account to him.
The country of his birth was far behind him; how far, he had recognised
since he began his lecturing in Lambeth. None the less, he at times
knew home-sickness: not seldom there seemed to be a gap between him and
the people born to refinement who were his associates, his friends.
That phase of feeling was rather strong in him just now; disguising
itself in the form of sundry plausible motives, it had induced him to
decline Mrs. Tyrrell's invitation, and was fostering his temporary
distaste for the society in which he had always found much pleasure.
What if in strictness he belonged to neither sphere? What if his life
were to be a struggle between inherited sympathies and the affinities
of his intellect? All the better, perchance, for his prospect of
usefulness; he stood as a mediator between two sections of society. But
for his private happiness, how?
He spent this evening very idly, sometimes pacing his large,
uncomfortable room, sometimes endeavouring to read one or other of
certain volumes new from the circulating library. Of late he had passed
many such evenings, for it was very seldom that any one came to see
him, and for the amusements of the town he had no inclination. He was
thinking much of Annabel; he could not imagine her other than calm,
intellectual; he could not hear her voice uttering passionate words. A
great change must come over her before her reserved maidenliness could
soften to such sweet humility.
And he had no faith in his power so to change her.
The next day was Thursday. This and Sunday were his lecture days; his
class met at half-past eight. Precisely at that hour he reached a small
doorway in High Street, Lambeth, and ascended a flight of stairs to a
room which he had furnished as he deemed most suitable. Several rows of
school-desks faced a high desk at which he stood to lecture. The walls
were washed in distemper, the boarding of the floor was uncovered, the
two windows were hidden with plain shutters. The room had formerly been
used for purposes of storage by a glass and china merchant; below was
the workshop of a saddler, which explained the pervading odour of
leather.
A little group of men stood in conversation near the fire; on
Egremont's appearance they seated themselves at the desks, each
producing a note-book which he laid open before him. Thus ranged they
were seen to be eight in number. Out of fourteen to whom invitations
were addressed, nine had presented themselves at the preliminary
meeting; one, we know, had since proved unfaithful. Egremont looked
round for Ackroyd on entering, but the young man was not here.
On the front bench were two men whom as yet you know only by name. Mr.
Bower was clearly distinguishable by his personal importance and the
_ennui_, not to be disguised, with which he listened to the opening
sentences of the lecture. He leaned against the desk behind him, and
carefully sharpened the point of his pencil. He was a large man with a
spade-shaped beard; his forehead was narrow, and owed its appearance of
height to incipient baldness; his eyes were small and shrewd. He
habitually donned his suit of black for these meetings. At the works,
where he held a foreman's position, he was in good repute: for years he
had proved himself skilful, steady, abundantly respectful to his
employers. In private life he enjoyed the fame of a petty capitalist;
since his marriage, thirty years ago, he and his wife had made it the
end of their existence to put by money, with the result that his
obsequiousness when at work was balanced by the blustering independence
of his leisure hours. The man was a fair instance of the way in which
prosperity affects the average proletarian; all his better
qualities--honesty, perseverance, sobriety--took an ignoble colour from
the essential vulgarity of his nature, which would never have so
offensively declared itself if ill fortune had kept him anxious about
his daily bread. Formerly Egremont had been impressed by his
intelligent manner; closer observation had proved to him of how little
worth this intelligence was, in its subordination to a paltry
character. Bower regarded himself as the originator of this course of
lectures; through all his obsequiousness it was easy to see that he
deemed his co-operation indispensable to the success of the project. At
first, as was natural, Egremont had sometimes seemed to address words
specially to him; of late he had purposely avoided doing so, and Bower
began to feel that his services lacked recognition.
The other, of whom there has been casual mention, was Joseph Bunce. Of
spare frame and with hollow cheeks which suggested insufficiency of
diet, he yet had far more of manliness in his appearance than the
portly Bower. You divined in him independence enough, and of worthier
origin than that which secretly inflated his neighbour. His features
were at first sight by no means pleasing; their coarseness was
undeniable, but familiarity revealed a sensitive significance in the
irregular nose, the prominent lips, the small chin and long throat.
Egremont had now and then caught a light in his eyes which was warranty
for more than his rough tongue could shape into words. He often
appeared to have a difficulty in following the lecture; would shrug
nervously, and knit his brows and mutter. Whenever he noticed that,
Egremont would pause a little and repeat in simpler form what he had
been saying, with the satisfactory result that Bunce showed a clearer
face and jotted something on his dirty note-book with his stumpy pencil.
Gilbert Grail we know. It was impossible not to remark him as the one
who followed with most consecutive understanding, even if his
countenance had not declared him of higher grade than any of those
among whom he sat. It had needed only the first ten minutes of the
first lecture to put him at his ease with regard to Egremont's claims
to stand forward as a teacher; the preliminary meeting, indeed, had
removed the suspicions suggested by Ackroyd. To him these evenings were
pure enjoyment. He delighted in this subject, and had an inexpressible
pleasure in listening continuously to the speech of a cultivated man.
Had the note-books of the class been examined (Egremont had strongly
advised their use), Gilbert's jottings would probably have alone been
found of substantial value, seeing that he alone possessed the mental
habit necessary for the practice. Bunce's would doubtless have come
next, though at a long distance; a Carlylean editor might have
disengaged from them many a rudely forcible scrap of comment. Bower's
pages would have smelt of the day-book. It was to Grail that Egremont
mentally directed the best things he had to say; not seldom he was
repaid by the quick gleam of sympathy on that grave interesting face.
The remaining five hearers were average artisans of the inquiring type;
they followed with perseverance, though at times one or the other would
furtively regard his watch or allow his eyes to stray about the room.
They had made a bargain, and were bent on honourably carrying out their
share in it. But Egremont already began to doubt whether he was really
fixing anything in their thoughts. How were they likely to serve him
for the greater purpose whereto this instruction was only preliminary?
When he looked forward to that, he had to fix his eyes on Grail and
forget the others. He was beginning to regret that the choice of those
to whom his invitations were sent had depended upon Bower; another man
might have aided him more effectually. Yet the fact was that Bower's
selection had been a remarkably good one. It would have been difficult
to assemble nine Lambeth workmen of higher aggregate intellect than
those who responded to the summons; it would have been, on the other
hand, the easiest thing to find nine with not a man of them available
for anything more than futile wrangling over politics or religion.
Egremont would know this some day; he was yet young in social reform.
And the lectures? It is not too much to say that they were good.
Egremont had capacity for teaching; with his education, had he been
without resources, he would probably have chosen an academic career,
and have done service in it. There was nothing deep in his style of
narrative and criticism, and here depth was not wanted; sufficient that
he was perspicuous and energetic. He loved the things of which he
spoke, and he had the power of presenting to others his reason for
loving them. Not one in five hundred men inexperienced in such work
could have held the ears of the class as he did for the first two or
three evenings. It was impossible for them to mistake his
spirit--ardent, disinterested, aspiring--impossible not to feel
something of a respondent impulse. That familiarity should diminish the
effect of his speech was only to be anticipated. He was preaching a
religion, but one that could find no acceptance as such with eight out
of nine who heard him. Common minds are not kept at high-interest mark
for long together by exhibition of the merely beautiful, however
persuasively it be set forth.
He had chosen the Elizabethan period, and he led up to it by the kind
of introduction which he felt would be necessary. Trusting himself more
after the first fortnight, he ceased to write out his lectures
verbatim; free utterance was an advantage to himself and his audience.
He read at large from his authors; to expect the men to do this for
themselves--even had the books been within their reach--would have been
too much, and without such illustration the lectures were vain. This
reading brought him face to face with his main difficulty: how to
create in men a sense which they do not possess. The working man does
not read, in the strict sense of the word; fiction has little interest
for him, and of poetry he has no comprehension whatever; your artisan
of brains can study, but he cannot read. Egremont was under no illusion
on this point; he knew well that the loveliest lyric would appeal to a
man like Bower no more than an unintelligible demonstration of science.
Was it impossible to bestow this sense of intellectual beauty? With
what earnestness he made the endeavour! He took sweet passages of prose
and verse, and read them with all the feeling and skill he could
command. 'Do you yield to that?' he said within himself as he looked
from face to face. 'Are your ears hopelessly sealed, your minds
immutably earthen?' Grail--Oh yes, Grail had the right intelligence in
his eyes; but Ackroyd, but Bunce? Ackroyd thought of the meaning of the
words; no more. Poor Bunce had darkling throes of mind, but struggled
with desperate nervousness and could not be at ease till the
straightforward talk began again. And Bower?--Nay, there goes more to
this matter than mere enthusiasm in a teacher. Who had instructed
Gilbert Grail to discern the grace of the written word? On the other
hand, it was doubtful whether Walter Egremont, left to himself in the
home of his good plain father, would have felt what now he did. The
soil was there, but how much do we not owe to tillage. Read what
Egremont on one occasion read to these men:
'"He beginneth not with obscure definitions, which must blur the
margins with interpretations and load the memory with doubtfulness: but
he cometh to you with words set in delightful proportion, either
accompanied with or prepared for the well-enchanting skill of music and
with a tale forsooth he cometh unto you--with a tale which holdeth
children from play, and old men from the chimney-corner."'
What were _that_ to you, save for the glow of memory fed with incense
of the poets?--save for innumerable dear associations, only possible to
the instructed, which make the finer part of your intellectual being?
Walter was attempting too much, and soon became painfully conscious of
it.
He came to the dramatists, and human interest thenceforth helped him.
He could read well, and a scene from those giants of the prime had
efficiency even with Bower. Hope revived in the lecturer.
To-night he was less happy than usual, for what reason he could not
himself understand. His thoughts wandered, sometimes to Eastbourne,
sometimes to Ullswater; yet he was speaking of Shakespeare. Bower was
more owl-eyed than usual; the five doubtful hearers obviously felt the
time long. Only Grail gave an unfailing ear. Egremont closed with a
sense of depression.
Would Bower come and pester him with fatuous questions and remarks? No;
Bower turned away and reached his hat from the peg. The doubtful five
took down their hats and followed the portly man from the room. Bunce
was talking with Grail, pointing with dirty forefinger to something in
his dirty note-book. But he, too, speedily moved to the hat-pegs. Grail
was also going, when Egremont said:
'Could you spare me five minutes, Mr. Grail; I should like to speak to
you.'