unmistakeably marked at the best, strike him as qualified to
repudiate any advantage.

He himself was in for it at any rate. He should have Morgan on his
hands again indefinitely; though indeed he saw the lad had a

private theory to produce which would be intended to smooth this
down. He was obliged to him for it in advance; but the suggested

amendment didn't keep his heart rather from sinking, any more than
it prevented him from accepting the prospect on the spot, with some

confidence moreover that he should do so even better if he could
have a little supper. Mrs. Moreen threw out more hints about the

changes that were to be looked for, but she was such a mixture of
smiles and shudders - she confessed she was very nervous - that he

couldn't tell if she were in high feather or only in hysterics. If
the family was really at last going to pieces why shouldn't she

recognise the necessity of pitching Morgan into some sort of
lifeboat? This presumption was fostered by the fact that they were

established in luxurious quarters in the capital of pleasure; that
was exactly where they naturally WOULD be established in view of

going to pieces. Moreover didn't she mention that Mr. Moreen and
the others were enjoying themselves at the opera with Mr. Granger,

and wasn't THAT also precisely where one would look for them on the
eve of a smash? Pemberton gathered that Mr. Granger was a rich

vacant American - a big bill with a flourishy heading and no items;
so that one of Paula's "ideas" was probably that this time she

hadn't missed fire - by which straight shot indeed she would have
shattered the general cohesion. And if the cohesion was to crumble

what would become of poor Pemberton? He felt quite enough bound up
with them to figure to his alarm as a dislodged block in the

edifice.
It was Morgan who eventually asked if no supper had been ordered

for him; sitting with him below, later, at the dim delayed meal, in
the presence of a great deal of corded green plush, a plate of

ornamental biscuit and an aloofness marked on the part of the
waiter. Mrs. Moreen had explained that they had been obliged to

secure a room for the visitor out of the house; and Morgan's
consolation - he offered it while Pemberton reflected on the

nastiness of lukewarm sauces - proved to be, largely, that his
circumstance would facilitate their escape. He talked of their

escape - recurring to it often afterwards - as if they were making
up a "boy's book" together. But he likewise expressed his sense

that there was something in the air, that the Moreens couldn't keep
it up much longer. In point of fact, as Pemberton was to see, they

kept it up for five or six months. All the while, however,
Morgan's contention was designed to cheer him. Mr. Moreen and

Ulick, whom he had met the day after his return, accepted that
return like perfect men of the world. If Paula and Amy treated it

even with less formality an allowance was to be made for them,
inasmuch as Mr. Granger hadn't come to the opera after all. He had

only placed his box at their service, with a bouquet for each of
the party; there was even one apiece, embittering the thought of

his profusion, for Mr. Moreen and Ulick. "They're all like that,"
was Morgan's comment; "at the very last, just when we think we've

landed them they're back in the deep sea!"
Morgan's comments in these days were more and more free; they even

included a large recognition of the extraordinarytenderness with
which he had been treated while Pemberton was away. Oh yes, they

couldn't do enough to be nice to him, to show him they had him on
their mind and make up for his loss. That was just what made the

whole thing so sad and caused him to rejoice after all in
Pemberton's return - he had to keep thinking of their affection

less, had less sense of obligation. Pemberton laughed out at this
last reason, and Morgan blushed and said: "Well, dash it, you know

what I mean." Pemberton knew perfectly what he meant; but there
were a good many things that - dash it too! - it didn't make any

clearer. This episode of his second sojourn in Paris stretched
itself out wearily, with their resumed readings and wanderings and

maunderings, their potterings on the quays, their hauntings of the
museums, their occasional lingerings in the Palais Royal when the

first sharp weather came on and there was a comfort in warm
emanations, before Chevet's wonderful succulent window. Morgan

wanted to hear all about the opulent youth - he took an immense
interest in him. Some of the details of his opulence - Pemberton

could spare him none of them - evidently fed the boy's appreciation
of all his friend had given up to come back to him; but in addition

to the greater reciprocity established by that heroism he had
always his little brooding theory, in which there was a frivolous

gaiety too, that their long probation was drawing to a close.
Morgan's conviction that the Moreens couldn't go on much longer

kept pace with the unexpended impetus with which, from month to
month, they did go on. Three weeks after Pemberton had rejoined

them they went on to another hotel, a dingier one than the first;
but Morgan rejoiced that his tutor had at least still not

sacrificed the advantage of a room outside. He clung to the
romantic utility of this when the day, or rather the night, should

arrive for their escape.
For the first time, in this complicated connexion, our friend felt

his collar gall him. It was, as he had said to Mrs. Moreen in
Venice, trop fort - everything was trop fort. He could neither

really throw off his blighting burden nor find in it the benefit of
a pacified conscience or of a rewarded affection. He had spent all

the money accruing to him in England, and he saw his youth going
and that he was getting nothing back for it. It was all very well

of Morgan to count it for reparation that he should now settle on
him permanently - there was an irritating flaw in such a view. He

saw what the boy had in his mind; the conception that as his friend
had had the generosity to come back he must show his gratitude by

giving him his life. But the poor friend didn't desire the gift -
what could he do with Morgan's dreadful little life? Of course at

the same time that Pemberton was irritated he remembered the
reason, which was very honourable to Morgan and which dwelt simply

in his making one so forget that he was no more than a patched
urchin. If one dealt with him on a different basis one's

misadventures were one's own fault. So Pemberton waited in a queer
confusion of yearning and alarm for the catastrophe which was held

to hang over the house of Moreen, of which he certainly at moments
felt the symptoms brush his cheek and as to which he wondered much

in what form it would find its liveliest effect.
Perhaps it would take the form of sudden dispersal - a frightened

sauve qui peut, a scuttling into selfish corners. Certainly they
were less elastic than of yore; they were evidently looking for

something they didn't find. The Dorringtons hadn't re-appeared,
the princes had scattered; wasn't that the beginning of the end?

Mrs. Moreen had lost her reckoning of the famous "days"; her social
calendar was blurred - it had turned its face to the wall.

Pemberton suspected that the great, the cruel discomfiture had been
the unspeakable behaviour of Mr. Granger, who seemed not to know

what he wanted, or, what was much worse, what they wanted. He kept
sending flowers, as if to bestrew the path of his retreat, which

was never the path of a return. Flowers were all very well, but -
Pemberton could complete the proposition. It was now positively

conspicuous that in the long run the Moreens were a social failure;
so that the young man was almost grateful the run had not been

short. Mr. Moreen indeed was still occasionally able to get away
on business and, what was more surprising, was likewise able to get

back. Ulick had no club but you couldn't have discovered it from
his appearance, which was as much as ever that of a person looking

at life from the window of such an institution; therefore Pemberton
was doubly surprised at an answer he once heard him make his mother

in the desperate tone of a man familiar with the worst privations.
Her question Pemberton had not quite caught; it appeared to be an

appeal for a suggestion as to whom they might get to take Amy.
"Let the Devil take her!" Ulick snapped; so that Pemberton could