I tried to recall exactly what Mrs. Mulville had told me. "He
didn't leave her--no. It's she who has left him."

"Left him to US?" Gravener asked. "The monster--many thanks! I
decline to take him."

"You'll hear more about him in spite of yourself. I can't, no, I
really can't resist the impression that he's a big man." I was

already mastering--to my shame perhaps be it said--just the tone my
old friend least liked.

"It's doubtless only a trifle," he returned, "but you haven't
happened to mention what his reputation's to rest on."

"Why on what I began by boring you with--his extraordinary mind."
"As exhibited in his writings?"

"Possibly in his writings, but certainly in his talk, which is far
and away the richest I ever listened to."

"And what's it all about?"
"My dear fellow, don't ask me! About everything!" I pursued,

reminding myself of poor Adelaide. "About his ideas of things," I
then more charitably added. "You must have heard him to know what

I mean--it's unlike anything that ever WAS heard." I coloured, I
admit, I overcharged a little, for such a picture was an

anticipation of Saltram's later development and still more of my
fuller acquaintance with him. However, I really expressed, a

little lyrically perhaps, my actualimagination of him when I
proceeded to declare that, in a cloud of tradition, of legend, he

might very well go down to posterity as the greatest of all great
talkers. Before we parted George Gravener had wondered why such a

row should be made about a chatterbox the more and why he should be
pampered and pensioned. The greater the wind-bag the greater the

calamity. Out of proportion to everything else on earth had come
to be this wagging of the tongue. We were drenched with talk--our

wretched age was dying of it. I differed from him here sincerely,
only going so far as to concede, and gladly, that we were drenched

with sound. It was not however the mere speakers who were killing
us--it was the mere stammerers. Fine talk was as rare as it was

refreshing--the gift of the gods themselves, the one starry spangle
on the ragged cloak of humanity. How many men were there who rose

to this privilege, of how many masters of conversation could he
boast the acquaintance? Dying of talk?--why we were dying of the

lack of it! Bad writing wasn't talk, as many people seemed to
think, and even good wasn't always to be compared to it. From the

best talk indeed the best writing had something to learn. I
fancifully added that we too should peradventure be gilded by the

legend, should be pointed at for having listened, for having
actually heard. Gravener, who had glanced at his watch and

discovered it was midnight, found to all this a retort beautifully
characteristic of him.

"There's one little fact to be borne in mind in the presence
equally of the best talk and of the worst." He looked, in saying

this, as if he meant great things, and I was sure he could only
mean once more that neither of them mattered if a man wasn't a real

gentleman. Perhaps it was what he did mean; he deprived me however
of the exultation of being right by putting the truth in a slightly

different way. "The only thing that really counts for one's
estimate of a person is his conduct." He had his watch still in

his palm, and I reproached him with unfair play in having
ascertained beforehand that it was now the hour at which I always

gave in. My pleasantry so far failed to mollify him that he
promptly added that to the rule he had just enunciated there was

absolutely no exception.
"None whatever?"

"None whatever."
"Trust me then to try to be good at any price!" I laughed as I went

with him to the door. "I declare I will be, if I have to be
horrible!"

CHAPTER III
If that first night was one of the liveliest, or at any rate was

the freshest, of my exaltations, there was another, four years
later, that was one of my great discomposures. Repetition, I well

knew by this time, was the secret of Saltram's power to alienate,
and of course one would never have seen him at his finest if one

hadn't seen him in his remorses. They set in mainly at this season
and were magnificent, elemental, orchestral. I was quite aware

that one of these atmospheric disturbances was now due; but none
the less, in our arduous attempt to set him on his feet as a

lecturer, it was impossible not to feel that two failures were a
large order, as we said, for a short course of five. This was the

second time, and it was past nine o'clock; the audience, a muster
unprecedented and really encouraging, had fortunately the attitude

of blandness that might have been looked for in persons whom the
promise of (if I'm not mistaken) An Analysis of Primary Ideas had

drawn to the neighbourhood of Upper Baker Street. There was in
those days in that region a petty lecture-hall to be secured on

terms as moderate as the funds left at our disposal by the
irrepressible question of the maintenance of five small Saltrams--I

include the mother--and one large one. By the time the Saltrams,
of different sizes, were all maintained we had pretty well poured

out the oil that might have lubricated the machinery for enabling
the most original of men to appear to maintain them.

It was I, the other time, who had been forced into the breach,
standing up there for an odious lamplit moment to explain to half a

dozen thin benches, where earnest brows were virtuously void of
anything so cynical as a suspicion, that we couldn't so much as put

a finger on Mr. Saltram. There was nothing to plead but that our
scouts had been out from the early hours and that we were afraid

that on one of his walks abroad--he took one, for meditation,
whenever he was to address such a company--some accident had

disabled or delayed him. The meditative walks were a fiction, for
he never, that any one could discover, prepared anything but a

magnificent prospectus; hence his circulars and programmes, of
which I possess an almost complete collection, are the solemn

ghosts of generations never born. I put the case, as it seemed to
me, at the best; but I admit I had been angry, and Kent Mulville

was shocked at my want of public optimism. This time therefore I
left the excuses to his more practised patience, only relieving

myself in response to a direct appeal from a young lady next whom,
in the hall, I found myself sitting. My position was an accident,

but if it had been calculated the reason would scarce have eluded
an observer of the fact that no one else in the room had an

approach to an appearance. Our philosopher's "tail" was deplorably
limp. This visitor was the only person who looked at her ease, who

had come a little in the spirit of adventure. She seemed to carry
amusement in her handsome young head, and her presence spoke, a

little mystifyingly, of a sudden extension of Saltram's sphere of
influence. He was doing better than we hoped, and he had chosen

such an occasion, of all occasions, to succumb to heaven knew which
of his fond infirmities. The young lady produced an impression of

auburn hair and black velvet, and had on her other hand a companion
of obscurer type, presumably a waiting-maid. She herself might

perhaps have been a foreign countess, and before she addressed me I
had beguiled our sorry interval by finding in her a vague recall of

the opening of some novel of Madame Sand. It didn't make her more
fathomable to pass in a few minutes from this to the certitude that

she was American; it simply engendered depressing reflexions as to
the possible check to contributions from Boston. She asked me if,

as a person apparently more initiated, I would recommend further
waiting, and I answered that if she considered I was on my honour I

would privately deprecate it. Perhaps she didn't; at any rate our
talk took a turn that prolonged it till she became aware we were

left almost alone. I presently ascertained she knew Mrs. Saltram,
and this explained in a manner the miracle. The brotherhood of the

friends of the husband was as nothing to the brotherhood, or
perhaps I should say the sisterhood, of the friends of the wife.

Like the Kent Mulvilles I belonged to both fraternities, and even
better than they I think I had sounded the abyss of Mrs. Saltram's