36 The Death of the Lion

by another door and then straightway quitted the house. At
another time, when I was at the opera with them (Mrs. Milsom
had invited me to their box) I attempted to point Mr. Paraday
out to her in the Stalls. On this she asked her sister to change
places with her, and, while that lady devoured the great man
through a powerful glass, presenfed, all the rest of the evening,
her inspired back to the house. To torment her tenderly I pressed
the glass upon her, telling her how wonderfully near it brought our
friend's handsome head. By way of answer she simply looked at me
i n grave silence ; on which I saw that tears had gathered in her eyes.
These tears, I may remark, produced an effect on me of which
the end is not yet. There was a moment when I feit it my
duty to mention them to Neil Paraday ; but I was deterred
by the reflection that there were questions more relevant to his
happiness.

These questions indeed, by the end of the season, were reduced
to a single one—the question of reconstituting, so far as might be
possible, the conditions under which he had produced his best
work. Such conditions could never all come back, for there was
a new one that took up too much place ; but some perhaps were
not beyond recall, I wanted above all things to see him sit down
to the subject of which, on my making his acquaintance, he had
read me that admirable sketch. Something told me there was no
security but in his doing so before the new factor, as we used to say
at Mr. Pinhorn's, should render the problem incalculable. It only
half reassured me that the sketch itself was so copiousandso eloquent
that even at the worst there would be the making of a small but com-
plete book, a tiny volume which, for the faithful, might well become
an object of adoration. There would even not be wanting critics
to declare, I foresaw, that the plan was a thing to be more thankful
for than the structure to have been reared on it. My impatience

for